YouTube Finds Signing Rights Deals Frustrating

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "YouTube executives are finding it a slog to get all of the necessary permissions to license the songs and shows users are putting on the popular site, the Wall Street Journal reports. 'YouTube or its partners must locate parties ranging from studios to actors, and from music composers to the owners of venues, and get them to sign off. Where they don't succeed, YouTube risks being hit with lawsuits or having to take popular content down. "It's such a mess because the [entertainment companies] have all of these valuable assets that are just locked up with so many people who need to sign off on them," says YouTube Chief Executive Chad Hurley. "I don't know what it requires, if the government needs to be involved," Mr. Hurley laughs. "I don't know."'"

Comments

Government?

[j00r0m4nc3r]

It's not the government's job to sort out your stupid business problems, Chad. It's not the taxpayer's responsibility to pay to fix your copyright violations, Chad.

Re:Government?

[drinkypoo]

It's not the government's job to sort out your stupid business problems, Chad. It's not the taxpayer's responsibility to pay to fix your copyright violations, Chad.

What you're missing here is that it's the government's fault for creating our system of copyright without instituting systems to make it simpler.

Now, a lot of the stuff on Youtube is just other people's content that's been put up without their permission. This stuff being on youtube has little cultural value simply because it's available through other avenues, it's not like they're preserving our cultural heritage. But other things, like a music video made by being cobbled together from various sources, can actually be a culturally valuable work - I won't go into how and why, because either you agree or you don't and I'm not going to change your mind here. Obviously most examples of this particular genre are crap.

Our conception of copyright is hampering creativity, not enabling it. The idea of laws is that they are supposed to be in the public interest. If they are not, they should not exist. Hampering creativity is not in the public interest. The government should either streamline copyright, or do away with it entirely. Instead, copyright has been extended twice. A tree jumped out in front of one of the responsible assholes and took care of him, but it was far too late (trees don't move very fast, so it makes sense.) But really we should be looking at the whole concept of copyright and deciding without the assistance of the media conglomerates whether or not it's even a valid concept.

Re:Government?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> The idea of laws is that they are supposed to be in the public interest.

Laws should protect individuals, not societies.

Re:Government?

[mochan_s]

You should think of the other side as well.

An amusing clip made an amateur piecing together work done by professionals with lots of skill who devoted a lot of time in making the work is more valueable than the work of the professionals?

I'm not saying I'm wholly supporting copyright but at the quality and amount of media that the US creates compared to other countries, they must be doing something right. The media cartel is terrible I agree too but maybe copyright isn't related to them.

The question is how do we know relaxing copyright would do harm than good?

I'm just suggesting the other side. It's a bad idea to fall in love with an idea and not examine the other side.

Re:Government?

[nosilA]

Keep in mind that the big problems come when a person puts up their own video with a song playing in the background, or takes a Bush speech and intersperses it with animations, or reenacts Star Wars with puppets. Some of these uses *might* be covered by fair use, but many are not. There are two big problems with being able to do something like YouTube does - figuring out who all of the copyright owner(s) are in a particular video, and negotiating a conract with said owners. The government's supposed role in here would be to reduce transaction costs by doing one of the following:

a) Compulsory license system, as they do with radio stations' "public performance" of copyrighted works,
b) Change the law to allow for a copyright escrow system, wherein a site like YouTube could said aside money for claims of copyright infringement by unknown parties,
c) Reinstate a copyright registration requirement (for US-created works - the Berne Convention prohibits this for foreign works)

There may be other solutions, but the point is that copyright law is too complex for businesspeople (even lawyers) to understand.

Re:Government?

[ajs]

It most certainly is the government's responsibility! Copyright law is there to serve the public good by promoting work that is of a benefit to everyone. Copyright is failing to do that in some stunning ways, and has instead become a vehicle for large corporations to continue to milk profits out of their OLD work more than a generation after it was created. That's actually contrary to the stated purpose in the Constitution.

IMHO, the laws should be written such that "violation" of copyright is always permitted unless someone complains (thus, you can't be put in jail for violating the DMCA or sued for other copyright related laws) and sent you a cese and decist letter first, which you ignored. Second, licensing should be automatic. That is, You Tube should be able to pay the copyright-holder-of-record or put aside a fund for a copyright holder to claim from, in an amount that is based on a percentage of the gross revenue associated with the infringement. This amount should be high, but not punative (maybe 25-30%), essentially allowing You Tube (only as a single example) to operate, but incenting licensing negotiation for better deals.

Of course, we all know that life+n years is unworkable, as we've all read far too many very thoughtful people write essays on the subject of the harm that that does to the commons. I think it's prety obvious, based on that, that Byrne and other treaties need to be re-negotiated, and laws changed to reflect a more reasonable period. I could see a case for 40 years, but I think the scale needs to be more flexible for those elements that are part of our cultural makeup. Perhaps 20 years, renewable twice, but with an automatic expiration if it is determined to be one of the top 1000 or so most circulated items after the first renewal period starts. That way, if a movie becomes so iconic that nearly everyone owns a copy (e.g. Star Wars), then it would expire around 20 years later, after the owner has clearly made enough money to have rewarded his or her investment of time and energy, and it is now of more value to the culture to release it than to continue to reward one person. Think about that. Star Wars: A New Hope, under this scheme, would have been public domain starting in 1997. Empire in 2000. Lucas was stupidly rich by that point, and would only lose the copyright IF he was stupidly rich. It's a perfect, self-correcting system, lacking only a government system of tracking the most widely circulated copyrighted works, which would also be a boon for the consumer and artist (as current industry tracking is designed to promote specific items and limit rewards to artists).

Re:Government?

[RobotRunAmok]

What you're missing here is that it's the government's fault for creating our system of copyright without instituting systems to make it simpler.



And what you are missing is that outfits like YouTube and Google can't just erase the current distribution contracts and copyright laws by virtue of some rapidly developed, virally distributed and generally groovy and ginchy technology. If I signed away the distribution rights to my glorious creative work to some e-e-e-e-vil media conglomerate last year, well, that's my problem. Chad, Sergei, and the great Slashdot unwashed can simply butt the fsck out.

