YouTube Finds Signing Rights Deals Frustrating 172
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."'"
Just goes to show you... (Score:2)
I suppose Google is smart enough to figure a way around it, but if not, no one's going to bother with it.
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Actually... AFAIK, as long as YouTube was not encouraging anyone to break copyright laws and was complying with take down notices, they didn't need to screen or license jack shit.
Normally, the only person responsible for enforcing copyrights is the copyright holder.
Or am I misunderstanding something?
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It is supposed to stir innovation, but it is now stifles innovation in the name of profit.
Swell.
Google, despite their failings, is still a decent company IMO.
Stew
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I'm sorry, you've lost me. How do a load of people who can't be bothered to pay the asking price for the material like everyone else innovate in any way?
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Correct.
A little salty, but correct. Which makes their "don't be evil" posture not so much ironic, as extremely clarifying in terms of the philosophy that drives their ethics.
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"A little salty, but correct. Which makes their "don't be evil" posture not so much ironic, as extremely clarifying in terms of the philosophy that drives their ethics."
I think for many Slashdotters the moral decision comes down to this:
Typical record company: sales of maybe $500M / year (okay, so that's higher than average; I'm not including all the little indie labels). Operating margin below 15%. Treats content creators like crap. Wants to sell us stuff. Thus, they are bad.
Google: sales of ten bi
Note to CEO (Score:2)
What it requires is that you pay them a shitload of money, Chad.
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But, YouTube
Well, if that doesn't pretty well sum it up! (Score:2)
Waaah! It's so much harder to make a truckload of money showing people web ads by attracting them with other people's valuable assets if we have to get permission. Waaah!
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However, a large percentage (high 90s) of the content on YouTube is CREATIVE work, that happens to include some instances of licensed content somewhere within it.
Reference a goofy lip sync of a popular song, or a claymation remake of star wars. Both of these technically would need to be "licensed" but sadly, the idea of copyright is to enhance innovation, not stifle it... so in this
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Everything on YouTube is copyrighted material. Some of it is up with the permission of the copyright owner, but there's probably a negligible amount that is really in the public domain. Unless it's been uploaded by the person who made it, or with his permission then all the stuff on YouTube is infringing someone's copyright.
And on the other end of the spectrum... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Its a bold move by the NHL -- kudos to them! But I doubt Youtube will get the distribution rights to the NFL anytime soon. Its a desperation play.
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A little out of the box thinking here:
in the USA: NFL > NHL
in Canada: NHL > NFL
in the world in general: World Cup > NFL
Youtube's availability: WorldWide(with the exception of firewalled nations)
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Including everyone man, woman and child in Canada.
Have to confess.... (Score:2)
I have to confess, I looked at "slog" and thought "Ughhh, that's the worst new blogoword since 'blogmarklet'!"
Anyway, I'm not sure what the news is here -- someone else's job turns out to be a lot harder when it's you who has to do it?
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You don't say this explicitly - but I assume you've since learned that "slog" has been a part of the English language for far longer than the internet has been around?
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Sea Mama, is that you?
</Obscure reference>
Google bites the dust on this one (Score:4, Insightful)
Were I behind the reigns at Google, I would have required they at least ink a few big content licensing deals before closing the transaction. In fact, with a bunch of licensing deals in place, possibly even some exclusive ones, I could see justifying a high valuation.
Why pay the huge takeout premium they paid and then have to do all the hard work after the takeout? I meant, the technology is commoditized and trivial, and the userbase can't really be worth that much to a company as big as Google, especially when they already have Google Video and could easily outgrow YouTube by spending a tiny fraction of the takeout price on advertising and promotions.
The whole deal is just downright strange.
Re:Google bites the dust on this one (Score:5, Interesting)
Video is going to make Google an absolute fortune in five years time. The last thing they wanted is someone with shallower pockets determining the legal landscape for them. The technology is not yet "commoditized and trivial" enough. But it won't take long and when it is, the legal and business environment will have been determined by Google itself and no-one else.
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Not so.
Sequoia had made a good amount of money when Google agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65B. It is believed that Sequoia's $11M investment translated to 30% of the ownership.
cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_Capital [wikipedia.org]
CC.
Work is Hard (Score:2)
Nothing to see here, please move along.
How about following the law? (Score:2)
This required "opt-out" of other people using your material is a pretty powerful concept. That's why Clinton & the old Republican Congress balanced it with such an easy to use form.
