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

Tens of millions

[phorm]

With the various lawsuits going on, and settlements seeming to arise regularly... I wonder whether they're actually making more profit for these various companies than some of their CD/movie sales. Certainly the lawyers are munching on a fair chunk... but how much are the studios taking in as profit?

Truely a sad business model... especially when they're going after companies that are actually trying to negotiate legitimate mutually-beneficial deals.

Re:Tens of millions

[dilby]

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.

Re:Tens of millions

[FridayBob]

What I don't understand is why the hell youtube is talking to a record company in the first place. ...

It sounds to me like YouTube has been forced to talk to them. It's called a lawsuit... :-)

Re:Tens of millions

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Tens of millions

[IAmTheDave]

My guess is that the copyright holders don't want to. Suing is more profitable.

I don't have a lot of hope for YouTube's future.

We (us below 30 people, and yes, some of you above 30) are a generation built on mashups, personalized media, and borrowing from the acheivments of the past to further our own pursuits.

Those sitting on the bench won't get that a suit against YouTube (especially if it's on the grounds of lipsync videos or peronal video soundtracks) is really stifiling millions of young filmmakers - no matter how horrible their films may be.

Creativity - or creativity tools - has in 10-20 years grown in accessability seemingly exponentially. YouTube provides an outlet for the creative mind that many young people have never had. If Numa Numa is on a soundtrack to a 90 second clip of two kids dancing in their parent's basement, is it really necessary to expect that YouTube owes millions of dollars for providing an outlet for these kids to share their creativity with the world?

The reason I mentioned the generational thing above is because it will take another 20 years before people that truely understand the technology and creativity revolution that is in full swing now are sitting on legal benches across the nation. Right now we have people with very, very old thoughts on capitalism, copyright, patents, etc. that hand down judgements and rulings. It isn't until my 3 year old is an adult that his peers will finally have access to make decisions that actually benefit this country, and cease these ridiculous assaults on creativity and expression.

Re:Tens of millions

[Achromatic1978]

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.

Re:Tens of millions

[IAmTheDave]

You want to pick the defining foundations of "Generation Y" and you come up with Web 2.0 content aggregation / YouTube home made videos put to alternate musical soundtracks.

I chose those as examples because they're relevant to TFA.

As "actually someone ostensibly in the film industry", you should appreciate the absurdity of having to pay tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to use a music clip here or there in your movie, and that movies shot on a shoestring budget of mere hundreds or a few thousands of dollars can't put an appropriate soundtrack in their movie - even in short samples - without increasing the required budget of the movie tenfold or more.

Re:Tens of millions

[superiority]

Err...it's not so much that it's a Soviet Russia joke as it's that it takes the old joke and uses it in a novel way to highlight the effect globalisation and corporatism have on democracy.

Looks like the rider beat the horse

[BadAnalogyGuy]

In a horse race, you don't want the rider to come in before your horse. YouTube seemed like they were desperately hoping that their horse would get bought up by a big media conglomerate before the litigation rider came calling.

If they don't get acquired right quick, it will be a sad day for all of us YouTube lovers.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

[daspriest]

Why buy youtube, when you can sue youtube and take the site as a settlement instead.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

[b0r1s]

Sad? It'll take about a month for all the users to migrate to one of the dozens of alternative sites that act in the same way and have slightly different features.

Those that want DRM and community support will hit grouper. Those that want porn will hit pornotube. The people who just want to use their webcams and view amateur clips will use vobbo. The ones that want to open license their content will use ourmedia, and the ones that want revenue sharing will use revver.

Dozens of alternatives, just look at The list.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

[MMaestro]

The site itself is worthless. Other than maybe the name (which would be destroyed once they win), YouTube is worthless. It makes no profit (the bandwidth used to stream videos on the front page alone is mind boggling) and lets be serious, the moment they win, every OTHER group will demand the site more or less be brought down completely.

This is more or less the same way Napster was destroyed and why is never reclaimed the crown as a music distributing software. By the time Napster was re-released it was too little, too late. And then of course there would be the copycat sites, the backlash against the industry and the grassroots attempt to stop this. (Remember the publicity Napster got before they brought it down?)