I know many artists and entertainers who are re-thinking their distribution deals...going forward. Hell, everyone I know is. It's a new era, the genie is out of the bottle, the times they are a-changin', etc. etc. But you just can't morally grab a TV show whose producer sold into syndication through, say, Fox or DIC and distribute it yourself and not expect to pay a lot of people their percentages and residuals.

This is the entertainment business, Chad. Not a friggin' server farm.

Re:Government?

[lordmetroid]

I find American produced media to be utterly crap! Obviously US are doing something wrong... The thing is that USA has lots of people which equals more profit so it can produce more media. But I assure you the common man has no use of the copyright.

Re:Government?

[Castar]

I bet the whole "maybe the government needs to get involved" line is just put out there to scare content holders into playing nice. I bet it's tough for YouTube to get any respect from the content industry, and they're essentially saying "wouldn't it be a shame if we had to sic Regulators on you?" I imagine, faced with that prospect, content holders will be jumping over themselves to make it easier to get content.

Re:Government?

[IAmTheDave]

And what you are missing is that outfits like YouTube and Google can't just erase the current distribution contracts and copyright laws by virtue of some rapidly developed, virally distributed and generally groovy and ginchy technology.

Although one has to wonder if that's at least partially what Google had in mind when they purchased YouTube. Google has been pushing copyright "rights" to the limit for years - caching of web pages, Google Images, scanning and indexing of books, providing results to pages that violate copyright, etc.

Google seems pretty bent on reforming the copyright system (or ignoring it all together) and it almost seems like Apple+Google make a really good team for pulling our antiquated system forward a few steps. Apple started the charge, really, with the iTunes music store, but Google has really stepped up the controversy.

There's nothing wrong with - in a capitalist-based society - a few heavy-hitter businesses fighting it out. It's Google+Apple vs RIAA+MPAA - and the **AAs want government involvement for protection, instead of letting the market "work itself out." So instead of the market being formed by the consumers, we see battle lines forming with govn't support on certain sides.

I'm not a full free-market-to-the-max kinda guy, but I certainly don't mind seeing Google ride roughshod over content companies at ludicrous speed - because it will hopefully eventually force copyright laws into some fashion in which the people of this country - and many countries - would like to see it.

The RIAA/MPAA etc. have always turned to the govn't for protection like they're their Daddy. Please protect me from big-bad cassette tapes, VCR tapes, writable CDs, file-sharing, etc. It's time that the RIAA/MPAA stand up for themselves, and see if they can win in the marketplace without government holding its hand.

Sorry... </endrant>

Re:Government?

[drinkypoo]

An amusing clip made an amateur piecing together work done by professionals with lots of skill who devoted a lot of time in making the work is more valueable than the work of the professionals?

Most of the time, yes. Have you seen the shit on TV these days?

I understand the establishment's point of view. They want to protect their profits eternally and they don't give a fuck if something is part of the cultural lexicon. Mickey Mouse is a part of american culture, why should Disney have the right to control our culture? Remember, copyright was designed to be run on a limited-time basis because we KNEW that having copyrights that ran on eternally would be harmful to innovation. At some point, you can't create anything new that's not overly similar to things which are already covered by copyright, so copyrights must expire - but if the lords of media have their way, then copyrights will never expire.

Think of the important cultural works that project gutenberg provides us - that will all end with a cutoff at about WWII if the copyright moguls have their way.

Copyright should be scaled back to ten years at the most.

Re:Government?

[Haeleth]

You should think of the other side as well.
An amusing clip made an amateur piecing together work done by professionals with lots of skill who devoted a lot of time in making the work is more valueable than the work of the professionals?

Who said it was more valuable? The point is not that it is priceless, but rather that it is not worthless.

It is a creative activity, and the purpose of copyright law is to promote creative activities, not to protect the jobs of professionals. We must encourage creativity from everyone, even those who turn out not to be very good at it; universal participation is the only way to guarantee that the talented will discover their abilities in time to contribute to society. If copyright law has evolved into something that is more concerned with protecting existing works than with incentivising new works -- if it has evolved into something that is stifling any form of creative expression, no matter how trivial or pointless you may think that form -- then it is broken, and should be fixed.

Besides, your "amateur piecing together work done by professionals" may be another person's "subversive genius deconstructing modern culture". Consider Duchamp's Fountain, one of the most significant sculptures of the 20th century; to a connoiseur of ceramics, no doubt it's just an amateur rotating a urinal that was manufactured by professionals with lots of skill who devoted a lot of time to developing that urinal, but for some reason more people remember the guy who rotated it than the guy who actually designed it...

The question is how do we know relaxing copyright would do harm than good?

Assuming you intended to ask "how do we know whether it would do more harm or more good", the answer is that we don't know, but we can make a fairly shrewd guess by looking at history. From history, we see that lax copyright has rarely prevented creative geniuses from producing amazing works of art.

For example, Shakespeare's works were constantly copied, with poor-quality pirate editions often hitting the streets before his authorized publishers had finished setting their type. This did not prevent him from writing more plays. On the contrary, it created a situation where he had to keep writing more plays to earn a living! If Shakespeare lived today, he could just write Hamlet and then retire, secure in the knowledge that he, his children, and even his grandchildren would have a secure source of income from the royalties. He wouldn't have any pressing financial reason to write e.g. King Lear. Perhaps he'd write it anyway; perhaps he wouldn't. People are motivated by things other than money. The point is that copyright law deals primarily with money, and modern copyright law would reduce, rather than increase, the financial incentive for a modern Shakespeare to continue to produce plays.

Can you think of any counter-examples? Are there any geniuses we can identify who only produced great works of art because they would be protected by copyright, or geniuses who refused to produce great works of art because they considered copyright protections inadequate?

Re:Government?

[mochan_s]

Yes I agree with you but I was not talking about the length of the copyright but what consititues copyright and it's uses and allowances.

Re:Government?

