YouTube No Friend of Copyright Violators

ncstockguy writes "YouTube appears to be fully aware of their copyright vulnerability and is now actively moving to head that problem off. They're now taking active steps to aid copyright holders in pursuing litigation against violators." From the article: "Its prompt legal capitulation suggests that YouTube users who post copyrighted material should not expect the company to protect them from media-business lawsuits, said Colton, whose firm wasn't involved in the Paramount subpoena or lawsuit and who learned of them from a MarketWatch reporter. The 'Twin Towers' episode is reminiscent of the way the entertainment industry vanquished the first version of Napster Inc. and other digital-music sites that made it easy to download copyrighted songs over the Internet. Music company lawyers first warned and then sued individual users who downloaded their songs. Now it looks like piracy hunters for the movie studios are using the same technique against YouTube users."

Fair use?

[caseih]

Will clips from shows like the Simpsons and the Family Guy start disappearing from youtube? I believe they are legal due to fair use. But we all know how copyright holders feel about that these days.

And now they're fucked.

[Spazntwich]

There's nothing special about YouTube to keep people there and away from their competitors. Once they earn a reputation like this, I think we'll quickly see a mass migration to more "people friendly" sites. Whether they want it or not, the anti-establishment teens are going to see them as corporate shills and take their eyeballs elsewhere.

A major threat?

[elronxenu]

Because of course I like to watch my hollywood movies on a tiny screen, transcoded and fuzzy.

google, destroyer of worlds

[Anonymous Coward]

this is going to destroy youtube. If people are afraid to post anything with copyrighted material, whether it's the music in the background or clips from a show, then the whole thing is going to fall apart. I know I'm just repeating what's already been said a million times over, but why the hell did google buy youtube in the first place if they were just going to turn around and do this?

Inaccurate

[Henry V .009]

Music downloaders were never sued. Music uploaders were sued. The same will happen with Youtube, because Google isn't interested in getting sued to hell themselves. This will kill Youtube, of course, and Google will have wasted a lot of money on nothing.

How Is The Use Fair?

[CheeseburgerBrown]

IANAL or other IP professional, but how would excerpting copyright materials for public display fall under fair use? The audience is undifferentiated (this ain't "education") and advertizers (depending on where the clip is embedded) are potentially reaping the rewards of the traffic generated without license or authorization.

Or did you mean "fair" in the sense of actual fairness? This, sadly, is only a distant cousin of "fair use" fair.

Who will protect YouTube?

[daeg]

In all the upcoming legal battles, will YouTube be able to fend off hungry media empires? I honestly doubt it. Napster didn't protect users, either, but they still got slammed (and appropriately, at that). YouTube is a party to massive copyright infringement, even if they didn't upload the clip themselves. It is obvious that YouTube knows that there is a plethora of copyrighted work in their system, and they continue to profit from it even if they do remove it.

Analogy: If a store knowingly sells bootleg DVDs and the MPAA comes along and says "Hey, stop!" the store won't get off by simply saying "Woops, my bad." and remove the offending DVD, particularly if they make the MPAA notify them of every bootleg DVD the store has in stock and the store kept selling new bootlegs. They'd get sued, and sued hard.

YouTube's best bet, in my opinion, is to strike a deal with the media companies. The media companies agree not to bring suits against YouTube or YouTube users, and in return, they get context-sensitive advertising. Are you watching a clip from last week's Simpsons episode? Then the ads would go to FOX-approved advertisers to buy boxed DVDs or high-quality downloadable episodes. However, based on the lack of forsight by most media groups, I doubt this would happen very quickly.

Gotta hand it to them

[Bertie]

These guys are scam merchants of unparalleled skill.

Invite the world to post whatever they like on your site, take the massive bandwidth costs on the chin thanks to the venture capital money. Gain countless users virtually overnight due to your easy-to-use site and cavalier attitude to copyright law. Sell the site to a competitor keen to see you out of the market so they can have it to themselves, get yourself a ridiculous amount of Google shares. Days after selling the site, turn on the users that have just made you mind-bogglingly rich, and watch them desert in their millions while you laugh all the way to the bank, leaving the people that have just bought your site with a worthless asset.

Google: you've been mugged.

Re:A major threat?

[Ronald Dumsfeld]

Because of course I like to watch my hollywood movies on a tiny screen, transcoded and fuzzy.

Hollywood movies aren't the sort of thing that bothers the copyright holders so much as losing control over things [youtube.com] like [youtube.com] this [youtube.com].

Those three clips have been up and down like a yo-yo, you bet Fox would like to see them gone so they can run "edited highlights".