Google/Youtube has nothing to worry about legally. Other than ass--le judges who try to reinterpret law to add damages wh
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Whoah! Where did you get this wrong-headed, crackpot idea? As much as the Slashdot community may hate it -- yourself included, apparently -- the DMCA is not the be-all, end-all of copyright law. It's an addendum to a lot of law that was already on the books.
Some points you apparently fail to grasp:
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So you're arguing that the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA [chillingeffects.org] don't apply to Google? I expect that there is a case for that, given that not benefitting financially is one of the requirements (and if they're not benefitting financially, I'd like to see the due diligence reports that justified spending that amount of money to buy YouTube). On the other hand, it doesn't seem cut and dried to me as a non-US non-lawyer, given that the stated intent of those provisions was to protect service providers who aren't
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Actually, I'm not saying that is definitely the case, and IANAL, but I can definitely see smart lawyers having a field day with the
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Army of Darkness 2 (Score:2)
You Tube will become a shadow of itself? (Score:2)
A logical conclusion for YouTube will be a heavily "sanitised" version which will ultimately end with an upstart competitor taking over, as users leave in their droves because they can no longer exercise the freedom they once had.
One needs to only look at the history of file sharing, specifically mp3, to see where this is all heading.
As soon as there's a tie-in with a billion
ORLY? NOWAI! (Score:2)
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I know ebaumsworld has no problem with that, since they just made their terms say "if you upload it, that means you must own it, therefore we now own it"
Yeah...just because they say it doesn't make it legal.
Same as iTMS + Unbox? (Score:2)
Why bother trying to find them? (Score:2)
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.
Why?
I'm sure if anyone has a problem with something on YouTube, they'll contact YouTube about it. That's when you get them to sign off or take the video down.
Seems...almost too easy, doesn't it?
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Sadly, when the case goes to court, GooTube is going to owe someone a lot of money.
The settlements are absolutely absurd. This is a bit like the copyright violation focused on by the RIAA, but orders of magnitude greater.
Do you think Metallica was damaged $25,000 per song when that 14 year old girl downloaded their songs? No. But the court was putting that much up as "damages".
What do you think the damages would amount to if the same group sued GooTube for putting up the same
Video Version of ASCAP (Score:3, Insightful)
This hasn't been so much of an issue with respect to television. The number of outlets providing video feeds is, relatively speaking, quite small, and what they play is sufficiently uniform (or self-created) that a bureaucracy like ASCAP is unnecessary. But this changes with GooTube. Under the current model, YouTube does not have control over what gets uploaded to the site. This means they either have to police the site to be sure copyrighted content stays off -- which is difficult if not impossible, and not what the viewers want in any event -- or they have to slog through the myriad possible copyright owners who could end up on YouTube.
An ASCAP like organization solves this conflict, and it benefits both YouTube and copyright holders. By banding together in this type of organization, the copyright holders can leverage their collective value to extract money from YouTube (and everyone else). That is, all copyright holders acting together will get far more money from YouTube than acting alone. On the flip side, YouTube gets to avoid the significant expense of acquiring licenses (as TFA says), and insure against the always-real possibility of a lawsuit for copyright infringement.
It's a model that has worked in music for many decades, and it's what we need to look for in video.
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"extract money"
I'm not a fan of organizations who's goal is not.... "provide a valuable service" or "improve content" or "do something".... their sole purpose of being created is to "extract money" from popular community sources.
Obviously it's not this simple. OBVIOUSLY, content takes time and money to produce... err wait, I guess Youtube sort of proves that wrong.
Still, anyway, existance with the sole purpose of "extracting money" is the capitalist way, but it
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Grow up.
Lots of the content on YouTube did take large amounts of time and money to produce. No, little Timmy sitting at his computer uploading it did have to put much effort in to create it, but that is not the same thing. So, a television station or a group of artists or few friends spend anywhere from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands
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The other thing
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Oh, that's right, ASCAP has nothing to do with defending the rights of the listener. They'll gladly accept the percentage from the jukebox take regardless whether all purchased songs actually got played.
The question is, is the artist happy to get the money and no
You have got to be kidding me. (Score:2)
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Duh! (Score:2)
Right now things are so lopsided that the end result is going to be the loss of decades upon decade
RTFA (Score:2)
This is not just about posting music videos or TV shows. It also involves every single homemade video that is posted.