[geoffspear]

Apple started the charge, really, with the iTunes music store

Oh please. iTunes affects the copyright system about as much as Amazon selling CDs on the Internet does.

Re:Government?

[Znork]

"can't just erase the current distribution contracts and copyright laws"

Expecting government run welfare programs like copyright to remain unchanged and in place indefinitely isn't particularly realistic. If you're signing away the rights to your welfare check for the next several years to some media conglomerate, well, then neither you nor they should be surprised if the reasons for handing out that check at all are reevaluated.

Re:Government?

[mochan_s]

Who said it was more valuable? The point is not that it is priceless, but rather that it is not worthless.

It is a creative activity, and the purpose of copyright law is to promote creative activities, not to protect the jobs of professionals. We must encourage creativity from everyone, even those who turn out not to be very good at it; universal participation is the only way to guarantee that the talented will discover their abilities in time to contribute to society. If copyright law has evolved into something that is more concerned with protecting existing works than with incentivising new works -- if it has evolved into something that is stifling any form of creative expression, no matter how trivial or pointless you may think that form -- then it is broken, and should be fixed.

Besides, your "amateur piecing together work done by professionals" may be another person's "subversive genius deconstructing modern culture". Consider Duchamp's Fountain, one of the most significant sculptures of the 20th century; to a connoiseur of ceramics, no doubt it's just an amateur rotating a urinal that was manufactured by professionals with lots of skill who devoted a lot of time to developing that urinal, but for some reason more people remember the guy who rotated it than the guy who actually designed it...

Most of the media people use are produced by professionals and copyright ensures that aspring artists have a way to make a living. Sorry, I've never heard of the example you gave. You really can't be serious about universal participation thing.

Assuming you intended to ask "how do we know whether it would do more harm or more good", the answer is that we don't know, but we can make a fairly shrewd guess by looking at history. From history, we see that lax copyright has rarely prevented creative geniuses from producing amazing works of art.

For example, Shakespeare's works were constantly copied, with poor-quality pirate editions often hitting the streets before his authorized publishers had finished setting their type. This did not prevent him from writing more plays. On the contrary, it created a situation where he had to keep writing more plays to earn a living! If Shakespeare lived today, he could just write Hamlet and then retire, secure in the knowledge that he, his children, and even his grandchildren would have a secure source of income from the royalties. He wouldn't have any pressing financial reason to write e.g. King Lear. Perhaps he'd write it anyway; perhaps he wouldn't. People are motivated by things other than money. The point is that copyright law deals primarily with money, and modern copyright law would reduce, rather than increase, the financial incentive for a modern Shakespeare to continue to produce plays.

Can you think of any counter-examples? Are there any geniuses we can identify who only produced great works of art because they would be protected by copyright, or geniuses who refused to produce great works of art because they considered copyright protections inadequate?

Even artists who do it for the sake of it must be supported. You can't expect someone to work at McDonalds at day and write plays at night with no expectation that it would ever change. Even at universities, tenure and the whole assistant, associate etc are dangled. I don't know how stuff worked during Shakespeare's era.

However, it Shakespeare was alive today, maybe he would write his first play, make lots of money that he could devote all his time to further writing plays only and actually end up writing more plays?

Re:Government?

[eno2001]

The main problem with your worthless comment is that all of these artifical restrictions keep getting in the way of societal and technological progress. And for what? EXTREME profit. Who gives a shit if someone makes $600,000 one year instead of the $550,000 they made the previous year? The fact is that when you're dealing with the kind of income that the people at the top of the entertainment industry make (again for very little work on their part), it's very hard to realistically justify having to pick nits just to make sure they get their extra $50,000. But you sound just like the kind of fucking numbnut who thinks that just making money is the only reason for being. Sorry, but some of us are here to live and hopefully living free of the restraints of a cash based world.

Re:Government?

[Znork]

"Second, licensing should be automatic."

Why not simply go all the way? YouTube paying IP 'VAT' of 25-30% on sales revenue, registering number of downloads per work, and then letting a government agency handle the payouts to the creators of works instead. No more difficult producer versus distributor versus customer relationship remaining; it becomes just another ordinary system of the (more or less) democratic state, with a budget, where you can argue for or against tax raises or cuts, where you can argue for or against the levels of payouts to creators, etc.

Get rid of the whole idea of 'monopoly rights'; they're an abberant artifact from an age of nobles, kings and merchant guilds. IP is just another state-run incentive system, and as such it needs to be brought into this century. Or even last century.

Re:Government?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of like how having to get permissions from all the kernel developers over the years to convert their license to GPL v3. Why shouldn't we be allowed to "upgrade" their license for them, just because they created the content, does that mean they should prevent me from doing something with it that is for what I believe is for the greater good. Screw them and their beliefs, we like minded people should impose our moral view onto them, because we are superior.

And your point about money is spot on, people should be judged on how much money they make, we should make it a point to redistribute the wealth of people. If you make more at your job writing code all day, you should have to forego it to pay the janitor because without him, the company would grind to a halt. If anyone has money more money than others we should intentionally prevent them from making more as that's the best way for society. Instead of trying to increase the base level of our society, the need to realize the base if just fine but we simply need tear down the top of society as they don't deserve being better than anyone else

Re:Government?

[everett]

Isn't the likeness of Mickey Mouse trademarked by disney and not copyrighted?

Re:Government?

[jeremy_hogan]

> It's not the government's job to sort out your stupid business problems

It is their job to un-fuck copyright law, though.

--jeremy

Re:Government?

[drinkypoo]

AFAIK he's covered by both, but what I'm talking about is stuff like Steamboat Willie which IIRC would already be public domain if not for copyright extensions. Thus, media from Steamboat Willie would be fair game as long as you weren't using any trademarked character to represent your company. Thus (as I understand it) you could sell tee shirts with pictures of mickey pulled from steamboat willie on them, but you couldn't put steamboat mickey in your corporate logo.

Re:Government?

[eno2001]

What are you smoking dude. You sound like a freakin' commie nutjob.

Re:Government?