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

[MisterSquid]

(Remember the publicity Napster got before they brought it down?)

Part of the reason for the publicity of the Napster case is that it happened in the days of Web 1.0 and many people, heck the entire world, were watching to see what would happen. It wasn't exactly clear that Napster would lose. In fact, early public opinion of Judge Patel's ruling was that she didn't know enough about technology to generate a sensible ruling.

When (not if) YouTube goes down, it's gonna do so lickety split because it has the pathway (I'm not sure it's precedent) of Napster to take. This is gonna be fast, folks. Allowing users to violate copyright on a mass scale using centralized servers is entrepreneurial suicide.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

[cubicledrone]

their valuable property

What VALUE? WHERE ARE MUSIC VIDEOS BOUGHT AND SOLD?

Without YouTube NOBODY would watch music videos because otherwise THEY DON'T EXIST.

The only reason this argument continues is because copyright holders, for whatever reason, totally deprive their audience of what they want. People used to download billions of songs from filesharing networks. Then they turned around and bought 1.5 billion songs from iTunes. Why did they pay for what they could get for free? Because Apple gave them a high-quality easily found song for a reasonable price. If every music video were available for download off some record company site, this would be a non-issue.

Wait, it already is a non-issue.

I think food also wants to be free.

Food is free. Farmers provide the same service Apple does: a high-quality easily found vegetable/fruit/chicken dinner/bottle of orange juice at a reasonable price. And people pay for it despite the fact that anyone armed with a single orange can produce them in unlimited quantities.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

[Nuskrad]

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.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

[badasscat]

What VALUE? WHERE ARE MUSIC VIDEOS BOUGHT AND SOLD?

Well, for one, they're bought and sold on DVD all the time. Most people I know have at least a few of these. I myself have video compilations from Depeche Mode, the Police, and Puffy (as in AmiYumi, but it's a Japanese DVD so it's just Puffy).

So while I don't dismiss the RIAA's argument out of hand, I don't think they quite get the reasons why people use YouTube. YouTube's quality is really bad and you can't (easily) download clips from it, meaning it's no substitute for buying anything. I sample videos there all the time, and yes, I've downloaded some, but only videos that I literally can't get any other way. It's a last resort for videos I want to keep, while at the same time serving the same purpose that MTV did in the beginning - it's promoting all these bands I otherwise wouldn't be thinking about. Seriously, if I see a video on YouTube that I like, the first thing I do is see if I can buy it anywhere. This is not like the original Napster, where there's really no difference between the song you could download and the song you could buy. On YouTube, in most cases you can't buy what's on there, and if you can, there's a vast difference in quality and features.

The record labels should be using YouTube as a promotional vehicle. They've got everything all backwards these days. They're even saying MTV was evil in the beginning for, god forbid, promoting their music. They don't seem to realize that the lack of music on MTV at present is a big reason why their sales are down. I used to watch MTV, find new bands I liked, buy that music and buy those videos. I have no way to do that anymore. Except YouTube.

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?

how insane

[tehwebguy]

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.

Re:how insane

[ergo98]

but MY generation will NOT pay major labels to promote THEIR albums.

Um, okay. Then what's the problem — They'll pull their "promotions" and you'll have no problem with it, right?

Way back in the stone age when one business existed to profit largely via the work of another (see Napster, YouTube, etc. Though YouTube has far more legitimacy given the vast number of user contributed, non-pirated content), the copyright system is geared to demand compensation. Sort of like how the GPL, via the same copyright, is geared to demand its own sort of payment.

Re:how insane

[MoralHazard]

"am i alone when i say i am blown away that record labels ask stations for a penny to show their videos?"

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 all that UMG is trying to negotiate with Fuse. Both sides believe that UMG can charge Fuse, and Fuse can show the videos, generate viewership, and sell ads. If they didn't agree on that, they'd never have sat down to negotiate in the first place.

