Copyright Axe To Fall On YouTube? 295
theoddball writes "In what should come as no great surprise, Universal Music Group is preparing to file suit against YouTube for copyright infringement, the AP
reports. Discussions with the site's owners have broken down (although talks are apparently still progressing with Myspace / News Corp over similar issues). From the article: 'We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars,' Universal Music CEO Doug Morris told investors Wednesday at a conference in Pasadena. This development follows last month's announcement that YouTube is negotiating with labels to legally host videos. While the primary complaint is against music videos, one cannot help but wonder if this will also impact the many, many homemade videos using copyrighted UMG songs as a soundtrack (or — *shudder* — a lipsync.)"
Tens of millions (Score:5, Insightful)
Truely a sad business model... especially when they're going after companies that are actually trying to negotiate legitimate mutually-beneficial deals.
Looks like the rider beat the horse (Score:5, Insightful)
If they don't get acquired right quick, it will be a sad day for all of us YouTube lovers.
When will these people get it?? (Score:4, Insightful)
If they want to make money then this sort of stuff is gold for them, it doesn't cost them anything at all and its not hard to start something.
Its all stupid. You see them release "controlled" video's onto youtube and other blogsites when they are promoting a movie/song but if its something that wasn't thought of by them they suddenly want to sue the pants off everyone.
You can't have it both ways.
YouTube is not the new Napster (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:how insane (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, okay. Then what's the problem — They'll pull their "promotions" and you'll have no problem with it, right?
Way back in the stone age when one business existed to profit largely via the work of another (see Napster, YouTube, etc. Though YouTube has far more legitimacy given the vast number of user contributed, non-pirated content), the copyright system is geared to demand compensation. Sort of like how the GPL, via the same copyright, is geared to demand its own sort of payment.
Re:When will these people get it?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Prompt removal of copyrighted material not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
So as soon as someone posts copyrighted material on a website, the owner of the website owes money to the copyright owner. I guess it's under the impression that for a brief period of time the website owner made money off ads and the copyright owner should get that ad money. It seems a little like the patent trolls waiting until a company has a successful product. If people want to use a song they will have to wait until the copyright expires .. oh, wait...
I don't get the tens of millions of dollars part though. I've heard of $150 million to $400 million a year in potential revenue for YouTube. I understand it from the greedy record company standpoint, but I can't see it from the actual damages perspective. I guess every single person who saw a video that had a copyrighted song copied the song and E-mailed it to their friends in the Hong Kong Triads who later distributed pirate versions of it throughout Asia.
There is incentive for major content providers to completely destroy user content websites. After all, the content oligarchy would not want competition, even poorly made funny cat video competition.
Re:a host or a distributor? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:First P2P, then Video Sites, then what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dirty Play (Score:4, Insightful)
It begins... (Score:5, Insightful)
The reality is that more people use YouTube to view content that shouldn't be on there than to view the content that should. I'm no exception. The only thing I really use YouTube for is watching South Park and other shows off Cartoon Network. I'll also use it to watch music videos, but not even watch the video. I just want to hear the song, and I know YouTube has it.
Sure, there are people who actually don't use YouTube for this purpose, but I'll tell you right now that they are in the minority.
The only way YouTube can save itself is by moderating ALL videos. That is, videos will only appear on the site once they are flagged, much like Google does. If and when that day comes, all the content I want will be gone and there's really no reason for me to ever go to YouTube again.
Did anyone really think YouTube was going to stay around? I'm amazed that investors kept pumping money into it.
Okay (Score:4, Insightful)
Fair enough. Please direct us to the site where we can see Universal Music Group artists' music videos.
Okay. Please direct us to the television--
Okay. Please direct us to the DVD--
Oh, you mean nobody would ever see these videos otherwise? So if there's no market for these videos, how can it be established there were tens of millions in damages?
BZZZT. Thanks for playing.
Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When will these people get it?? (Score:1, Insightful)
You do not get to make that call. The copyright holders do.
well (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a control issue (Score:5, Insightful)
This is about control over entertainment. You Tube is a form of entertainment that they simply don't control. They don't produce it. They don't write it. And they don't make money off it. Theoretically, a band could make a hit song that never passed through any of their doors. A person could make a You Tube video so famous that he could achieve status as a director without ever setting foot in one of their offices.