[drinkypoo]

Sorry, I've never heard of the example you gave. You really can't be serious about universal participation thing.

Because you're poorly versed in art, his artistic example is invalid?

However, it Shakespeare was alive today, maybe he would write his first play, make lots of money that he could devote all his time to further writing plays only and actually end up writing more plays?

Uh, William did devote all his time to writing more plays, once he got into it in the first place. Well, when he wasn't acting, or possibly evading punishment for poaching. Google is your friend. Use it.

Re:Government?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should re-read your previous statement and think about what *you* were smoking.

Re:Government?

[eno2001]

I'm a totally rational American who supports honest business that's good for the little guy, not the big guy. The big guy doesn't need any help. Plain and simple. I'm not calling for the dismantling of the capialist system like you seem to be.

Re:Government?

[Stanistani]

>A tree jumped out in front of one of the responsible assholes and took care of him

Ents! Ents killed Sonny Bono!

*runs away screaming in terror*

Re:Government?

[Registered Coward v2]

What you're missing here is that it's the government's fault for creating our system of copyright without instituting systems to make it simpler.

It is pretty straight forward - you decide what music / video etc. you want to use and you clear the rights for that use; or you don't use it. Nothing hard about that other than many people blithely ignore copyrights when they create something. YouTube's problem is that they have thousands of people uploading copyrighted material and they (YouTube):

a) Don't want the liability for copyright violations while still
b) hosting the material and making money off of it and
c) don't want to be constantly taking down material they are told violates copyrights because that will interfere with b above.

In short, they want it both ways.

Re:Government?

[shark72]

"Our conception of copyright is hampering creativity, not enabling it."

I see this stated a lot, usually in an abstract sense. I can't think of any examples where copyright law has hampered my creativity -- if I want to see that movie or have a copy of that song, I either pay or don't, and go on with my life. Can you cite an example of how copyright law has hampered your creativity?

"Instead, copyright has been extended twice."

Not sure what you mean here -- do you mean "twice in my lifetime?" Terms were increased under US law in 1831, 1909, 1976, and 1998. We also became a Berne signatory at some point in the 1990s, but the Berne "life plus 50" is about 100 years old.

"Instead, copyright has been extended twice. A tree jumped out in front of one of the responsible assholes and took care of him, but it was far too late (trees don't move very fast, so it makes sense.)"

The Sony Bono Term Extension Act was named posthumously in honor of Messr. Bono. It was not named thusly because he created the act. You're correct that he was an asshole, but not for the reason you mention.

Re:Government?

[shark72]

"I'm a totally rational American who supports honest business that's good for the little guy, not the big guy. The big guy doesn't need any help. Plain and simple. I'm not calling for the dismantling of the capialist system like you seem to be."

I agree. YouTube's parent company's stock price is $471 per share. Their operating margin is 34% on revenue of almost ten billion dollars a year. And they're complaining because it's tough to get permission from actors and music composers -- people in a profession where the unemployment rate is > 90% and average incomes are less than $10K a year? Oh, please...

What amazes me is that many people in this discussion are advocating changing the law to make it easier for this ten billion dollar company to run over the rights of actors and composers.

Re:Government?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

IMHO, the laws should be written such that "violation" of copyright is always permitted unless someone complains (thus, you can't be put in jail for violating the DMCA or sued for other copyright related laws) and sent you a cese and decist letter first, which you ignored.

Which would be fine, except that the kind of damage potentially caused during the period between the infringement starting, and the rightsholder noticing and going through the motions to get the material taken down, is staggering in the Internet age. Copyright can no longer realistically be enforced as a civil matter in an age of near-instantaneous, near-zero-cost mass-distribution. Protecting the principle of copyright requires a faster, more direct approach.

Second, licensing should be automatic. That is, You Tube should be able to pay the copyright-holder-of-record or put aside a fund for a copyright holder to claim from, in an amount that is based on a percentage of the gross revenue associated with the infringement. This amount should be high, but not punative (maybe 25-30%), essentially allowing You Tube (only as a single example) to operate, but incenting licensing negotiation for better deals.

Thanks. I'd like the rights to the Linux kernel, OpenOffice, Firefox and everything the FSF has ever provided, please. Where shall I send the cheque?

Re:Government?

[WilliamSChips]

Most of the little guys have already signed their rights away to Universal, Sony, etc. Those are the ones YouTube is working with now.

Re:Government?

[triffid_98]

How about out of print books. They're copyrighted, so it's not legal to distribute them, but whomever it is that owns the rights won't sell you one either.

And since this is youTube, yes this also applies to movies/songs. If the content owners would like a monopoly on content, they should be required to sell the content.

"Our conception of copyright is hampering creativity, not enabling it." I see this stated a lot, usually in an abstract sense. I can't think of any examples where copyright law has hampered my creativity -- if I want to see that movie or have a copy of that song, I either pay or don't, and go on with my life. Can you cite an example of how copyright law has hampered your creativity?

Re:Government?

[cpt kangarooski]

Most of the media people use are produced by professionals and copyright ensures that aspring artists have a way to make a living. Sorry, I've never heard of the example you gave. You really can't be serious about universal participation thing.

The world doesn't owe anyone a living. Copyright law is meant to provide for the public interest, not to help artists. It just happens to help artists in the process. What it doesn't care about is professional artists v. amateurs; it only cares about artists that copyright provides an incentive for. Artists incentivized through other means (e.g. people who want to get famous, or who make art for art's sake) aren't generally affected by copyright, or if they are, often negatively.

As for the sculpture, it's basically the most famous piece of art from the dadaist movement, and very well known. Of course, I prefer L.H.O.O.Q., myself.

Even artists who do it for the sake of it must be supported.

No they needn't be, and in fact, they usually aren't. Furthermore, copyright is a bad way of doing that, since it rewards artists that make works that have commercial value, and only if they are careful and lucky in their business dealings so that that value can be realized and money will actually flow to them, which also usually isn't the case. If you merely wanted to support artists, I would suggest something like NEA grants.

You can't expect someone to work at McDonalds at day and write plays at night with no expectation that it would ever change.