I suspect that, since the phenom is relatively new as a business idea, Fuse and UMG have somewhat different assumptions about what the value of the videos actually is. If Fuse pays too much, they can't turn enough of a profit on the content to bother, but UMG wants to charge as close to that point as they can get away with. This is a classic negotiation, and it's been done for years in TV. Give it time, and they'll work out how to do business in the new medium. Maybe another year or two, maybe different companies (YouTube, perhaps?), but it'll happen.

"...MY generation will NOT pay major labels to promote THEIR albums."

Which generation do you mean? If you're old, sure--geriatrics don't watch music videos so much. But if you're young, your generation most certainly DOES pay. You (collectively) buy product X, which was promoted by advertising runs on a channel showing music videos, which pays for the ads.

Simple, simple stuff, here, people.

Re:how insane

[drsquare]

but MY generation will NOT pay major labels to promote THEIR albums.

Your 'generation' might not, but TV companies will, as people who are watching music videos can also be shown adverts which bring in revenue above the costs of the videos, thereby producing this thing called 'profit'.

This is a very simple concept, maybe your generation is too obsolete to understand how modern business works.

Re:how insane

[jacquesm]

What's this 'TV' thing I hear everybody talking about ? Is it something like the net ?

Re:how insane

[RobotRunAmok]

am i alone when i say i am blown away that record labels ask stations for a penny to show their videos?

Pretty much, unless you can somehow cross the time-barrier about 15 years.

The labels have all made it pretty clear (and the analysts have agreed) that they made a big-time mistake providing free content to MTV for as long as they did. Sure, Huey Lewis and The News and a-Ha never would have had the careers they did were it not for the freebies, but at the end of the cycle MTV (and it's johnny-come-lately rivals, like Fuse) fared far, far better in the deal than did the labels. When MTV captured the eyeballs and mind-set, it switched gears away from vids to original programming, leaving their "purist" rivals stuck with paying the bills to the newly educated and enraged recording labels.

I was there (literally, as it turns out) when MTV launched in '82, and I can tell you that everyone I knew just kept their tube on that channel cuz there was no where else you could see these vids or hear these artists. And you couldn't search an archive, and no metadata indexing engine type-matched your interests so you could discover similar artists, and nobody dreamed of "owning" a vid they liked, they just hoped they were in front of the tube when it played again.

Why would anyone watch MTV or Fuse for the videos when they have broadband? And why would a label give a free ride to a video network, knowing what it knows now? (If Fuse does not get vids for free, it will have to pay somebody for some kind of content; label figures, 'why not me?' And they're right.)

MySpace is to youth culture in 2006 what MTV was to it in 1982. It is through the conduit of the social networking sites that the labels will be promoing their wares, not linear-ly programmed TV networks.

When will these people get it??

[Freaky Spook]

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.

Its all stupid. You see them release "controlled" video's onto youtube and other blogsites when they are promoting a movie/song but if its something that wasn't thought of by them they suddenly want to sue the pants off everyone.

You can't have it both ways.

Re:When will these people get it??

[larry bagina]

If Microsoft (or International Chess University) stole GPL code, would you be saying the same thing? Maybe Universal is being an asshole here, but it's their right to do so.

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:When will these people get it??

[XStylus]

The problem that the studios are having is that they don't want a repeat of MTV.

But what's that, you say? "MTV was a boon to the music industry, wasn't it?"

And yes, indeed it was. MTV not only promoted popular hits, but it allowed lots of artists that couldn't get airtime on the radio to find an audience via MTV. But, as we all know by now, the industry can't see the forest for the trees.

Here's a quote from this article:
Record companies are keen to avoid repeating the mistake they believe they made when Viacom Inc.'s MTV was set up 25 years ago -- allowing their artists' music to be aired for free.

Morris in his remarks to investors on Tuesday said MTV "built a multibillion-dollar company on our (music) ... for virtually nothing. We learned a hard lesson."

Yes folks, this is Hollywood's way of saying thank you to MTV. That channel grew a new outlet for music, brought even MORE interest to said music, and helped the music industry make billions, and in spite of all this, the industry is pissed that they gave MTV the tools to do it for free.

