Forum Moderators: goodroi
The English Premier League is to sue video-sharing site YouTube for alleged copyright infringement.The football organisation said YouTube had "knowingly misappropriated" its intellectual property by encouraging footage to be viewed on its site.
Kaled.
But again it would be an impossible task for many sites
Viacom sent take-down notices for 100,000s of videos presented on Youtube. No wonder they are upset. Youtube claims that they can't police their service, but expect content owners to be able to do so? Ho-hum.
The only practical solution I can think of is to go after the people that are uploading such material.
The collective interests of the internet as whole are far more important than the interests of a copyright holder.
I don't think you'd feel that way if you were losing money. In any case, the internet as a whole will be largely unaffected.
The issue of forums (like this one) is a red-herring. Technical and research data, etc. posted on forums is unlikely ever to result is a lawsuit unless the information was stolen (i.e. is secret/classified). Additionally, if a link is provided to the source, most people will be happy.
If the size and nature of uploaded data is limited, very few sites will ever fall foul of copyright laws.
Kaled.
The collective interests of the internet as whole are far more important than the interests of a copyright holder.
The Internet as a whole will have to enforce copyright protection in order to preserve.
If Google insists on the right to allow people uploading copyrighted material like Jurassic Park, Champions League etc. they will dig their own grave anyway.
They are able to filter out whatever America defines as porn but can`t spot Jurassic Park chopped into 6 streams.
Greet engeneers, programmers and management!. If their law experts operate at the same quality level, Brin and Pagr will have to come up with loads of compensation :-)
I assume they would be better advised to invest into original, quality content rather than building growth on copyright violations. In fact this is the very last model that the Internet needs to exist.
[edited by: night707 at 5:18 pm (utc) on May 8, 2007]
If the size and nature of uploaded data is limited, very few sites will ever fall foul of copyright laws.
I hate that word limits... ;) Besides this would be irrelevant, text is copyrightable so you would pretty much eliminate everything.
Call me paranoid or crazy but I think the heart of this and other similar lawsuits is the control of all content and not necessarily the protection of copyrighted content. 20 years ago Joe-six pack had no outlet to provide his knowledge to the world, that has changed with the Internet. I truly think large media outlets fear this more than anything. I'd hate to see that come to an end.
20 years ago Joe-six pack had no outlet to provide his knowledge to the world, that has changed with the Internet.
So what? You do not think that the copyright protected clips from Viacom have anything to do with free speech, or the ability to act as "an outlet to provide his knowledge" for Joe-six pack?
Viacom has some clear points:
1- Youtube is earning money from clips uploaded by users who do not have the right to do so.
2- Youtube has means in place to filter out p0rn, but these means seem to be unable to detect IP material.
3- By following the DMCA rules, Youtube is putting the whole effort on detecting violations on the rights owner. Which is basically impossible to do, be it for small companies (few clips, but where do you start?) or large companies (too many clips get uploaded too fast by too many people). Viacom thinks, this is highly unfair, especially if someone else earns money by showing the material in question.
The DMCA was clearly designed for a static Internet (i.e. Web 1.0). The whole outlook has changed with massive introduction of community driven services. For a rights owner (and, yes, for a site owner as well) it is impossible to monitor what's going on.
Counter example: Brett, for example, has managed to keep WW a place where mostly original, unique, user-created content is being made available. He has a team of moderators that take care of violations. And he has community mechanisms in place that also help administering the service. If Youtube followed the same approach, nobody would be barking. (Of course, nobody would be talking about Youtube, and they would not have received $1.65B from Google.)
BTW, it is interesting to see that those who ever created content on their own (texts, photos, videos, or art) for a living agree that the copyright should be protected. And those who just run services centered around "user created content" usually play down the importance of copyright protection (knowing very well, that many of these services are BASED upon massive repeated copyright infringements).
So what? You do not think that the copyright protected clips from Viacom have anything to do with free speech, or the ability to act as "an outlet to provide his knowledge" for Joe-six pack?
I wasn't referring to the protected content but what I feel would be the inevitable loss of many of the outlets for people who are using sites like Youtube and other user generated content services legally. More importantly the smaller sites that would not be able to defend themselves against such a lawsuit or would simply close up shop to avoid it. I don't know where you live but i live in the U.S. and if a lawsuit like this is successful I've no doubt that there will be a wave of them to follow. Happens all the time, the sharks smell blood and there's a feeding frenzy.
As I keep saying assuming I understand what this lawsuit is about from the brief article originally posted a ruling in the favor of the plaintiffs will put any site owner at risk to be liable.
Let me ask you or anyone else point blank, if you know that you could possibly be sued simply because a user uploaded copyrighted material to your site would you still take the risk of providing that service?
I know I certainly wouldn't. There's no easy answer for this but I know holding the site owner responsible certainly isn't the solution.
2- Youtube has means in place to filter out p0rn, but these means seem to be unable to detect IP material.