A look at "Smack That" illustrates the complexities. Securing the online rights to the song by rappers Akon and Eminem -- No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart -- would involve permission from Akon's record label, Universal Motown. Most of the time, a label alone can grant a license for the use
Two Words (Score:2)
Bring back registration of Copyrights (Score:2)
This is exactly the reason why they should have never ended copyright registration. If the Government still required registration in order for a work to be protected under copyright, then it would be easy to track who owns it. Require renewal every 14 years -- if the copyright is not renewed, then the work passes into the public domain after a 1 year grace period. This would make it easy to track down the rights holder(s). If there are multiple holders (i.e. recording artist, music writer, and lyricist)
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I think complete elimination of copyrights would be as bad as the current system where copyright keeps getting extended 20 more years every 20 years (Bono Act) and the hated DMCA and DRM. There has to be a middle ground where people (I won't say consumers) can get easy and open access to works while the creator can make a living. Requiring registration in order to get copyright registration is a first step. Compulsory licensing for non-profit uses may be a second step.
For example, I have seen some excell
Awww (Score:2)
I will be so pissed if YouTube manages to get some kind of compulsory licensing legislation passed that has a high barrier to entry, so that large corporations can use it but people can't on their own. We'd get all the artist-harming and none of the economic benefits of compulsory licensing (not that it's necessarily a perfect idea on its own).
So why not do like the record labels do? (Score:2)
This way, if I record a song that uses a snippet from a movie or from another song without having permission to use said
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The solution: (Score:2)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7j8exGJ_7UM [youtube.com]
Let them come to you (Score:2)
Oh, and YouTube should be careful about this. I'm sure there are lots of folks out there (RIAA included) who will happily file takedown requests and then take money to put the content back up when they don't even hold the copyright in the first place.
Copyright clearance is tough (Score:2)
Google bought themselves into a real mess. All those crap "videos" that consist of a slide show with pirated music require vast amounts of effort for copyright clearance. You need a "mechanical license" to cover reproducing the audio. You need a "synchronization license" to cover using the audio in conjunction with the visual work. You need copyright clearance on each still image. Face it, that stuff isn't original. YouTube is going to end up having to take down all material of that type unless the u
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So, you're saying the byzantine copyright system is a good thing?
Liabilities and off-topic comments (Score:2)
In my opinion, copyright laws need to be changed. One thing that should be done is to have a low-quality exemption. If something is of significant low-quality compared to the original version, it should be exempt from copyright laws provided the mat
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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 t
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You should think of the other side as well.
An amusing clip made an amateur piecing together work done by professionals with lots of skill who devoted a lot of time in making the work is more valueable than the work of the professionals?
I'm not saying I'm wholly supporting copyright but at the quality and amount of media that the US creates compared to other countries, they must be doing something right. The media cartel is terrible I agree too but maybe copyright isn't related to them.
The question is
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Most of the time, yes. Have you seen the shit on TV these days?
I understand the establishment's point of view. They want to protect their profits eternally and they don't give a fuck if something is part of the cultural lexicon. Mickey Mouse is a part of american culture, why should Disney have the right to con
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Yes I agree with you but I was not talking about the length of the copyright but what consititues copyright and it's uses and allowances.
What shit on TV? (Score:2)
Me, I watch neither Japanese 'endurance' shows nor 'reality TV' so I havn't seen the literal 'shit on TV these days'.
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Who said it was more valuable? The point is not that it is priceless, but rather that it is not worthless.
It is a creative activity, and the purpose of copyright law is to promote creative activities, not to protect the jobs of professionals. We must encourage creativity f
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Because you're poorly versed in art, his artistic example is invalid?
Uh, William did devote all his time to writing more plays, once he got into it in the first place. Well, when he wasn't
Shakespeare (Score:2)
I think he'd be a little more intelligent than that. He could write a few plays while he was in his 20s and live off the royalties until he died, upon which time his children would live off his royalties for another 50 years, then get some legislation passed so that they can continue reaping the seeds their fa
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The world doesn't owe anyone a living. Copyright law is meant to provide for the public interest, not to help artists. It just happens to help artists in the process. What it doesn't care about is professional artists v. amateurs; it only cares about artists that copy
Say what? (Score:2)
Did you completely miss the GP's comment about a tree [wikipedia.org]?
There's a reason it's called the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. I think it has a little something to do with, you know, Sonny Bono, and the fact that he's a musician.
