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Why YouTube Needs the Rights to Your Video
erlichson writes "There has been a lot of controversy over the YouTube terms of service. Why are consumers surprised? Fundamentally, YouTube's business model requires that they get the rights to redistribute your content. This note analyzes an alternative publishing model available to consumers that doesn't require granting a license to your content, but the trade-off is that you won't get the same level of distribution."
If you want to a massive amount of people to see what you have created you have to give the website you are posting it to right to use it anyway they want. Same works with deviantart and myspace, what is posted there they can use it free of charge. If you want it so only you can redistribute it then very few people will likley see it.
Same problem with publishing research. Some journals try to suppress your right to share your paper freely on the web. So generally only people who's institution has a subscription can see the content.
The answer is competition - post your video on a website with better terms of service and publish in journals that don't have 'embargo' policies on sharing your own work.
I don't want to equate the problems of ownership of cheezy webcam thong videos with the problem of ownership of academic research publications, but the main problem as I see it is that I'd rather sit around watching the aforementioned videos than read the dozens of journal articles I'm supposed to be reading instead. Christ I'm never going to graduate. F***! now I'm blathering on slashdot. Must turn off internet...
How much of YouTube's content is submitted by teenagers? Quite a bit, I have seen.
Minors cannot enter into contracts. Seems like a rather stunning flaw in thier business model.
I guess it's just their competitors that wrote that article that want to keep the "controversial" label going, and apparently it's working.
Because many think there is such at thing as a free lunch. They are wrong but that's what they think.
Technically, I used to get free lunches all the time, but I had to waste time listening to bad powerpoint presentations of sales people who I had no intention of buying anything from.
But seriously, nothing is free except air and the light from the sun, but cost is minimized to an extent it might as well be free. When your cost to produce comodities reaches near zero (bandwidth, hardware, and electricity) then your product or ad space could be sold for extremely low prices and you still make enourmous profit (depending)
However, we haven't reached that point (yet) mostly because it still costs an arm and a leg to host full streaming HD quality video and unless you are Comcast, Google, or Verizon you really don't have the resources needed to give it away for free forever like YouTube.
However, what happens in 20 years when bandwidth exceeds full motion HD video and you can download a 1000 TB in just a few seconds and you can host your own super webserver from your laptop? I mean full imersion can only go up to the point where we can't tell the difference between reality and our downloadable entertainment?
At that point in our lives (if we are still around) everything will literally become free at least with Intellectual Property (in a sense) because we've saturated the known universe with material that no one is going to bother paying for either through piracy or home made junk or reality TV etc. I dunno... Its just a guess.
However, in 20 years we might have robotics making things you buy at the store for free as well... But as they mentioned in the technological singularity article a few stories back... Well... It might be a moot point.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
[Disclaimer: I am one of the founders of Revver]
Here's a big problem-- Youtube may claim a license/ownership in their TOS. But if they try to sell the videos for profit, they will in all likelihood open themselves up to lawsuits from any subjects in the video who did not grant permission for their likeness to be used. You simply cannot film a person who is not a public figure (e.g. politician, celebrity) and distribute it without an agreement. Or to be precise, you CAN (it's not illegal) but you will be sued (especially if you make a profit) and you will most likely lose.
Say a high school kid films another guy lighting farts on fire at a party and throws it up on Youtube. Did the fart-lighter sign a personal release? How about the crowd of people in the background, especially if their voices can be heard? Did the owner of the house sign a location release? I'm not even going to get into the problems that will arise if a copyrighted song is playing in the background. If any of these parties think Youtube is making a profit from this video they could sue. I'm not even sure they're wrong, I certainly wouldn't want a video of myself circulating on the internet without my permission-- and I would certainly do what I could to put a stop to it if someone else was making a profit.
I should also add, by the way, that a minor cannot sign a release. So even if the fart-lighter says you could post the video, his parents might feel otherwise-- and, yes, they could sue.
This is a problem that's going to bite Youtube in the ass sooner or later-- say when the parents of the next Star Wars Kid sues Youtube for being a party in the distribution of the video. Since Youtube is licensing the video rather than washing their hands and saying they don't have anything to do with their content, they will certainly be named in any lawsuit. And if they're making a profit from this video they will certainly be liable for damages.
And no, I'm not a lawyer. But I have been an assistant producer at a production house that makes reality shows and documentaries and I've seen the great lengths they need to go to to secure releases-- and dealt with the legal department extensively over the inevitable problems. Producers actually have to take out insurance policies to protect themselves against oversights.