Not very familiar with Youtube itself but I can tell you flat out that unless each and every file was being looked at I could get by any filter they impose. I'll take a wild guess and suggest they are using a color palette based filter that flags videos that have an excessive amount of skin tones in them for further review, maybe combined with a audio filter for ...errr..well specific types of noises... :)
BTW, it is interesting to see that those who ever created content on their own (texts, photos, videos, or art) for a living agree that the copyright should be protected. And those who just run services centered around "user created content" usually play down the importance of copyright protection.....
There's also people such as myself who do both but see no easy answer for either side. Copyrights should be protected but not at the expense of other parties that really have nothing to do with this.
I know holding the site owner responsible certainly isn't the solution.
Anyone, who runs a business is liable for his products. If Googlers and youtube prefer to build their traffic also on copyright infringements they deserve to be punished.
So many kids get sentenced for the non-commercial private use of a bunch of MP3 music files. Why should billionaires like Brin and Page be allowed to expand their traffic on Champions League, Jurassic Park and other stolen content?
They control the Internet Traffic of the entire world making $1 billion prof in 3 months and refuse to hire a few folks to check what is legit or not.
At least for my feel, that seems to deserve big time fines for each single violation of copyright law.
...If Googlers and youtube prefer to build their traffic also on copyright infringements they deserve to be punished.
A quick look at either service will show the majority of videos are not copyrighted material. Matter of fact I just perused a few categories and didn't see anything that appeared to be possible copyrighted content. I know it's there but it's certainly not huge amounts relative to the amount of video available there.
So many kids get sentenced for the non-commercial private use of a bunch of MP3 music files.
This is different, those are files that are being shared directly. The person sharing them knows perfectly well it's copyrighted content. Add to that those are high quality audio rips or video files that have been ripped directly from the CD/DVD.
refuse to hire a few folks to check what is legit or not.
It would require more than few people, according to Wikipedia 64,000 videos are added every 24 hours. This of course would also be required by other sites as well. As I said above it's impossible.
A quick look at either service will show the majority of videos are not copyrighted material. Matter of fact I just perused a few categories and didn't see anything that appeared to be possible copyrighted content. I know it's there but it's certainly not huge amounts relative to the amount of video available there.
Youtube only exists to reproduce copyright protected content. It grew only through massive copyright infringement. How many shaky clips filmed with a teenagers mobile phone can you endure? Not many.
I did a quick search for "Kermit" (which certainly is copyright protected). Then I sorted by view count. The result is not very surprising.
You should not only count the number of video clips, but should take into consideration the VIEW COUNT. Certainly a Kermit clip that has been viewed 100,000 times is not exactly equal to a some mumbling teenager with 10 views.
You can repeat the excercise for most brand names, actor names, TV stations, musicians, celebreties. Most of the content on Youtube belongs to someone else.
It would require more than few people, according to Wikipedia 64,000 videos are added every 24 hours. This of course would also be required by other sites as well. As I said above it's impossible
Why and how do you think the copyright owner should be able to do this? Why? How?
according to Wikipedia 64,000 videos are added every 24 hours
Every professional TV station and producer makes sure, that whatever gets shown is with the consent of owners and generators of each frame.
If Brin and Page do not want to bother with copyright laws concerning whatever comes from their servers, ... well, sorry to say, but they will be in for big time compensation.
Why aren`t they smart enough to understand, that they will have to acquire licenses and original video content.
With their current concept they will get chopped like Napster, Kazaa etc. and for certain, they will get hold much more responsible.
If they allow 64.000 vids per day, they will have to compensate for perhaps 50% ... sorry, no idea about
the real figure, but just as an assumption.
And for certain, they deserve it for either stupidity or arrogancy towards the owners of illegal youtube content.
If i were Brin and Page, I would order an instant cleaning of any questionable content and certainly no longer allow uploads without qualified clearing.
If they want to do TV, they should do it like legal TV.
Google/YouTube's argument is that they are operating within the law by removing content on request. Their opponents disagree with this interpretation. Google itself must be more than a little worried since I can see no other reason for claiming they are trying to protect the internet - that is just nonsense and in any case, is not a legal argument.
Kaled.
they are trying to protect the internet
Where did you see this statement?
Why and how do you think the copyright owner should be able to do this? Why? How?
I don't think it's posiible for anyone to do it which is pretty much my point.
Whatever the case I think I've made some very valid points as to why this is bad and have yet to see anyone address them with a reasonable response, I'll leave it at what I have already posted. No need to keep repeating myself.
If your business model puts you outside the law, you need a new business model - it really is that simple.
You could also say:
"If your business model is failing, you need a new business model - it really is that simple."
I'm not trying to justify the copyright infringement but perhaps the media companies should take a step back and look at how they are distributing their content. Whether Youtube wins or loses this suit the copyright infringement isn't go to stop by any means. It will just get shifted to another outlet.