And with that in mind, they fear YouTube will be the next MTV, and they want a piece of it. Like usual, they're shooting themselves in the foot. Again. It boggles my mind how utterly near sighted the industry is. It can't see the forest for the trees.

Re:When will these people get it??

[montyzooooma]

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.)

Re:When will these people get it??

[drsquare]

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.

They are encouraging it. But why shouldn't youtube pay for it like everyone else? Music videos bring in viewers which can be translated into revenue. Why should the music industry provide free revenue for youtube, MTV etc?

You can't have it both ways.

Actually they can, as it's their videos and they are free to release them for free or to charge for them as they wish. When you make a video you are free to do whatever the hell you want with it. But wait, that would mean work, it's much easier to sit on your arse whining at people who actually have initiative.

Re:When will these people get it??

[91degrees]

If Microsoft (or International Chess University) stole GPL code, would you be saying the same thing?

I would. Be nice to see MS improving their products.

Had to be a *music* company

[PatriceVignon]

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.

Re:DMCA Safe Harbour

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Yarr! There be no safe harbor fer ye pirates!

YouTube is not the new Napster

[Stalyn]

The difference being Napster was unable/unwilling to remove copyrighted content. YouTube is more than able and more than willing to remove copyrighted content. The Grokster case set a nice precedent in that a company must at least try to comply with copyright law. Not only that the vast majority of media companies have embraced YouTube, Capitol Records for example has uploaded their own music videos.

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.

Prompt removal of copyrighted material not enough

[ConfusedSelfHating]

So as soon as someone posts copyrighted material on a website, the owner of the website owes money to the copyright owner. I guess it's under the impression that for a brief period of time the website owner made money off ads and the copyright owner should get that ad money. It seems a little like the patent trolls waiting until a company has a successful product. If people want to use a song they will have to wait until the copyright expires .. oh, wait...

I don't get the tens of millions of dollars part though. I've heard of $150 million to $400 million a year in potential revenue for YouTube. I understand it from the greedy record company standpoint, but I can't see it from the actual damages perspective. I guess every single person who saw a video that had a copyrighted song copied the song and E-mailed it to their friends in the Hong Kong Triads who later distributed pirate versions of it throughout Asia.

There is incentive for major content providers to completely destroy user content websites. After all, the content oligarchy would not want competition, even poorly made funny cat video competition.

Re:a host or a distributor?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

By promoting certain videos (the "director's corner" or whatever they call it), they have risen above mere shuttling bits around to actively selecting and distributing content. If they can take action to promote certain videos and remove certain other videos, not to mention restrict access to some types of videos, then they are a much more active player than a mere Napster who was only a middleman.

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

[pilgrim23]

No, First they went after sheet music: "If they wish to hear my music, come see my show" -very early John Philip Sousa quote, then they went after 78RPM "Buy the sheet music!", then Radio "Buy the 78s, Radio is music for Free!" then.....you get the picture. Technology never waits for the weasels in suits to figure it out, it just goes along its merry way inovating and waiting for humans, Yeah thats us, to figure out how to use it. Meanwhile the Curia argues over whether the church should ban printing presses since they will put all the clerics in abbeys out of work...

Dirty Play

[OverflowingBitBucket]

UMG are just playing dirty. They are trying to negotiate with YouTube and MySpace and things aren't going (entirely) their way, so out comes the threat of potential future lawsuits with a nice big number (tens of meeeellions of dollars!) to crash the stock value of YouTube and MySpace today. The threat is basically: "Look at what we can do to your stock with a few choice words. Accept our last offer or we hit you again."

It begins...

[ImaNihilist]

It was ineveitable. Looks like Universal gave up waiting for YouTube to make some coin before they filled suit. I guess they realize now that YouTube will never make money.

The reality is that more people use YouTube to view content that shouldn't be on there than to view the content that should. I'm no exception. The only thing I really use YouTube for is watching South Park and other shows off Cartoon Network. I'll also use it to watch music videos, but not even watch the video. I just want to hear the song, and I know YouTube has it.

