YouTube Finds Signing Rights Deals Frustrating

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "YouTube executives are finding it a slog to get all of the necessary permissions to license the songs and shows users are putting on the popular site, the Wall Street Journal reports. 'YouTube or its partners must locate parties ranging from studios to actors, and from music composers to the owners of venues, and get them to sign off. Where they don't succeed, YouTube risks being hit with lawsuits or having to take popular content down. "It's such a mess because the [entertainment companies] have all of these valuable assets that are just locked up with so many people who need to sign off on them," says YouTube Chief Executive Chad Hurley. "I don't know what it requires, if the government needs to be involved," Mr. Hurley laughs. "I don't know."'"

Re:Government?

[drinkypoo]

It's not the government's job to sort out your stupid business problems, Chad. It's not the taxpayer's responsibility to pay to fix your copyright violations, Chad.

What you're missing here is that it's the government's fault for creating our system of copyright without instituting systems to make it simpler.

Now, a lot of the stuff on Youtube is just other people's content that's been put up without their permission. This stuff being on youtube has little cultural value simply because it's available through other avenues, it's not like they're preserving our cultural heritage. But other things, like a music video made by being cobbled together from various sources, can actually be a culturally valuable work - I won't go into how and why, because either you agree or you don't and I'm not going to change your mind here. Obviously most examples of this particular genre are crap.

Our conception of copyright is hampering creativity, not enabling it. The idea of laws is that they are supposed to be in the public interest. If they are not, they should not exist. Hampering creativity is not in the public interest. The government should either streamline copyright, or do away with it entirely. Instead, copyright has been extended twice. A tree jumped out in front of one of the responsible assholes and took care of him, but it was far too late (trees don't move very fast, so it makes sense.) But really we should be looking at the whole concept of copyright and deciding without the assistance of the media conglomerates whether or not it's even a valid concept.

Re:Government?

[ajs]

It most certainly is the government's responsibility! Copyright law is there to serve the public good by promoting work that is of a benefit to everyone. Copyright is failing to do that in some stunning ways, and has instead become a vehicle for large corporations to continue to milk profits out of their OLD work more than a generation after it was created. That's actually contrary to the stated purpose in the Constitution.

IMHO, the laws should be written such that "violation" of copyright is always permitted unless someone complains (thus, you can't be put in jail for violating the DMCA or sued for other copyright related laws) and sent you a cese and decist letter first, which you ignored. Second, licensing should be automatic. That is, You Tube should be able to pay the copyright-holder-of-record or put aside a fund for a copyright holder to claim from, in an amount that is based on a percentage of the gross revenue associated with the infringement. This amount should be high, but not punative (maybe 25-30%), essentially allowing You Tube (only as a single example) to operate, but incenting licensing negotiation for better deals.

Of course, we all know that life+n years is unworkable, as we've all read far too many very thoughtful people write essays on the subject of the harm that that does to the commons. I think it's prety obvious, based on that, that Byrne and other treaties need to be re-negotiated, and laws changed to reflect a more reasonable period. I could see a case for 40 years, but I think the scale needs to be more flexible for those elements that are part of our cultural makeup. Perhaps 20 years, renewable twice, but with an automatic expiration if it is determined to be one of the top 1000 or so most circulated items after the first renewal period starts. That way, if a movie becomes so iconic that nearly everyone owns a copy (e.g. Star Wars), then it would expire around 20 years later, after the owner has clearly made enough money to have rewarded his or her investment of time and energy, and it is now of more value to the culture to release it than to continue to reward one person. Think about that. Star Wars: A New Hope, under this scheme, would have been public domain starting in 1997. Empire in 2000. Lucas was stupidly rich by that point, and would only lose the copyright IF he was stupidly rich. It's a perfect, self-correcting system, lacking only a government system of tracking the most widely circulated copyrighted works, which would also be a boon for the consumer and artist (as current industry tracking is designed to promote specific items and limit rewards to artists).