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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.)"
did you know that UMG just pulled their videos off of the music video station Fuse because they couldn't come to an agreement for compensation? http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=17040 3
am i alone when i say i am blown away that record labels ask stations for a penny to show their videos? i don't know how they did things in the stone age, but MY generation will NOT pay major labels to promote THEIR albums.
-- lol pwned
Of course it had to be a music company. A music company that is part of a much bigger media conglomerate, but it is the subdivision that is suing. And they are suing because someone creates a new music video for an old song. This at least involves some work by the person posting it. Yet there is so much content on youtube that is blatantly ripped from TV, but nobody sued about that yet.
Youtube is going to become Napster 2.0: once wildly popular, then sued into oblivion.
Is YouTube just a host or are they a content distributor? If they are just a host, how can they be liable for what others post on their site?
You can't handle the truth.
YouTube Legal Strategy:
We seem to be liable for 'contribuatory infringement'; aka we make it possible (knowingly?) for others to violate copyright (even though we respond to requests to remove copyrighted material).
The RIAA, etc, want their 'pound of flesh', and we don't think they deserve it.
If we are liable, for contributing to the violations, then necessarily, others must be as well. While we provide the service to share, the individual users must knowingly violate, as well as everyone between the copyright holder and us.
Therefore we sue:
Amen. The lawsuit to finally decide the issue.
What I don't understand is why the hell youtube is talking to a record company in the first place. Why aren't they dealing with a Copyright collection society? (I don't know the name of the US one). They are an orginisation attempting to make money with content including copyrighted material, which the copyright holders are legally entitled to recompense. But their business model is more like the modern day equivalent of a tv station, so they should be paying in a similar way to how tv stations pay for their use of copyrighted material.
This post patent pending.
Actually, this happened a long time ago. Websites with AMVs to Evanescence songs were told to cease distribution of the videos or face legal action. The RIAA already made up its mind a long time ago on this...
Before MTV I can remember music videos turning up at the most incongruous moments on my local TV station (UTV in Northern Ireland). I mean for instance I've watched the lunchtime news and there's 5 minutes until The Sullivans are on so lets have a video from some band I've never heard of before or since. The fact I'd never heard of them makes me suspect there was a time when music companies actually PAID to have their videos shown on mainstream TV (to the influential Sullivans audience of that era.)
I'm surprised that it took this long for a legal battle to start. YouTube was becoming the Napster of video and it had to be a target sooner or later.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
I'd say this is less clear cut than the original Napster. Despite what people claim about 'only some people used it to violate copyright', a good 90-odd% of file transfers on Napster was unauthorised copyright copying (statistic purely based on anecdotal evidence, bite me). Youtube is a lot less clear - granted a lot of stuff on there is clips from TV shows and films, music videos and stuff, but there is a LOT of original content on there (mostly unwatchable garbage, people thinking they're good on a skateboard and whatnot). Of course, it becomes hazy when people use copyrighted sound tracks to their original creation but still - I think we can all agree that a significant % of YouTube users are using it for none-copyright-violating purposes.
I'm not sure I see why youTube wouldn't just be considered as a hosting service. If they don't exercise any control before people upload videos, or regularly screen content, why would they not be the same as a hosting provider running any other website? The article says youTube claims they comply with takedown requests, as US law requires. At least in the article, UMG doesn't suggest that they don't comply.
Whether youTube makes money through advertising seems entirely irrelevant. Hosting providers like Geocities that provide free hosting with advertising don't become more responsible for hosted content because they get advertising revenue. Specifically, [RI,MP]AA organizations seem to insist that they oppose the redistribution of their content, regardless of whether any money is involved.
I think it comes down to this, rightly or wrongly: we all know (or are almost certain) that one way or another, YouTube's business model is to be advertising, context sensitive or otherwise. Based on this, and (possibly, I rarely use it) functionality of the site, they are very well aware of the most popular videos - I'm betting UMG's argument was that they'll be monitoring that, seeing copyright infringements, but not removing them at that point, rather waiting for the takedown request.
At the end of the day, these movie/song clips are just basically adverts. Its the ultimate form of Viral Advertising and the studios should be encouraging it, not trying to control it. If they want to make money then this sort of stuff is gold for them, it doesn't cost them anything at all and its not hard to start something.
For a normal publisher, that would be true. A normal publisher finds and promotes excellent works in a free market. Big media is the exact opposite of all that. They are based on exclusion and it has nothing to do with artistic merit. YouTube is just another attempt a free entertainment market, a competitor to be owned and destroyed.
The two big music companies make money by controlling your taste in music. They grew up with physical median and are still geared to the "big hit" marketing model. They don't want anyone else exposing you to something they are not promoting because that will take money away from their promoted act. Their whole business model is based on owning the broadcast spectrum and excluding everything but their sad top 40 songs a week. They have bought an extensive set of laws to extend this model into the future
YouTube is going to meet the same fate as Napster and MTV before it. They own your culture because they own all recorded media by purchase and intimidation. Witness the problems Jib Jab had over a parody of a song that was actually in public domain. It's a chicken and egg problem big media thinks they can win. At a nominal rate of $40,000 per sample, big media can decide who gets to use anything from the recorded past in our common memory. When a YouTuber puts a Led Zeppelin guitar riff into a home video, big media can screw YouTube. They did it to MTV, which no longer plays music and they did it to Napster, which is now a failing M$ music service.
This is viral ownership. Because big media owns a tiny portion of the work placed on YouTube, they think they can take it all. In cases like MP3.com, the courts agreed with big media. I hope that the courts look at this one and finally realize that it's bad for culture to be owned like that. If big media is allowed to steal every new business this way, they will continue to own and limit what we are all exposed to. That's exactly the opposite of what copyright is all about.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It is unrealistic to believe that there is no damage caused by the copyright infringement.
... we'd all be much better off. Even those who currently rely on copyright for their livelyhood. Because our culture would be so much more wealthy, everyone would benefit. It's like the old horse manure shoveler's union fighting the coming of the automobile because they were afraid of losing their crap shoveling jobs. The auto was a boon to everyone, and those people didn't have to spend their lives shoveling crap anymore (instead, they at least have road laying jobs, if not automobile manufacturing jobs).
I have to disagree with that premise. I think most people feel like the flowering of free expression that is resulting is a benefit to everyone, including those who currently think they are being harmed.
It is also unrealistic to believe that there would be no damage if the infrastructure was completely shut down (even if this was technically possible, which is doubtful).
Same thing
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking