Copyright Axe To Fall On YouTube?

theoddball writes "In what should come as no great surprise, Universal Music Group is preparing to file suit against YouTube for copyright infringement, the AP reports. Discussions with the site's owners have broken down (although talks are apparently still progressing with Myspace / News Corp over similar issues). From the article: 'We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars,' Universal Music CEO Doug Morris told investors Wednesday at a conference in Pasadena. This development follows last month's announcement that YouTube is negotiating with labels to legally host videos. While the primary complaint is against music videos, one cannot help but wonder if this will also impact the many, many homemade videos using copyrighted UMG songs as a soundtrack (or — *shudder* — a lipsync.)"

Comments

Re:When will these people get it??

[Air-conditioned cowh]

the GPL specifically allows redistribution so long as it's done without financial gain

Sorry to be pedantic but, as I understand it, you can charge for GPL code if you want, as long as the source isn't witheld for an additional fee. It's just not an amazing business model because someone can buy your GPL product and then start re-distibuting it for free.

I've even seen shareware, complete with nag screen and feature limitation, released under the GPL since it probably won't occur to anyone to recompile it and redistribute it themselves and if they did they wouldn't have the brand recognition. In fact, come to think of it, that's exactly what Redhat do.

Re:First P2P, then Video Sites, then what?

[hairyfeet]

Don't forget that thanks to deregulation cartels like ClearChannel own the majority of most markets.I'd be happy to let the copyright holders do what they want if the hadn't stacked the deck.Your band gets popular and wants to get on the radio?Either get royally screwed in a contract with the cartels or forget it.They want to shut down anything they don't control.Just as they control tv and radio they now want to control what you see on the net.

Don't believe it is about money,although their greed is neverending.It's about making sure the masses watch and listen to the corporate playlist.I'm sure all these "Joe average" users flocking to the 'net must have them seriously irked.Can't have them watching "unapproved content" now can we?

Re:Find all those old videos

[mrjb]

Even better, get the firefox video downloader extension and watch then *after* they're gone.

Re:YouTube is not the new Napster

[cpt kangarooski]

The Grokster case set a nice precedent in that a company must at least try to comply with copyright law.

No, that's not what it said. Of course, all copyright cases can be read as requiring that. The trick is what constitutes compliance. Grokster simply said that a party is liable if they induce others to engage in copyright infringement. Failure to thoroughly police wouldn't show inducement. That goes more toward vicarious liability, if it matters at all.

Re:YouTube is not the new Napster

[cpt kangarooski]

And the strange thing about that is that, for example, ISPs are okay as long as they _don't_ try to filter unlawful content (and spam, malware, etc.), because if they did filter, they'd be responsible for anything that got through.

That's not true, and in fact, plenty of ISPs do filter. There was no consensus as to whether ISPs are common carriers before a few laws came in to shield them regardless, such as 17 USC 512 or 47 USC 230.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

[Achromatic1978]

What money is YouTube making? No ads, and a $1.2M bandwidth bill a month. They only received $11M in VC, so that clock is ticking, fast.

Pop quiz: When you're looking to buy a startup, do you go for one that's just had a massive lawsuit filed against it by the entertainment industry?

or so you say

[Ender Ryan]

Why the surprise? Music videos are certainly connected to albums sales, but they're also productive as entertainment in their own right. They're shown on TV, which generates viewership and sells ads, which means that someone is paying for it. Indirectly, sure, but they're paying for it.

That's quite the news to me, as I haven't witnessed this being the case for at least 10 or 15 years. There is not a single time on any channel during any day that I can reliably watch music videos. As far as I can tell, there are no channels on television that show music videos for the purpose of bringing in ad revenue. In fact, the only reason I can figure that MTV and VH1 show videos once or twice a week is so they can claim to be Music Television stations.

And do you really believe they PAY to play videos? Myself, knowing certain folks in the "biz," know for a fact that MTV wanted $5,000 in order to show a particular band's music videos less than a handful of times.

Simple, simple stuff, here, people.

Bah! Nothing is simple when the music industry is involved.

Re:First P2P, then Video Sites, then what?

[bs7rphb]

I read that there was another, altogether more sinister reason. Once the bible was translated from latin into languages that the general populace could read, some people started realising that what the church said was in the bible wasn't necessarily accurate. Things like, you need to give all your money to the church or you won't get into heaven.

The church could control this with just a few burnings when the translations were copied by hand, but once the printing presses started churning them out by the thousand they had to very quickly go after the printers and presses, or lose all control over the population. They didn't act quickly enough, and so did lose control.

I like your reason too though.