Sure, there are people who actually don't use YouTube for this purpose, but I'll tell you right now that they are in the minority.

The only way YouTube can save itself is by moderating ALL videos. That is, videos will only appear on the site once they are flagged, much like Google does. If and when that day comes, all the content I want will be gone and there's really no reason for me to ever go to YouTube again.

Did anyone really think YouTube was going to stay around? I'm amazed that investors kept pumping money into it.

Re:It begins...

[cgenman]

Thinking back a month... Things I've watched recently on You Tube:

Trailer for Transformers - Legalish
Transforming Robot Beetle - Legal
Playing With Electricity Video - Legal
Metalocalypse - Not Legal
Ask a Ninja - Legal
Street Running - Legal
ZeFrank talking at a convention - Legal
Some guy blowing the whistle on faulty helicopter design - Legal
Quake 3 Rocket Jump super skillz video - Legal

I know there are a lot of illegal uses for YouTube. But it seems like unlike a lot of P2P apps, the non-infringing uses are substantial. If YouTube could successfully filter out all of the illegal content, it would still have a lot of uses

Okay

[cubicledrone]

"We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars"

Fair enough. Please direct us to the site where we can see Universal Music Group artists' music videos.

Okay. Please direct us to the television--

Okay. Please direct us to the DVD--

Oh, you mean nobody would ever see these videos otherwise? So if there's no market for these videos, how can it be established there were tens of millions in damages?

BZZZT. Thanks for playing.

well

[ImTheDarkcyde]

Copyright Axe hasn't hit Ebaumsworld yet, and they have plenty of content ripped straight from DVDs. And hell, they even get a TV show out of it.

I can see their point

[Sathias]

I was going to buy the latest Metallica album, then I realised that I could get all their film clips to be viewed in a blurry little window, with near-radio quality sound! Not to mention that a series of YouTube links doesn't take up valuable space on my CD rack! Chalk that up as one lost sale *cha-ching*

Re:I can see their point

[Modeski]

This is a very good point. Youtube doesn't pose any realistic threat to UMG. Can anyone honestly say they've seen or heard something on Youtube in preference to buying it? I see YT as the latest incarnation of friends swapping tapes amongst each other. I think they're just bitter because they've missed the boat.

It's a control issue

[TheoreticalString]

For the RIAA, this is about far more than money. This is about control. Consider the high-profile members who are so much more than music companies. Sony. Warner Brothers.

This is about control over entertainment. You Tube is a form of entertainment that they simply don't control. They don't produce it. They don't write it. And they don't make money off it. Theoretically, a band could make a hit song that never passed through any of their doors. A person could make a You Tube video so famous that he could achieve status as a director without ever setting foot in one of their offices.

You Tube has the ability to deliver content to every person with an internet connection. Statistically, it is inevitable that eventually a breakout new band or director will arrive through You Tube without any member of the big corporations having their claws in them. For the RIAA this is about the fact that they want to retain control over every note of music you hear. It assures them they will never be caught by surprise. It allows them to stay in the forfront of new trends. It lets them juggle bands, hits, and artists with impunity. It lets them create restrictive contracts that give the vast majority of money from CD sales to them, instead of the artist. It lets them artificially inflate prices and manipulate the market.

That's worth infinitely more than $1 million in proprietary content that they might be losing, if we take the highest number imaginable. That's why they care.

think profits

[troll -1]

We must never forget the purpose of copyright laws. They are there to promote the useful arts. Ask yourself: how is suing youtube accomplishing this?

The idea that no one will create anything if youtube users are allowed to use it in their homemade videos is absurd. But don't blame Universal. Blame congress for favoring promotion over profits and allowing the recording industry to make massive campaign contributions in what would *appear* to be an exchange for legislation.

The entertainment gives our elected officials about $30 million/year to make sure they can bring lawsuits like this one.

This is stupid

[GoatPigSheep]

Has anyone noticed videos on youtube don't even have sound in stereo? They are all in mono.