Sure I can. It's extremely common. In fact, since most artists never make any money from their copyrights, that's how it usually works. I was an artist for several years, made a comfortable living from it, but copyrights were irrelevant to me; it was a trade. Very many artists make a living that way. I can certainly expect to let someone do that without having to subsidize them merely because of what they chose for their vocation.

I don't know how stuff worked during Shakespeare's era.

He was an actor as well as a writer, and managed to raise enough money to invest in the company so that he could get a share of the box office receipts. After that, he started investing in real estate. He did quite well, and didn't need a copyright. He pirated from other authors (nearly every one of his plays is based on history or someone else's earlier play or story, plus he would've performed plays other than his own) and other people pirated from him.

However, it Shakespeare was alive today, maybe he would write his first play, make lots of money that he could devote all his time to further writing plays only and actually end up writing more plays?

No, because while he was an excellent playwright, he really wasn't very creative, and relied heavily on being able to make derivatives of other people's works. If he were around today, and just as free to use other works, you'd see things like his version of Star Wars, or his version of WWII, or his version of The Philadelphia Story, etc. If he had to pay to get the rights, he'd never even get off the ground.

Also it's better medical treatment, easier writing technology, and less of a desire for plays in verse, that would really boost his productivity. You don't want to know how much time people ended wasting sharpening quills into pens.

Re:Government?

[cpt kangarooski]

That depends on the law in question. If copyright were a civil right, I'd agree. But it is not. Copyright is an artificial monopoly, like a municipal cable tv monopoly. Since it has an inherently harmful effect on the market and on everyone living in society, except for the recipient of the monopoly, who gets rich at the expense of the public, it had damn well better yield some kind of public benefit that outweighs the public harm.

Re:Government?

[cpt kangarooski]

Screw them and their beliefs, we like minded people should impose our moral view onto them, because we are superior.

No, it has more to do with being more numerous. And with copyright being a burden imposed on the population at large, and so not a burden that should be shouldered unless it is worthwhile to the public, without any concern for whether the artists like it or not.

Besides, we do this already. For example, you can make modifications to GPL'ed software without being subject to the GPL, so long as you do so within the limits of the section 117 exception.

Re:Government?

[FLEB]

Required to sell? Why?

Perhaps my work is intended as a time- or space-limited experience. Perhaps I wanted to only release a special limited edition. Copyright isn't just about commerce, it's about granting control to creators and the right to distribute as they see fit.

Re:Government?

[triffid_98]

Imagine if you will, a world where (for example) automobiles were only distributed for 5 years, and then protected by law from being created for the next 145 years. Would you seriously be ok with that?

Perhaps my work is intended as a time- or space-limited experience.

Re:Government?

[triffid_98]

What I'm suggesting is that if corporations/heirs want to control content past the original copyright statute limits, they should also be responsible for providing that the content they wish to protect is accessable. If they are unable or unwilling to do so, it should (after some reasonable period) enter the public domain so that other people can make use of it. To do otherwise goes against the original premise of copyright itself, which was to protect the creator/owner from competition. If there is no distribution by the creator/owner, such competion does not truly exist.

Perhaps my work is intended as a time- or space-limited experience. Perhaps I wanted to only release a special limited edition. Copyright isn't just about commerce, it's about granting control to creators and the right to distribute as they see fit.

Re:Government?

[drsquare]

Our conception of copyright is hampering creativity, not enabling it.

If you're talking about those awful homemade videos of various clips bolted together with the seamlessness of frankenstein, then I'm not too concerned about that being hampered.

Copyright law doesn't need to be changed just so someone can upload crap clips to youtube. If these people are so creative they should make their own videos, not just putting someone else's music over someone else's video with in a powerpoint-style slide show saying things like 'Made by Jim from Idaho' in comic sans ms.

The idea of laws is that they are supposed to be in the public interest.

Says who? The law is there to protect private individuals from the public also.

Re:Government?

[drsquare]

Most of the time, yes. Have you seen the shit on TV these days?

Have you seen the shit on TV in other countries? Those south american telenovelas make Lost look like the Godfather in comparision.

Re:Government?

[FLEB]

I could agree with that, on a freedom-of-culture sort of standpoint. I'd still say that there does need to be some control period, however, although the current implementation is far too long.

Re:Government?

[drinkypoo]

The law is there to protect private individuals from the public also.

That's because the public is made up of individuals and without them there's no public. Law is a tightrope walk between the needs of society and the needs of individuals, at least in theory. In practice it's a tug-of-war between corporations at both ends of the cable, driving bulldozers, and the citizenry is left hanging onto the rope barehanded, getting drug back and forth through the mud pit in the middle.

Re:Government?

[ajs]

Which would be fine, except that the kind of damage potentially caused during the period between the infringement starting, and the rightsholder noticing and going through the motions to get the material taken down, is staggering in the Internet age. Copyright can no longer realistically be enforced as a civil matter in an age of near-instantaneous, near-zero-cost mass-distribution. Protecting the principle of copyright requires a faster, more direct approach.

Not at all. When someone does something like that, if they're making a profit, then, as described in my OP, you would owe some percentage of your revenue to the artist (or copyright owner, though I'd rather see a system where there's some chunk of ownership that you can never remove from the artist, even by contract).

There's no "damage," here. It's a win-win.

Thanks. I'd like the rights to the Linux kernel, OpenOffice, Firefox and everything the FSF has ever provided, please. Where shall I send the cheque?

You're confusing automatic licensing (what I was suggesting) with automatic reliquishing of control of rights. Such a scheme WOULD break the GPL somewhat, but not much. It would mean that a company that wanted to embed emacs in its proprietary product, and not contribute back changes could just do so, and fork some cash over to the FSF. The FSF would hate this, but I'm not so sure it would be too much of a price to pay for a more fluid and enriching copyright model. Also, while this hurts the GPL slightly, it does nothing to licenses like the BSD license, which already gives you these rights without paying.