You Tube has the ability to deliver content to every person with an internet connection. Statistically, it is inevitable that eventually a breakout new band or director will arrive through You Tube without any member of the big corporations having their claws in them. For the RIAA this is about the fact that they want to retain control over every note of music you hear. It assures them they will never be caught by surprise. It allows them to stay in the forfront of new trends. It lets them juggle bands, hits, and artists with impunity. It lets them create restrictive contracts that give the vast majority of money from CD sales to them, instead of the artist. It lets them artificially inflate prices and manipulate the market.
That's worth infinitely more than $1 million in proprietary content that they might be losing, if we take the highest number imaginable. That's why they care.
think profits (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea that no one will create anything if youtube users are allowed to use it in their homemade videos is absurd. But don't blame Universal. Blame congress for favoring promotion over profits and allowing the recording industry to make massive campaign contributions in what would *appear* to be an exchange for legislation.
The entertainment gives our elected officials about $30 million/year [opensecrets.org] to make sure they can bring lawsuits like this one.
This is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't even listen to music properly using the videos on that site, the quality is too low.
As for the lip-syncing and dancing videos, it's free advertising. I bet "numa numa" sold a lot more records since that fat dude posted a video dancing to it, in fact they are using that to market a new version of that song now...
Re:how insane (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the surprise? Music videos are certainly connected to albums sales, but they're also productive as entertainment in their own right. They're shown on TV, which generates viewership and sells ads, which means that someone is paying for it. Indirectly, sure, but they're paying for it.
That's all that UMG is trying to negotiate with Fuse. Both sides believe that UMG can charge Fuse, and Fuse can show the videos, generate viewership, and sell ads. If they didn't agree on that, they'd never have sat down to negotiate in the first place.
I suspect that, since the phenom is relatively new as a business idea, Fuse and UMG have somewhat different assumptions about what the value of the videos actually is. If Fuse pays too much, they can't turn enough of a profit on the content to bother, but UMG wants to charge as close to that point as they can get away with. This is a classic negotiation, and it's been done for years in TV. Give it time, and they'll work out how to do business in the new medium. Maybe another year or two, maybe different companies (YouTube, perhaps?), but it'll happen.
"...MY generation will NOT pay major labels to promote THEIR albums."
Which generation do you mean? If you're old, sure--geriatrics don't watch music videos so much. But if you're young, your generation most certainly DOES pay. You (collectively) buy product X, which was promoted by advertising runs on a channel showing music videos, which pays for the ads.
Simple, simple stuff, here, people.
Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse (Score:5, Insightful)
Those that want DRM and community support will hit grouper [grouper.com]. Those that want porn will hit pornotube [pornotube.com]. The people who just want to use their webcams and view amateur clips will use vobbo [vobbo.com]. The ones that want to open license their content will use ourmedia [ourmedia.com], and the ones that want revenue sharing will use revver [revver.com].
Dozens of alternatives, just look at The list [fileratings.com].
Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse (Score:5, Insightful)
This is more or less the same way Napster was destroyed and why is never reclaimed the crown as a music distributing software. By the time Napster was re-released it was too little, too late. And then of course there would be the copycat sites, the backlash against the industry and the grassroots attempt to stop this. (Remember the publicity Napster got before they brought it down?)
Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse (Score:1, Insightful)
Youtube is often held up as an example of Web 2.0 (whatever the hell that means), but the strategy -- get an audience and bail -- is much more of a Web 1.0 (or 0.90) strategy.
Then again driving visits with user-generatated content, thought to be the hallmark of Web 2.0, is remarkably similar to Web 0.1 (codename BBS - atdt/gopher).
With Youtube, I have yet to see any coherent idea of how thay are planning to turn all those eyeballs into cash while mitigating the risks involved in hosting videos that depict clearly illegal activities or are clear violations of copyright or trademark. This ignores all the videos that are borderline copyright violations, which this suit is likely to be about and which Hollywood would be much better off ignoring.
But Hollywood tends to ignore things they shoudn't, like Office Space or Xvid, and makes a big deal of things they ought to ignore, like Napster(TM) or Gigli.
What everybody jumping on the bandwagon seems to fail to realize is that once the product everybody uses no longer does what they want, or the PITA factor gets to high, the market will turn in a moment. Hotmail was at one time the most popular web-based email app,
No cost means no commitment, and for something like Myspace or Youtube any cost at all for the user would mean death.
Youtube has been burning cash, and I'm not sure I see a way out. Rupert Murdoch seems to think he can make some money off of Myspace, and maybe he can. But places like Myspace and Flickr seem eerily similar to the basic concept of the internet circa 1994-95. There is precious little difference between Murdoch's new toy and the Cleveland Freenet other than the volume of current and potential users, the ability to include graphical content, and the exponentially increased potential for abuse.