You can't even listen to music properly using the videos on that site, the quality is too low.

As for the lip-syncing and dancing videos, it's free advertising. I bet "numa numa" sold a lot more records since that fat dude posted a video dancing to it, in fact they are using that to market a new version of that song now...

Sue'm All

[Anonymous Coward]

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:

• CD manufacturers (they don't prevent people from copying)
• CDROM drive manufacturers (they allow the cd to be read)
• Computer manufacturers (they allow the cd to interface to software)
• OS manufacturers (they allow software to access the CD, through the computer
• Software manufacturers (they provide software to access the CD, convert the copyrighted material, and upload it.)
• ISPs (they allow the transmission of copyrighted material, we merely provide access to it).
• Chair manufacturers (they allow users to sit while they abuse copyright)
• Housing contractors (they provide a safe haven for infringers)
• Electricity Generation Companies (they provide the electromotive force that allows the infrinment to take place)
• End Users of our service (we take every IP that has every connected to use, and individually sue them for the infringment).

Amen. The lawsuit to finally decide the issue.

I have no interest at all in commercial vids.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality is that more people use YouTube to view content that shouldn't be on there than to view the content that should. I'm no exception. The only thing I really use YouTube for is watching South Park and other shows off Cartoon Network. I'll also use it to watch music videos, but not even watch the video. I just want to hear the song, and I know YouTube has it.

Sure, there are people who actually don't use YouTube for this purpose, but I'll tell you right now that they are in the minority.

Fuck that copyrighted shit...I lurk at YouTube to watch the home videos of preteen girls.

You pirates make me sick.

What everyone seems to be missing

[BadAnalogyGuy]

UMG seems to think that they can just haul up to this site and drive away with truckloads of cash. What they don't get, and what everyone seems to be glossing over, is that the Internet isn't a truckload of cash. It's a series of YouTubes.

Doing our business is what DMCA notices are for

[Dachannien]

I shudder to say it, but isn't this what DMCA takedown notices are for? If someone puts some music they don't own on the web space that their local ISP gives them, then the copyright holder's recourse is to send a DMCA takedown notice. The ISP handles it, problem solved.

Why should YouTube be any different? Send them a DMCA takedown notice, and surprise surprise, they'll happily remove the offending content. Problem solved.

There's only one reason why YouTube is getting treated differently. UMG sees a cash cow that they don't own, and they want desperately to milk it.

Re:Prompt removal of copyrighted material not enou

[Tim C]

IANAL, but I believe that US copyright law allows for punitive damages, that is damages that are intended to serve as a punishment.

UMG aren't suing YouTube just for the money they made by distributing these videos, they're suing to punish them for violating their rights.

There is incentive for major content providers to completely destroy user content websites. After all, the content oligarchy would not want competition, even poorly made funny cat video competition.

As much as I don't like a lot of what certain copyright holders and their interest groups are doing, this is easily avoided by simply not violating someone's copyright.

I hope they dont

[Private.Tucker]

Seriously, it is coming to the point that you can't even whistle your favorite song without being sued for copyright infringement.

Isn't that what YouTube basically does? User posted content? A person plays their favorite song, a person dances to their favorite song, a person posts a music video thats already available on MTV/VH1 (when those stations actually play music 1 hour a week).

Mark this, the end of cover bands, the end of whistling while you work, and the end of free speech.

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?

Evanescence AMVs

[TheGreatHegemon]

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...

Re:Any artist

[dfghjk]

It's not about lipsyncing videos, although anyone song that gets the lipsync treatment is popular enough to matter.

It would be interesting to see your change in perspective if you ever produced anything worthy of being lipsynced on youtube.

How do they lose money?

[clickclickdrone]

You can't buy pop videos so no loss of revenue there.
You can download the video from YouTube, think 'I like that' and go out and buy the CD. Money made there.
I can't think of any downside to free pop videos online unless someone wants to rip the mega low quality sound off the video stream but frankly you'd be pretty desperate to do that.
Sounds like record company is shooting itself in the foot to me.

