Slashdot Mirror
YouTube No Friend of Copyright Violators
ncstockguy writes "YouTube appears to be fully aware of their copyright vulnerability and is now actively moving to head that problem off. They're now taking active steps to aid copyright holders in pursuing litigation against violators." From the article: "Its prompt legal capitulation suggests that YouTube users who post copyrighted material should not expect the company to protect them from media-business lawsuits, said Colton, whose firm wasn't involved in the Paramount subpoena or lawsuit and who learned of them from a MarketWatch reporter. The 'Twin Towers' episode is reminiscent of the way the entertainment industry vanquished the first version of Napster Inc. and other digital-music sites that made it easy to download copyrighted songs over the Internet. Music company lawyers first warned and then sued individual users who downloaded their songs. Now it looks like piracy hunters for the movie studios are using the same technique against YouTube users."
Will clips from shows like the Simpsons and the Family Guy start disappearing from youtube? I believe they are legal due to fair use. But we all know how copyright holders feel about that these days.
There's nothing special about YouTube to keep people there and away from their competitors. Once they earn a reputation like this, I think we'll quickly see a mass migration to more "people friendly" sites. Whether they want it or not, the anti-establishment teens are going to see them as corporate shills and take their eyeballs elsewhere.
When these people posted the videos, they affirmed that they had the right to do so. That certainly opens them up to legal trouble if they did not. I don't know how long the concept of intellectual property will hold out, but until that point everyone needs to be careful about what they upload.
IANAL or other IP professional, but how would excerpting copyright materials for public display fall under fair use? The audience is undifferentiated (this ain't "education") and advertizers (depending on where the clip is embedded) are potentially reaping the rewards of the traffic generated without license or authorization.
Or did you mean "fair" in the sense of actual fairness? This, sadly, is only a distant cousin of "fair use" fair.
These stories are free but worth money.
You're making the presumption that Google intended to keep Youtube as it was when they bought it.
Seriously, Youtube kicked Google Video's butt in the market. Google realized that if you can't beat 'em, you should join them. So they bought off Youtube, and now their major competitor is themselves. They can do whatever they want with Youtube because it can only be positive for Google Video.
Being Google, I don't expect them to shut the doors like Oracle & PeopleSoft. Rather, I expect that Google will aim to take whatever it is that makes Youtube successful, and merge it with the Google Video backend. In theory, this fusion would improve both services. In practice... well.... (*rocks open hand*) eh, we'll see.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
These guys are scam merchants of unparalleled skill.
Invite the world to post whatever they like on your site, take the massive bandwidth costs on the chin thanks to the venture capital money. Gain countless users virtually overnight due to your easy-to-use site and cavalier attitude to copyright law. Sell the site to a competitor keen to see you out of the market so they can have it to themselves, get yourself a ridiculous amount of Google shares. Days after selling the site, turn on the users that have just made you mind-bogglingly rich, and watch them desert in their millions while you laugh all the way to the bank, leaving the people that have just bought your site with a worthless asset.
Google: you've been mugged.
I've got some google stock and it has done nothing but go up (when it hasn't been going down) and I was wondering what exactly they were thinking. Well. I've noticed that many news sites including slate.com are using YouTube as sort of repository for things they dare not touch but like to have the reader look at. take for instance the recent article on Weird Al (http://www.slate.com/id/2151657/?nav=tap3). It's a great article and is made immensely better by the ability to look at the videos the guy is talking about. If this doesn't sell more stuff for Weird Al and his corporate company than I don't understand advertising (if I don't get it, please explain, because I will be impressed if you can).
:)
What I am trying to say is that I think (and this has been said before) that Google and YouTube are betting on the fact that there is no such thing as bad press, i.e., anything that gets you out in the public is a good thing and that media companies will in the long run benefit: Think of comedy central and all the clips of The Daily Show that seem to be there. Don't tell me that doesn't turn on more viewers to the real show or tell me and then explain why it wouldn't.
Ie. Media companies benefit from exposure which gains them sells. This is called advertising. YouTube is the best advertising vehicle I've seen in a long time and because of this, Business perception will change. Or we can hope.
Sigs are dangerous coy things
Ya got me. But I never understand this stuff. Years ago, before there were any, I was approached to develop a live online poker site. I declined, saying it will never work because you can't stop people from cheating. And you can't, but it turned out not to matter. Then a few years ago I was approached to develop an site similar to youtube, and I said it would never work because people will always post copyrighted material and you'll get sued into oblivion.
How's that for business acumen? ;-)
Paying to see to it that your competition is destroyed is not a waste of money.
---
YouTube just jumped the shark!
Could you let me know next time you're presented with another unworkable idea you want to turn down? I'd kinda like to become rich and famous.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
In the world where typos are common and people dont proof read. That world.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They buy YouTube, and with a little tightening of the noose, they're removed as a threat and they've been made an example of for anyone else who thinks to follow - for example, Microsoft.
Google can then move into this market at will. I'm all for draconian copyright enforcement, because it will lead to widespread civil disobedience and ultimately, a changing of the laws in what the public deems it's interest. It needs to get a little worse still, but the seeds are already there.
..don't panic
1. Acquire YouTube.
2. Do a merge-and-sort operation on YouTube with GoogleVideo.
3. Heavily promote the new service.
4. Publicize attacks from copyright-holders, while staving them off with court delays, offers of settlements, etc.
5. Repeat 3. and 4. until the great unwashed masses wake up to the annoying disconnect between what they want to do and what some rich bastards will let them do, and because Google has been telling them a lot lately, they realize that this is due to those rich bastards having bought copyright laws.
6. Use the popular momentum to get the parts of copyright law that are bothersome to Google's business--and probably, also those parts that the removal of which wouldn't harm Google's business--carved out.