At least I know that if Youtube falls (under its own weight or a corporate parent's), it will be replaced by another service that is faster, smarter, easier, and more pleasing to look at.
Doing our business is what DMCA notices are for (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should YouTube be any different? Send them a DMCA takedown notice, and surprise surprise, they'll happily remove the offending content. Problem solved.
There's only one reason why YouTube is getting treated differently. UMG sees a cash cow that they don't own, and they want desperately to milk it.
Re:Prompt removal of copyrighted material not enou (Score:3, Insightful)
UMG aren't suing YouTube just for the money they made by distributing these videos, they're suing to punish them for violating their rights.
There is incentive for major content providers to completely destroy user content websites. After all, the content oligarchy would not want competition, even poorly made funny cat video competition.
As much as I don't like a lot of what certain copyright holders and their interest groups are doing, this is easily avoided by simply not violating someone's copyright.
Re:It's a control issue (Score:2, Insightful)
No it's not inevitable. Not even likely.
"For the RIAA this is about the fact that they want to retain control over every note of music you hear."
That has never been the case.
Re:When will these people get it?? (Score:5, Insightful)
But what's that, you say? "MTV was a boon to the music industry, wasn't it?"
And yes, indeed it was. MTV not only promoted popular hits, but it allowed lots of artists that couldn't get airtime on the radio to find an audience via MTV. But, as we all know by now, the industry can't see the forest for the trees.
Here's a quote from this article [yahoo.com]:
Record companies are keen to avoid repeating the mistake they believe they made when Viacom Inc.'s MTV was set up 25 years ago -- allowing their artists' music to be aired for free.
Morris in his remarks to investors on Tuesday said MTV "built a multibillion-dollar company on our (music)
Yes folks, this is Hollywood's way of saying thank you to MTV. That channel grew a new outlet for music, brought even MORE interest to said music, and helped the music industry make billions, and in spite of all this, the industry is pissed that they gave MTV the tools to do it for free.
And with that in mind, they fear YouTube will be the next MTV, and they want a piece of it. Like usual, they're shooting themselves in the foot. Again. It boggles my mind how utterly near sighted the industry is. It can't see the forest for the trees.
I hope they dont (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't that what YouTube basically does? User posted content? A person plays their favorite song, a person dances to their favorite song, a person posts a music video thats already available on MTV/VH1 (when those stations actually play music 1 hour a week).
Mark this, the end of cover bands, the end of whistling while you work, and the end of free speech.
Re:Any artist (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be interesting to see your change in perspective if you ever produced anything worthy of being lipsynced on youtube.
Re:how insane (Score:4, Insightful)
Your 'generation' might not, but TV companies will, as people who are watching music videos can also be shown adverts which bring in revenue above the costs of the videos, thereby producing this thing called 'profit'.
This is a very simple concept, maybe your generation is too obsolete to understand how modern business works.
Re:When will these people get it?? (Score:4, Insightful)
They are encouraging it. But why shouldn't youtube pay for it like everyone else? Music videos bring in viewers which can be translated into revenue. Why should the music industry provide free revenue for youtube, MTV etc?
Actually they can, as it's their videos and they are free to release them for free or to charge for them as they wish. When you make a video you are free to do whatever the hell you want with it. But wait, that would mean work, it's much easier to sit on your arse whining at people who actually have initiative.
Re:Sue'm All (Score:1, Insightful)
Not meaning to troll here, but I've found that the liberal ideal revolves around giving people freedom by restricting the law. By demanding that it be followed word-for-word, by demanding education over legislation, by trying to iron out inconsistencies by reducing the powers of authority. Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that the law is merely a tool for persecuting those they don't want around (be it for safety or purely selfish reasons). They don't tend to care if it goes beyond the law's juristiction, they just want the offending party outta there.
That seems to be where UMG coming from. They don't give a shit if the law is inconsisent, they're just want to permanently squash the healthy competition that YouTube (and P2P networks) provide(s).
