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."

posting agreement

[TheSHAD0W]

When these people posted the videos, they affirmed that they had the right to do so. That certainly opens them up to legal trouble if they did not. 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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Fair use and congress

[viking80]

YouTube probably should follow the law. They are quite exposed as it is. In the US today, consumers have lost almost all fair use rights, and and copyright law have gotten quite draconical and exclusively favoring the copyrightholder aganst the common good. Both democrats and republicans are receiving generous financial support from companies like Disney, and are *solidly* on the side of copyright holders against consumers and fair use.

So battle must be fought in Washington by supporting and electing officials that will turn the tide in favor of consumers and the common good.

There seems, however, to be almost NIL interest in this issue in the general population, so dont expect this to change in the near future.

Re:Inaccurate

[AKAImBatman]

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

You're making the presumption that Google intended to keep Youtube as it was when they bought it.

Seriously, Youtube kicked Google Video's butt in the market. Google realized that if you can't beat 'em, you should join them. So they bought off Youtube, and now their major competitor is themselves. They can do whatever they want with Youtube because it can only be positive for Google Video.

Being Google, I don't expect them to shut the doors like Oracle & PeopleSoft. Rather, I expect that Google will aim to take whatever it is that makes Youtube successful, and merge it with the Google Video backend. In theory, this fusion would improve both services. In practice... well.... (*rocks open hand*) eh, we'll see.

Re:google, destroyer of worlds

[Paradise Pete]

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?

Ya got me. But I never understand this stuff. Years ago, before there were any, I was approached to develop a live online poker site. I declined, saying it will never work because you can't stop people from cheating. And you can't, but it turned out not to matter. Then a few years ago I was approached to develop an site similar to youtube, and I said it would never work because people will always post copyrighted material and you'll get sued into oblivion.

How's that for business acumen? ;-)

Re:Fair use?

[suv4x4]

With a television program, you'd probably only get away with making use of stills, not an entire animated sequence, let alone one that encapsulates an entire joke.

Pitty isn't it. I didn't have a clue about Family guy until I saw a clip of it on the Internet on some site, somewhere. Now I own all complete seasons on DVD.

Re:Fair use?

[sgtrock]

I remember reading someplace that the makers of a documentary about a traveling opera troupe wanted to show a scene of the crew backstage while the performance was underway. Apparently, there were 3 or 4 guys sitting around playing cards while a TV showing the Simpsons was playing in the background. It was a very short scene, about 8 seconds or so, but the lawyers for the documentary company felt that even that short segment was liable to be challenged by Fox. The documentary's director eventually, reluctantly, decided to drop the scene rather than approach Fox to see if they would have a problem with its use.

This is completely asinine. If ever there were a fair use case to be made, that was it. Yet everyone is running scared because the cost of defending an action just isn't worth it.

Is Youtube about copyright infringement?

[the_raptor]

Seriously is the only reason that people go to YouTube about viewing copyrighted material? Thats why I first went, but now I mostly watch the user created content. I actually think what makes YouTube popular is not all the copyrighted material (though it does increase popularity), because normally the format is only good for small clips or cartoons (most of the non-user content I have watched was Robot Chicken). If you really want to watch movies and TV series in decent quality you will use traditional P2P methods to obtain them.

So I don't actually think that YouTube cracking down harder on people who post copyright material will matter. They have been removing any copyrighted materials reported to them for a long time. This is not a new thing.

If YouTube is popular only because of the copyright material it will die, otherwise there won't be much of a change. Personally I think it is popular because of the community it has encouraged and help build, and the free content that community creates.

Re:Fair use?

[ArizonaJer]

To be more precise about the definition of "fair use" under US law, ask these four questions about the use being made (summarized in a Wired article from 2003):

1. Is the use transformative?
2. What's the nature of the copyrighted work?
3. How much did you change?
4. What's the effect on the market?

The full, but short, Wired piece is here:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/start.htm l?pg=13 [wired.com]

More fair-use links are here:

http://www.screensite.org/index.php?option=com_boo kmarks&Itemid=28&mode=0&catid=5&navstart=0&search= * [screensite.org]

Of course, I Am Not A Lawyer--even though my father and brother are.

Why are you assuming you are smarter than Google?

[aeschenkarnos]

Google's directors know very well that they have provoked a fight. My guess (I don't think I'm smarter than them, so I stress that this is a guess) is that their intention is:

1. Acquire YouTube.

2. Do a merge-and-sort operation on YouTube with GoogleVideo.

3. Heavily promote the new service.

4. Publicize attacks from copyright-holders, while staving them off with court delays, offers of settlements, etc.

5. Repeat 3. and 4. until the great unwashed masses wake up to the annoying disconnect between what they want to do and what some rich bastards will let them do, and because Google has been telling them a lot lately, they realize that this is due to those rich bastards having bought copyright laws.

6. Use the popular momentum to get the parts of copyright law that are bothersome to Google's business--and probably, also those parts that the removal of which wouldn't harm Google's business--carved out.