When will they learn?

[core_dump_0]

When will the music industry learn that producing the same trash while using Mafia-style business tactics against their customers just increases their problems of low sales?

What are they trying to do? Will they wind up becoming a government subsidized industry because they have alienated all but the true Hollywood-loving sheep and can't afford to pay their employees? Now I hate corporate welfare, but I'd be REALLY pissed off if I had to subsidize the Music Mafia.

All I know is I have not bought a CD (except from independent foreign labels) in ages. I have no reason to, anyway, everything here just sucks.

took this long?

[pbjones]

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.

Re:Find all those old videos

[mrjb]

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

This is probably just the beginning of the end...

[Gotta ask yourself..]

... of Copyright Law as we know it.

Face it guys, when something becomes habitual, natural, for millions of people, rights and wrongs get swapped.

People are finally starting to realize that information wants to be free, they are literally enjoying the pleasure of creating their own content, even if based upon the creation of others, and someone can't just come along and tell them they're not allowed to do it.

I forecast a revolution of some sort.

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.

One of the biggest issues for the Internet

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I think this is another example of one of the biggest legal issues on the Internet today.

Whether it's YouTube, or P2P software, or posting reg-required articles verbatim on Slashdot for that matter, it comes down to the same thing: we now have services that can host/transport copyright-protected content on the Internet, which mean that content can reach huge numbers of people very quickly.

Now, as the saying goes, technology is neutral and it's what you do with it that counts. Clearly there are valuable uses for rapid, widespread distribution: look at the use of BitTorrent to distribution large OSS installers, or the small bands taking advantage of the opportunity to increase their profile. On the other hand, let's not kid ourselves: the vast majority of the content on some of these services is infringing someone's copyright. Those people aren't always the big players, either: YouTube is full of rips of specialist videos/DVDs about hobbies, made by teachers who aren't going to get much compensation in return for their efforts even if everyone in their small target audience buys a genuine copy.

The problem is that this is a legal rock meeting an ethical hard place. The legal concept of a common carrier, and more generally the idea of unmoderated forums, have served us well historically. No-one's going to run a large-scale communications service if they're legally responsible for every transmission they carry. They don't have the resources to check everything. Even if they did, I don't think we should appoint commercial entities to the role of courts. And they can't possibly know about every copyright in the world, so they couldn't guarantee the right decision even if they were checking.

On the other hand, copyright holders have a legitimate grievance here. I know people who teach various hobbies I have, and I've seen copies of their videos on YouTube, and (this is the bit that annoys me) I've heard people talking about ripping those videos rather than buying them. I may not have much sympathy with the RIAA and their ilk -- they're big enough to look after themselves, and hardly paragons of ethical virtue -- but I have a lot of sympathy for the little guys, and there must be a lot more of them. I think it's really sad that the number of specialist DVDs being produced for my hobbies by world-class teachers is dropping fast, and I have a pretty good idea from all sides about why that is.

That all said, I think there are some inescapable conclusions if we're going to keep any hint of sanity in the legal position:

1. Infrastructure providers are facilitating widespread copyright infringement.
2. It is unrealistic to believe that there is no damage caused by the copyright infringement.
3. 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).
4. It is unrealistic to expect infrastructure providers to filter all content to prevent that copyright infringement ahead-of-time (and we probably shouldn't ask them to even if they could).
5. It is easily possible for infrastructure providers to block or remove specific content if they know what it is and where in their system to find it.
6. Requests by individuals to infrastructure providers to remove content put them in a difficult position, because again they are being asked to act as judge and jury, and potentially liable for making the wrong decision either way.

As long as our copyright system remains in something like its current form (for example, with copyright being assigned, without explicit registration, to any artist who publishes their material) I think the most realistic approach is to have a system where copyright holders can show infringements to some binding authority, which can then instruct infrastructure providers to block that particular infringement quickly to limit any damage they're helping to cause. (An infrastructure provider that fails to honour suc

Viral Ownership by the Anti-Publishers.

[twitter]

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.

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.