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How the DMCA Protects YouTube
bartle writes "Slate is running an article that analyzes the question of how much legal trouble Google may get in having bought YouTube. Not much, according to the author, and thanks seem to go to a provision in the DMCA that may provide more protection for YouTube than torrent services." From the article: "But what about Mark Cuban's copyright argument? Why isn't YouTube in trouble in the same way Napster and Grokster were? The first difference, as indicated, is that Napster simply wasn't covered by the 512 safe-harbor law, and YouTube is. Napster wasn't "hosting" information at the direction of its users, but rather providing a tool for users to find and download predominantly infringing content. It may sound odd that Napster gets in more trouble for helping you find illegal stuff than YouTube does for actually hosting it. But that's the law and why YouTube should really, really thank its friends at Bell."
Does viewing/listening to copyrighted content constitute distribution?
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
the daughters of senators and district attorneys and other rich people tell their parents that YouTube is great. Napster was a little too hard for the estemed gentleman's little princess to figure out, but YouTube isn't.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You mention Youtube...posts copyright material, safe harbor provison...Grokster, Napster; no Safe Harbor protection, for posting copyright materials and then you mention Torrent sites that post....wait. a Torrent is the copyright material itself? I thought it was merely a seed for a server-less system, that is a table, an index. Now I am confused. Is an index part of someone's copyright material now?
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
It is the law.
But that doesn't make it any less absurd.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
It isn't hard to download from youtube, it is actually quite easy. On top of that, someone can convert to Mpegs and easily distribute. Sounds to me Youtube pretty well resembles Kazza, just a couple more steps involved though.
does anybody really think that Google didn't spend a lot of time/money/lawyers figuring this stuff out BEFORE shelling out over a billion dollars for youtube? Just because the armchair QBs kept going on about the legal trouble(s) google was going to end up in, it doesn't necessarily make it true.
-- the cake is a lie
When presented with copywright holder's request to remove material, isn't it always granted? Hard to do that when you don't host it.
>Except that we have about 15 years of precedent that includes busting FTP warez servers.
Except that history is all pre-DMCA. The DMCA gives an out for those who demonstrate good faith attempts to prevent infringement and remove all reported violations.
The thing that always hurt Napster was that nobody could go to Napster's system and legitimately say that it was being used for anything other than piracy. There was a handful of legal content on there, burried in a sea of pirated files. On the other hand, YouTube is mostly non-copyrighted material.
Sure we get excerpts of the occasional TV show, clips from Olberman, and Stewart, but it's not wholesale copying and the quality is twelth rate. Nobody's going to decide to not buy a DVD of a film because they watched it on YouTube. So really I don't see YouTube having a problem. They take down content when notified that it infringes copyright and they move on.
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The real difference between napster and google. Money. Google can afford better laws and better lawyers.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
So Google [big corp XYZ] gets to take other poeples copyrighted content, and make money off of it without paying, but users cannot even share it for free.
If this wasn't business as usual, I'd be shocked.
.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
YouTube should really, really thank its friends at Bell."
maybe they should send them a cake.
OK, so the system works because Comedy Central can tell YouTube to take some infringing work down, and that wasn't the case with Napster. I remember the RIAA wanted Napster to take files down, Napster said they couldn't, then they started filtering searches or something. That makes sense.
But then...
Huh? It sounds to me like everyone's covered by this 512, but Napster couldn't hold up their end of the agreement. Nothing to do with "hosting" from what I understand, other than because they weren't hosting the files they couldn't remove offending files.
Could someone with more information clarify this?
Also, if this precedent is set, what would stop someone from setting up a "company" that hosts MP3s on a website, same as YouTube hosts videos? The RIAA would swamp the company with requests to take down specific songs, and the community could respond to it.
Since that's the only way to keep the site up, it would be in the community's best interest to take down the files within a reasonable time limit. I'm sure the files would be uploaded again, anyway. There could even be some points system for taking down offending files.
What would this achieve? Files would be shared, for one, but I'm not especially concerned with that. It would bleed the RIAA since they would have to have people request every file be removed, individually. Since they'd probably try to use software to find all files made by their artists, a CAPTCHA could be used to ensure a real person is making the requests.
I'd love for youtube to start responding to DMCA takedown notices the way google does:
In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 videos(s) from this page. If you wish, you may view the video that the DMCA complaint was registered against here
Think about it...how could I possibly know *which* video infringes a copyright unless I can see it for myself, for educational purposes?
Of course it wouldn't be legal, but you can always dream :)
But that's the law and why YouTube should really, really thank its friends at Bell.
Thank them for what? It's not like the YouTube concept was a shot in the dark that just, luckily happened to have its ass saved at a critical moment by the DMCA?
It is, as it was planned.
The YouTube founders (lawyers) thought of all of these contingencies long before these journalists actually did some research into the DMCA.
News at 10:
"20 000 Liquor Stores Lucky Prohibition Over, Reporter Finds"
"GM and Ford Surprised to Find Existence of Roads All of World, Makes Business Model Possible"
"Mozilla Foundation Happy To Find Compatible Network Exists for New Browser, "Internet" Apparently Worldwide"
"Linux Founder Finds Millions Of Computers Compatible With Operating System, Coincidence Drives Growing Userbase"
What the authors of the DMCA didn't realize is that you enforce copyright at your own peril in todays world.
The RIAA pissed away a $10B+ opportunity by not blanket licensing the original Napster. Now they're on their last lap around the bowl. The MPAA will suffer a similar fate if they try and push their bought and paid for copyright nonsense too much further. Google knows exactly what its doing and exposing the absurdity of DMCA is a great first step.
I think Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert and the execs at Comedy Central are smart enough to realize that having short low quality clips of their shows is really free advertising and viral marketing. They get a larger audience, more exposure and sell more DVD's/whatever because YouTube exposes their product to many people who wouldn't otherwise have watched. Nobody is selling YouTube clips on DVD-R's at the flea market or on the street.
In fact one of the most valuable services GooTube could offer us is a list of companies who, in their "piracy is theft, we lost $100B, the world is coming to an end, waaaaaaaaaaah" paranoia, actually send takedown notices.
It would let us know who the clueless idiots (most of MPAA/RIAA) are.
I would be very surprised if Comedy Central ever sends a takedown notice to YouTube. They strike me as a reasonable bunch. (Funny too.)
The rest of the asshats can shoot themselves in the foot all they want as far as I'm concerned.
A similar legal exemption applies in Europe, where you are exempt from liability for material in respect of which you are the "host", a "mere conduit" (which would cover your ISP). There's also an exemption for "caching", but that only covers caching for the purpose of improving performance, rather than, say, Google's website cache (which would infringe copyright if hosted in Europe).
The hosting exemption is subject to "notice and take down" provisions, which I gather also apply in the US. Ironically, the wording of the EU law means YouTube would increase its liability were it to monitor content for copyright violations - because you only need to look at YouTube for 15 seconds to come across material that self-evidently infringes copyright, and the moment YouTube is aware of infringing material then (under the EU law) it would be required to take it down "expeditiously" even if it has not received any complaint from a copyright owner. One of those areas where ignorance can be bliss.
But the bottom line is that, without these exemptions, the internet would be unworkable. No ISP or website host could remain in business for five minutes if it was potentially liable for material it hosted or transmitted. And without these laws, the ISP or host would be liable in many cases (eg for hosting child pr0n).