Still, you would be able to use, modifiy and distribute emacs under the GPL just as you do now (note that I discussed the idea of making the auto-licensing fees high, but not prohibitive, specifically to incent people to continue to write their own licenses under better terms for whatever reasons they choose).

What this would do, however, is make it reasonable for people to share their music, videos, whatever over file-sharing networks, but those networks would continue to have the problems they have today (difficult to index well, lots of crap, etc.) A centralized, well-funded effort will still continue to make sense, and profit artists, as iTunes does today.

Just goes to show you...

[Cereal Box]

The guys who sold YouTube were smart. Take the money and run, because when your business model revolves around flagrantly breaking copyright, it's not gonna last.

I suppose Google is smart enough to figure a way around it, but if not, no one's going to bother with it.

Re:Just goes to show you...

[plalonde2]

They probably don't get to just take the money and run. Most of these kinds of deals are back-loaded: you get your payout after a certain time commitment. There are usually even incentives to perform. This keeps the actual value of the company (staff and execs) from walking as soon as they get handed 1.65 billion dollars. Gads.

Re:Just goes to show you...

[TubeSteak]

The guys who sold YouTube were smart. Take the money and run, because when your business model revolves around flagrantly breaking copyright, it's not gonna last.

Actually... AFAIK, as long as YouTube was not encouraging anyone to break copyright laws and was complying with take down notices, they didn't need to screen or license jack shit.

Normally, the only person responsible for enforcing copyrights is the copyright holder.

Or am I misunderstanding something?

Re:Just goes to show you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Clean out your headgear, new guy. Google doesn't give a shit about copyrights. Their entire business revolves around redisplaying other people's content, not to mention caching other people's content. Without any permission AT. ALL.

Where in copyright law does google get the right to do this? Sure, many websites WANT google to crawl them and to display them in search results. But nonetheless, google is redistributing (copying) copyrighted material part and parcel without any right to do so under U.S. copyright law. YouTube is just an extension of this. Google couldn't give a rat's fuck about it.

Re:Just goes to show you...

[ScentCone]

Their entire business revolves around redisplaying other people's content, not to mention caching other people's content. Without any permission AT. ALL.

Correct.

A little salty, but correct. Which makes their "don't be evil" posture not so much ironic, as extremely clarifying in terms of the philosophy that drives their ethics.

Re:Just goes to show you...

[Cereal Box]

Well, the "run" part isn't necessarily literal. They got the money, that's what matters. If they'd waited it out, more and more problems like these would've come to light and the value of YouTube would've dwindled accordingly.

Re:Just goes to show you...

[plalonde2]

But my point is that these same guys who built the mess are likely forced (financially) to be there to clean it up or find solutions to cleaning it up; I suspect the financial incentives to do so are considerable. Think of it more as "they will get" the money.

Re:Just goes to show you...

[Cartack]

Youtube hasn't even begun to see its true potential/value yet... the founders may have made a handsome profit, but i think google will have the last laugh, write it down.

Re:Just goes to show you...

[StewedSquirrel]

Copyright law is broken.

It is supposed to stir innovation, but it is now stifles innovation in the name of profit.

Swell.

Google, despite their failings, is still a decent company IMO.

Stew

Re:Just goes to show you...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

[Copyright law] is supposed to stir innovation, but it is now stifles innovation in the name of profit.

I'm sorry, you've lost me. How do a load of people who can't be bothered to pay the asking price for the material like everyone else innovate in any way?

Re:Just goes to show you...

[shark72]

"A little salty, but correct. Which makes their "don't be evil" posture not so much ironic, as extremely clarifying in terms of the philosophy that drives their ethics."

I think for many Slashdotters the moral decision comes down to this:

Typical record company: sales of maybe $500M / year (okay, so that's higher than average; I'm not including all the little indie labels). Operating margin below 15%. Treats content creators like crap. Wants to sell us stuff. Thus, they are bad.

Google: sales of ten billion per year. Operating margin of 30%. Treats content creators like crap. Wants to give stuff away. Thus, they are good.

Again, Google made about three billion in cash last year. TFS states that it's a hassle for the company with the $475 share price to get rights from "actors and music composers." Actors and composers make on average less than $10,000 per year, and must deal with a 90% unemployment rate. Yet the sympathies here are clearly with Google, the ten billion dollar company, because they give things away.

Re:Just goes to show you...

[Mike89]

How do a load of people who can't be bothered to pay the asking price for the material like everyone else innovate in any way?

How about material that isn't available though? For example, the majority of concerts are not released on DVDs. I was lucky enough to have one of the exact concerts I atteneded to come to DVD (albeit 6 months later). However, the concert I went to that DIDN'T, got bootlegged. Not only by me, but everyone I know who attended it. I think one of the things piracy is "good for", if that expression is appropriate, is getting content that isn't available when you want it. For example, I miss a TV show episode (especially in a sequential show where there's an actual stroyline), what am I supposed to do? The DVD won't be out yet, so I go out and find myself a torrent. There's no other way. Perhaps iTunes *might* have it, but at this stage torrents are still superiour. The same thing with movies, to a lesser extent. There is a massive gap between cinema showing a film and it coming to video stores (this is in Australia). So what do I do? Grab a copy of the DVD that's already released there (USA). Not sure why they dont do it at the same time, but whatever. Failing that, I'll sit through a Telesync of the movie if need be, just to see it. That being said, if I *like* it I'll still probably get it on DVD, but keep my 'pirated' copy, because it's so much more versatile - I have like 100 films I actually like on my PC, simply because it's so easy to load them up, or put them in a playlist for a movie marathon, or even better I can load DivX/XviD files STRAIGHT ONTO my Zen Vision M and take that with me, with or without AV cables, and watch it anywhere I want. I don't see DRMed files or anything like that allowing this, and it's not like it's fun ripping DVDs is much fun either, especially since they trying to keep stop us from doing it. They're scaring away legit customers - for example, my Dad can no longer use his of buying a DVD from the store, then burning a copy for use and keeping the original safe and scratch free from the 3 younger kids. So, instead of buying DVDs, he tells me what to rent from the video store and I burn that. I suppose if one day we came across a disc that wasn't locked down to the wazoo he'd go and buy it like he used to, but until then, bad luck MPAA.