Google/YouTube want to change Business preception

[peripatetic_bum]

I've got some google stock and it has done nothing but go up (when it hasn't been going down) and I was wondering what exactly they were thinking. Well. I've noticed that many news sites including slate.com are using YouTube as sort of repository for things they dare not touch but like to have the reader look at. take for instance the recent article on Weird Al (http://www.slate.com/id/2151657/?nav=tap3). It's a great article and is made immensely better by the ability to look at the videos the guy is talking about. If this doesn't sell more stuff for Weird Al and his corporate company than I don't understand advertising (if I don't get it, please explain, because I will be impressed if you can).

What I am trying to say is that I think (and this has been said before) that Google and YouTube are betting on the fact that there is no such thing as bad press, i.e., anything that gets you out in the public is a good thing and that media companies will in the long run benefit: Think of comedy central and all the clips of The Daily Show that seem to be there. Don't tell me that doesn't turn on more viewers to the real show or tell me and then explain why it wouldn't.

Ie. Media companies benefit from exposure which gains them sells. This is called advertising. YouTube is the best advertising vehicle I've seen in a long time and because of this, Business perception will change. Or we can hope. :)

Re:posting agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how long the concept of intellectual property will hold out, but until that point everyone needs to be careful about what they upload.

No. Because that risks reifying the concept further. It's vital that people are as careless as possible.

Re:Gotta hand it to them

[daigu]

Ever consider that the change in attitude might be due to the new Google ownership?

Re:Inaccurate

[gg3po]

This will kill Youtube, of course, and Google will have wasted a lot of money on nothing.

Paying to see to it that your competition is destroyed is not a waste of money.

Re:Gotta hand it to them

[roman_mir]

take the massive bandwidth costs on the chin thanks to the venture capital money - are you sure the entire thing was not the actual business plan? After all, the sale will make the VCs all the money back and then some.

Re:And now they're fucked.

[suv4x4]

Re:And now they're fucked.

There's nothing special about YouTube to keep people there and away from their competitors. Once they earn a reputation like this, I think we'll quickly see a mass migration to more "people friendly" sites. Whether they want it or not, the anti-establishment teens are going to see them as corporate shills and take their eyeballs elsewhere.

1.65 billion. BILLION.

1 650 000 000 USD

Maybe Google was f*cked with YouTube, but damn... I think the founders achieved all they could ever want:

- Get a HUGE LOAD OF CASH (in google stock IIRC but anyway, they can cash it anytime)
- Avoid the whole entertainment business suing them for infirngements
- Leave YouTube in good hands (Google).

Now, of course Google will sort things out on the copyright front, but Google already has this image of "anti-establishment" and "cool". So as long as YouTube is associated with them, and they don't change it too much to displease the fans, it'll keep running for some years to come.

Re:And now they're fucked.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. The ONLY thing youtube had over the other sites is lots of content, a huge part of that being illegal. If you remove all that copyrighted stuff, you're left with something like google video under a different name. Just a bit of stale and uninteresting content left. It's EXACTLY like the old napster case. Get rid of the copyrighted stuff, and everybody will go away. And just like napster, it was fun while it lasted...

Anybody cares to mention a few alternative sites?

My own little slashback

[xirtap]

I guess we can now forget things like this? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/22/031424 8&from=rss [slashdot.org]

Re:A major threat?

[ocelotbob]

The facts are public domain, but a particular presentation is not. While you're perfectly within your rights to produce a copy of, say, "A Midsummer's Night Dream," you cannot record a theatre's version and publish it freely.

Re:It would be stupid..

[nurb432]

In the world where typos are common and people dont proof read. That world.

Google isn't stupid

[xtal]

They buy YouTube, and with a little tightening of the noose, they're removed as a threat and they've been made an example of for anyone else who thinks to follow - for example, Microsoft.

Google can then move into this market at will. I'm all for draconian copyright enforcement, because it will lead to widespread civil disobedience and ultimately, a changing of the laws in what the public deems it's interest. It needs to get a little worse still, but the seeds are already there.

Re:Fair use?

[stinerman]

It was in the book "Free Culture" by Lawrence Lessig. Apparently Fox wanted a very large sum of money (I thought it was over $50,000) for a license to use that clip in the documentary.

You speak of obvious fair use. In many ways fair use is just like the problem with patents. The patent might be obvious or have prior art, but you can't invalidate it since it would take a small army of lawyers and a few suitcases of cash to do so. Similarly, the use of a clip may be obvious fair use, but if the copyright holder decides he wants to go after you, you're toast. A trial will most likely be more expensive than the licensing fee. The cheap option in both cases is to either not use the patented technique or not use the clip.

What's the problem?

[Krytical]

The terms of agreement clearly state that users are not allowed to post copyrighted material. The bootlegging analogy is not really valid here because youtube "does not allow" the material. Once they get complaints they can always blame it on terms of agreement violations and turn over the IP and ISP of the violator to the copyright infringement prosecutors. If the problem is serious your ISP (personal experience here)can suspened your service, hand over your records to the agencies with a possible fine. I also doubt that the avarage youtube user knows what a proxy is.