Re:It begins... (Score:5, Insightful)
Trailer for Transformers [youtube.com] - Legalish
Transforming Robot Beetle [youtube.com] - Legal
Playing With Electricity Video [youtube.com] - Legal
Metalocalypse [youtube.com] - Not Legal
Ask a Ninja [askaninja.com] - Legal
Street Running [youtube.com] - Legal
ZeFrank talking at a convention - Legal
Some guy blowing the whistle on faulty helicopter design - Legal
Quake 3 Rocket Jump super skillz video - Legal
I know there are a lot of illegal uses for YouTube. But it seems like unlike a lot of P2P apps, the non-infringing uses are substantial. If YouTube could successfully filter out all of the illegal content, it would still have a lot of uses
How do they lose money? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can download the video from YouTube, think 'I like that' and go out and buy the CD. Money made there.
I can't think of any downside to free pop videos online unless someone wants to rip the mega low quality sound off the video stream but frankly you'd be pretty desperate to do that.
Sounds like record company is shooting itself in the foot to me.
When will they learn? (Score:2, Insightful)
What are they trying to do? Will they wind up becoming a government subsidized industry because they have alienated all but the true Hollywood-loving sheep and can't afford to pay their employees? Now I hate corporate welfare, but I'd be REALLY pissed off if I had to subsidize the Music Mafia.
All I know is I have not bought a CD (except from independent foreign labels) in ages. I have no reason to, anyway, everything here just sucks.
Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes! Damn those evil record companies and their unreasonable demands that people not take their valuable property and give it away for free without permission! Information wants to be free and artists want to starve, so come, comrades! Let us rise up, throw off these chains of copyright that force us to pay for what we take, and steal, steal, steal until they sue!
By the way, I think food also wants to be free. Who's up for a bit of shoplifting while the stolen music downloads?
This is probably just the beginning of the end... (Score:2, Insightful)
Face it guys, when something becomes habitual, natural, for millions of people, rights and wrongs get swapped.
People are finally starting to realize that information wants to be free, they are literally enjoying the pleasure of creating their own content, even if based upon the creation of others, and someone can't just come along and tell them they're not allowed to do it.
I forecast a revolution of some sort.
Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse (Score:5, Insightful)
(Remember the publicity Napster got before they brought it down?)
Part of the reason for the publicity of the Napster case is that it happened in the days of Web 1.0 and many people, heck the entire world, were watching to see what would happen. It wasn't exactly clear that Napster would lose. In fact, early public opinion of Judge Patel's ruling was that she didn't know enough about technology to generate a sensible ruling.
When (not if) YouTube goes down, it's gonna do so lickety split because it has the pathway (I'm not sure it's precedent) of Napster to take. This is gonna be fast, folks. Allowing users to violate copyright on a mass scale using centralized servers is entrepreneurial suicide.
Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse (Score:5, Insightful)
What VALUE? WHERE ARE MUSIC VIDEOS BOUGHT AND SOLD?
Without YouTube NOBODY would watch music videos because otherwise THEY DON'T EXIST.
The only reason this argument continues is because copyright holders, for whatever reason, totally deprive their audience of what they want. People used to download billions of songs from filesharing networks. Then they turned around and bought 1.5 billion songs from iTunes. Why did they pay for what they could get for free? Because Apple gave them a high-quality easily found song for a reasonable price. If every music video were available for download off some record company site, this would be a non-issue.
Wait, it already is a non-issue.
I think food also wants to be free.
Food is free. Farmers provide the same service Apple does: a high-quality easily found vegetable/fruit/chicken dinner/bottle of orange juice at a reasonable price. And people pay for it despite the fact that anyone armed with a single orange can produce them in unlimited quantities.
Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, for one, they're bought and sold on DVD all the time. Most people I know have at least a few of these. I myself have video compilations from Depeche Mode, the Police, and Puffy (as in AmiYumi, but it's a Japanese DVD so it's just Puffy).
So while I don't dismiss the RIAA's argument out of hand, I don't think they quite get the reasons why people use YouTube. YouTube's quality is really bad and you can't (easily) download clips from it, meaning it's no substitute for buying anything. I sample videos there all the time, and yes, I've downloaded some, but only videos that I literally can't get any other way. It's a last resort for videos I want to keep, while at the same time serving the same purpose that MTV did in the beginning - it's promoting all these bands I otherwise wouldn't be thinking about. Seriously, if I see a video on YouTube that I like, the first thing I do is see if I can buy it anywhere. This is not like the original Napster, where there's really no difference between the song you could download and the song you could buy. On YouTube, in most cases you can't buy what's on there, and if you can, there's a vast difference in quality and features.