Re:Just goes to show you...

[Mike89]

Oops, sorry, should've previewed before hitting submit. Here it is with paragraphs, so your eyes dont bleed.

How do a load of people who can't be bothered to pay the asking price for the material like everyone else innovate in any way?

How about material that isn't available though? For example, the majority of concerts are not released on DVDs. I was lucky enough to have one of the exact concerts I atteneded to come to DVD (albeit 6 months later). However, the concert I went to that DIDN'T, got bootlegged. Not only by me, but everyone I know who attended it.

I think one of the things piracy is "good for", if that expression is appropriate, is getting content that isn't available when you want it. For example, I miss a TV show episode (especially in a sequential show where there's an actual stroyline), what am I supposed to do? The DVD won't be out yet, so I go out and find myself a torrent. There's no other way. Perhaps iTunes *might* have it, but at this stage torrents are still superiour.

The same thing with movies, to a lesser extent. There is a massive gap between cinema showing a film and it coming to video stores (this is in Australia). So what do I do? Grab a copy of the DVD that's already released there (USA). Not sure why they dont do it at the same time, but whatever. Failing that, I'll sit through a Telesync of the movie if need be, just to see it. That being said, if I *like* it I'll still probably get it on DVD, but keep my 'pirated' copy, because it's so much more versatile - I have like 100 films I actually like on my PC, simply because it's so easy to load them up, or put them in a playlist for a movie marathon, or even better I can load DivX/XviD files STRAIGHT ONTO my Zen Vision M and take that with me, with or without AV cables, and watch it anywhere I want. I don't see DRMed files or anything like that allowing this, and it's not like it's fun ripping DVDs is much fun either, especially since they trying to keep stop us from doing it.

They're scaring away legit customers - for example, my Dad can no longer use his of buying a DVD from the store, then burning a copy for use and keeping the original safe and scratch free from the 3 younger kids. So, instead of buying DVDs, he tells me what to rent from the video store and I burn that. I suppose if one day we came across a disc that wasn't locked down to the wazoo he'd go and buy it like he used to, but until then, bad luck MPAA.

Re:Just goes to show you...

[cpt kangarooski]

It's a good point you make, but the earlier poster made a mistake. He ought to've said that copyright law is supposed to maximize the public good, but that it now fails to do so, in the name of profit. Remember of course that the public good isn't merely the creation of original works (though that is part of it), but that it is also the creation of derivative works, and freedom to use, enjoy, copy, etc. those works.

Re:Just goes to show you...

[Treates2]

hmm.. google would be my hero if they turned their noses up too all the pussies who claim copyfright infringment like they did the pussy governments..

haha me so glad google is run in california.. we should break away from united states to hang with hawaii and alaska! haha

Re:Just goes to show you...

[bit01]

... innovate in any way?

It gets to a much wider audience. That in itself is a plus for society. You did say any...

---

Creating simple artificial scarcity with copyright and patents on things that can be copied billions of times at minimal cost is a fundamentally stupid economic idea.

Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

YouTube Finds Signing Rights Deals Frustrating

It's a process involving lawyers. Be thankful that it's only frustrating and not a full blown lawsuit.

Note to CEO

[tnk1]

says YouTube Chief Executive Chad Hurley. "I don't know what it requires, if the government needs to be involved," Mr. Hurley laughs. "I don't know."'"

What it requires is that you pay them a shitload of money, Chad.

Re:Note to CEO

[monkeydo]

You're probably right. There are already groups like BMI, ASCAP, RIAA, MPLC, etc., that probably represent the bulk of the copyright owners that YouTube would have to pay off. I'm sure YouTube could work out a licensing arrangement, similar to what radio stations and restaurants have, that wouldn't require them to know exactly what was being published. For the remaining unrepresented copyright holders, YouTube could offer to publish their material for free, or allow them to request takedowns.

But, YouTube has been making money off of others' works for so long now, it may be a hard habit to break.

Re:Note to CEO

[iwsnet]

Since Google is paying $1.65 billion for YouTube, they will definitely hold out for more money. It's tough doing things the legal way.

Well, if that doesn't pretty well sum it up!

[ScentCone]

It's such a mess because the [entertainment companies] have all of these valuable assets

Waaah! It's so much harder to make a truckload of money showing people web ads by attracting them with other people's valuable assets if we have to get permission. Waaah!

Re:Well, if that doesn't pretty well sum it up!

[Aladrin]

So right. Why is it so hard to imagine that it would be difficult to get permission for MILLIONS of different pieces of art? I'm sure it WAS much easier when they were simply trampling on the law-given rights of the artists. (Right or wrong, it's the law right now.)

Re:Well, if that doesn't pretty well sum it up!

[StewedSquirrel]

I'd agree if Youtube were a wholesale clearinghouse of strictly copyrighted material. If it were, for example, like Napster.

However, a large percentage (high 90s) of the content on YouTube is CREATIVE work, that happens to include some instances of licensed content somewhere within it.

Reference a goofy lip sync of a popular song, or a claymation remake of star wars. Both of these technically would need to be "licensed" but sadly, the idea of copyright is to enhance innovation, not stifle it... so in this sense, I feel it is the copyright law itself that is broken, not Google or YouTube's approach to people's desire to be creative with new media.

Stew

Re:Well, if that doesn't pretty well sum it up!

[ScentCone]

Come on, now. We all know what we're talking about here: entire Simpsons episodes. Large chunks of "The Daily Show" or a whole stand-up routine from some Chris Rock HBO special. That's the stuff that's going to get them in hot water, and they know it. And - what a shock! - it's a pain in the ass that their users keep putting that stuff up there. Of course, if they weren't making money off of it, that might change things... but they ARE making money off of it, needless to say.

Re:Well, if that doesn't pretty well sum it up!

[monkeydo]

However, a large percentage (high 90s) of the content on YouTube is CREATIVE work, that happens to include some instances of licensed content somewhere within it.