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Sonny Bono was a musician. He died some time ago. I fail to see how extending the term of copyright for another three centuries would incentivise him to produce any more music. This is why copyright of a reasonable duration is a reasonable idea, but copyright extensions until effectively forever are a very bad idea.
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It didn't have that much to do with him being a musician. There are other artists in Congress, you know.
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You do realize that "Bullshit Artist" is just an expression, right?
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And what you are missing is that outfits like YouTube and Google can't just erase the current distribution contracts and copyright laws by virtue of some rapidly developed, virally distributed and generally groovy and ginchy technology. If I signed away the distribution rights to my glorious creative work to some e-e-e-e-vil media conglomerate last year, well, tha
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Although one has to wonder if that's at least partially what Google had in mind when they purchased YouTube. Google has been pushing copyright "rights" to the limit for years - caching of web pages, Google Images, scanning and indexing of books, providing results to pages
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Oh please. iTunes affects the copyright system about as much as Amazon selling CDs on the Internet does.
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Expecting government run welfare programs like copyright to remain unchanged and in place indefinitely isn't particularly realistic. If you're signing away the rights to your welfare check for the next several years to some media conglomerate, well, then neither you nor they should be surprised if the reasons for handing out that check at all are reevaluated.
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Ents! Ents [wikipedia.org] killed Sonny Bono [wikipedia.org]!
*runs away screaming in terror*
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It is pretty straight forward - you decide what music / video etc. you want to use and you clear the rights for that use; or you don't use it. Nothing hard about that other than many people blithely ignore copyrights when they create something. YouTube's problem is that they have thousands of people uploading copyrighted material and they (YouTube):
a) Don't want t
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"Our conception of copyright is hampering creativity, not enabling it."
I see this stated a lot, usually in an abstract sense. I can't think of any examples where copyright law has hampered my creativity -- if I want to see that movie or have a copy of that song, I either pay or don't, and go on with my life. Can you cite an example of how copyright law has hampered your creativity?
"Instead, copyright has been extended twice."
Not sure what you mean here -- do you mean "twice in my lifetime?" Terms
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IMHO, the laws should be written such that "violation" of copyright is always permitt
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Why not simply go all the way? YouTube paying IP 'VAT' of 25-30% on sales revenue, registering number of downloads per work, and then letting a government agency handle the payouts to the creators of works instead. No more difficult producer versus distributor versus customer relationship remaining; it becomes just another ordinary system of the (more or less) democratic state, with a budget, where you can argue for or against tax raises or cuts, where you can argue f
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Which would be fine, except that the kind of damage potentially caused during the period between the infringement starting, and the rightsholder noticing and going through the motions to get the material taken down, is staggering in th
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"I'm a totally rational American who supports honest business that's good for the little guy, not the big guy. The big guy doesn't need any help. Plain and simple. I'm not calling for the dismantling of the capialist system like you seem to be."
I agree. YouTube's parent company's stock price is $471 per share. Their operating margin is 34% on revenue of almost ten billion dollars a year. And they're complaining because it's tough to get permission from actors and music composers -- people in a professio
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No, it has more to do with being more numerous. And with copyright being a burden imposed on the population at large, and so not a burden that should be shouldered unless it is worthwhile to the public, without any concern for whether the artists like it or not.
Besides, we do this already. For example, you can make modifications to GPL'ed software without being subject to the GPL, so long as y
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I never realized that Google was Al Gore in disguise.
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Copyright law is a minefield for any type of content that can be easily copied and redistributed. And now that means audio, video, text, images - the whole range.
The problem is that this is the new guy (AKA The Google) versus established revenue streams from long existing industries (your music, movies, TV etc.). Old media through DRM, sueing it's audiences and copyrig
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I think it would be funny if they simply disabled the audio track on any content with a sound track and replaced it with a random creative commons track with the same beat and left it that way to avoid a video having a copyrighted soundtrack of silence.
Then the submission page should include the "original content, not a copy" requirement. Any violations will include releasing uploader information to the copyright owner's lawyer.
It would be good to
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not excactly.. (Score:2)
WKRP music was permitted with the show- as the music was licensed for the shows.
at the time, no one concievedof such home recordings, and no provision was made for those rights.
in a similar vein, disney artists (voice artists) have sued disney for their likenesses which were used in theaters, but never licensed for use for dvd distribution.
some of them picked up a few bucks..
now- it's over- artistic licenses/contracts are written to "include future means of distribution, as yet unkno