The record labels should be using YouTube as a promotional vehicle. They've got everything all backwards these days. They're even saying MTV was evil in the beginning for, god forbid, promoting their music. They don't seem to realize that the lack of music on MTV at present is a big reason why their sales are down. I used to watch MTV, find new bands I liked, buy that music and buy those videos. I have no way to do that anymore. Except YouTube.
Re:Tens of millions (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't have a lot of hope for YouTube's future.
We (us below 30 people, and yes, some of you above 30) are a generation built on mashups, personalized media, and borrowing from the acheivments of the past to further our own pursuits.
Those sitting on the bench won't get that a suit against YouTube (especially if it's on the grounds of lipsync videos or peronal video soundtracks) is really stifiling millions of young filmmakers - no matter how horrible their films may be.
Creativity - or creativity tools - has in 10-20 years grown in accessability seemingly exponentially. YouTube provides an outlet for the creative mind that many young people have never had. If Numa Numa is on a soundtrack to a 90 second clip of two kids dancing in their parent's basement, is it really necessary to expect that YouTube owes millions of dollars for providing an outlet for these kids to share their creativity with the world?
The reason I mentioned the generational thing above is because it will take another 20 years before people that truely understand the technology and creativity revolution that is in full swing now are sitting on legal benches across the nation. Right now we have people with very, very old thoughts on capitalism, copyright, patents, etc. that hand down judgements and rulings. It isn't until my 3 year old is an adult that his peers will finally have access to make decisions that actually benefit this country, and cease these ridiculous assaults on creativity and expression.
One of the biggest issues for the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is another example of one of the biggest legal issues on the Internet today.
Whether it's YouTube, or P2P software, or posting reg-required articles verbatim on Slashdot for that matter, it comes down to the same thing: we now have services that can host/transport copyright-protected content on the Internet, which mean that content can reach huge numbers of people very quickly.
Now, as the saying goes, technology is neutral and it's what you do with it that counts. Clearly there are valuable uses for rapid, widespread distribution: look at the use of BitTorrent to distribution large OSS installers, or the small bands taking advantage of the opportunity to increase their profile. On the other hand, let's not kid ourselves: the vast majority of the content on some of these services is infringing someone's copyright. Those people aren't always the big players, either: YouTube is full of rips of specialist videos/DVDs about hobbies, made by teachers who aren't going to get much compensation in return for their efforts even if everyone in their small target audience buys a genuine copy.
The problem is that this is a legal rock meeting an ethical hard place. The legal concept of a common carrier, and more generally the idea of unmoderated forums, have served us well historically. No-one's going to run a large-scale communications service if they're legally responsible for every transmission they carry. They don't have the resources to check everything. Even if they did, I don't think we should appoint commercial entities to the role of courts. And they can't possibly know about every copyright in the world, so they couldn't guarantee the right decision even if they were checking.
On the other hand, copyright holders have a legitimate grievance here. I know people who teach various hobbies I have, and I've seen copies of their videos on YouTube, and (this is the bit that annoys me) I've heard people talking about ripping those videos rather than buying them. I may not have much sympathy with the RIAA and their ilk -- they're big enough to look after themselves, and hardly paragons of ethical virtue -- but I have a lot of sympathy for the little guys, and there must be a lot more of them. I think it's really sad that the number of specialist DVDs being produced for my hobbies by world-class teachers is dropping fast, and I have a pretty good idea from all sides about why that is.
That all said, I think there are some inescapable conclusions if we're going to keep any hint of sanity in the legal position:
As long as our copyright system remains in something like its current form (for example, with copyright being assigned, without explicit registration, to any artist who publishes their material) I think the most realistic approach is to have a system where copyright holders can show infringements to some binding authority, which can then instruct infrastructure providers to block that particular infringement quickly to limit any damage they're helping to cause. (An infrastructure provider that fails to honour suc
Re:Tens of millions (Score:3, Insightful)
I chose those as examples because they're relevant to TFA.
As "actually someone ostensibly in the film industry", you should appreciate the absurdity of having to pay tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to use a music clip here or there in your movie, and that movies shot on a shoestring budget of mere hundreds or a few thousands of dollars can't put an appropriate soundtrack in their movie - even in short samples - without increasing the required budget of the movie tenfold or more.
Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse (Score:1, Insightful)
Your own labour costs you nothing. Your own fertilizer (feces) costs you nothing.
If you want to grow oranges, don't live in the cold north. Go elsewhere.
It boils down to most people being too lazy to grow their own food, and most governments wanting to charge for "land ownership", whatever that means.
Re:Tens of millions (Score:2, Insightful)