Everything on YouTube is copyrighted material. Some of it is up with the permission of the copyright owner, but there's probably a negligible amount that is really in the public domain. Unless it's been uploaded by the person who made it, or with his permission then all the stuff on YouTube is infringing someone's copyright.

Industry should be inspired by youtube

[PsyQo]

The movie and music industry should be inspired by youtube.

Instead of looking at it's popularity and trying to discourage people from placing music videos etc. on it, they should wonder themselves what makes youtube so popular. Obviously people like watching music videos, so maybe, just maybe, you (the industry) should provide a way to let us see them? You could advertise your new hits, movies, think of all the possibilities!

Re:Industry should be inspired by youtube

[Technician]

they should wonder themselves what makes youtube so popular.

I think it would be funny if they simply disabled the audio track on any content with a sound track and replaced it with a random creative commons track with the same beat and left it that way to avoid a video having a copyrighted soundtrack of silence.

Then the submission page should include the "original content, not a copy" requirement. Any violations will include releasing uploader information to the copyright owner's lawyer.

It would be good to see new creative new works. It would make it painfuly clear that youtube is not going to do free promotions. Commercial trailers would be charged advertising rates simply because they are advertisements. I know it's harsh, but something has to give to make it work. Some of the best commercials are ones from Japan. The "Cog" commercial was fantastic along with other Rube Goldberg machines commercials.

Re:Industry should be inspired by youtube

[ffnogoodnik]

I think I see where you are getting at. I envision a television channel that plays music videos, perhaps it could be like a radio station but instead of just playing the songs they would play the music videos. Plus, instead of disc jockeys, or D-jays, this music television thing would have video jockeys or V-Jays. I do think the name, "Music Television", is too long though for today's fast paced society, it needs a shorter name. I think, M, for Music and TV for televsion would work well together. Yes, I think this could be done. In fact, I now only think this will work but I want it, I want my MTV.

And on the other end of the spectrum...

[TopShelf]

At least you have some entities getting out ahead of this and cooperating with YouTube/Google Video to get their content out there, like the NHL. They're including current games, as well as selected "classics" from previous ones. They're even interested in incorporating user-generated content into the mix...

Re:And on the other end of the spectrum...

[Ubergrendle]

I'm a huge NHL fan, but lets face facts -- NHL is #4 of 4 for the 'big' sports leagues, and realistically alot of other sports (e.g NASCAR, golf) probably beat the NHL ratings wise on a regular basis. Aside from men's tennis, there probably isn't a sport that has declined in popularity as much as the NHL has in the past 20 years.

Its a bold move by the NHL -- kudos to them! But I doubt Youtube will get the distribution rights to the NFL anytime soon. Its a desperation play.

Re:And on the other end of the spectrum...

[ClamIAm]

I was thinking the same thing, however I don't think that it's a "desperation" play. I see it as a very smart move, and I'm interested to see what other companies/groups do with this tech. As for being a smart move:

The NHL still has lots of fans, but they've been screwed over by the current media reality of static TV channels and the oligarchy that controls them. The Internet (with web two-point-oh) allows them to reach a lot of people, and sites like Youtube are scrambling to find decent content that they can distribute without legal troubles. Somebody at the NHL knows what they're doing. Of course, it will be interesting to see how well it works out.

Re:And on the other end of the spectrum...

[hey]

> The NHL still has lots of fans

Including everyone man, woman and child in Canada.

Re:And on the other end of the spectrum...

[sabernet]

Yeah, cuz, it's not like us Canadians can view Youtube or anything...

A little out of the box thinking here:

in the USA: NFL > NHL
in Canada: NHL > NFL
in the world in general: World Cup > NFL

Youtube's availability: WorldWide(with the exception of firewalled nations)

Re:And on the other end of the spectrum...

[Aeron65432]

Yeah but if you read the NHL page, they're only free and ad-less for the first two weeks of November.

Have to confess....

[Otter]

YouTube executives are finding it a slog...

I have to confess, I looked at "slog" and thought "Ughhh, that's the worst new blogoword since 'blogmarklet'!"

Anyway, I'm not sure what the news is here -- someone else's job turns out to be a lot harder when it's you who has to do it?

Re:Have to confess....

[93 Escort Wagon]

I have to confess, I looked at "slog" and thought "Ughhh, that's the worst new blogoword since 'blogmarklet'!"

You don't say this explicitly - but I assume you've since learned that "slog" has been a part of the English language for far longer than the internet has been around?

Re:Have to confess....

[Anonymous Coward]

I never even knew slog was modified for the modern vernacular to relate to social blogging, until now. Reading the Google define of the term was like getting verbally punched in the eyes. Absoloutely horrid.

I prefer the classic defenition of slogging. To work through a difficult situation like you were walking through a quagmire in rubber boots. You put a foot down, it gets sucked down into the mud. You tug the other foot up with effort, and move it forward, only to get it stuck in the mud like the first.

Copyrights. Squish. Splat. Squish. Splat. Squish. Splat. Squish. Splat. Squish. Tug? Tug! Pop!

Re:Have to confess....

[Otter]

Yes, I blogged about it and a commenter set me straight.

Re:Have to confess....

[kirun]

Is it just me, or do you not find it strange that you "blogged" to complain about a stupid "blogoword"?

Re:Have to confess....

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or do you not find it strange that that joke went way over your head?

Re:Have to confess....

[geminidomino]

Copyrights. Squish. Splat. Squish. Splat. Squish. Splat. Squish. Splat. Squish. Tug? Tug! Pop!

Sea Mama, is that you?

</Obscure reference>

Google bites the dust on this one

[Fnkmaster]

Not to say that Google are complete idiots, but we all knew this was coming.

Were I behind the reigns at Google, I would have required they at least ink a few big content licensing deals before closing the transaction. In fact, with a bunch of licensing deals in place, possibly even some exclusive ones, I could see justifying a high valuation.

Why pay the huge takeout premium they paid and then have to do all the hard work after the takeout? I meant, the technology is commoditized and trivial, and the userbase can't really be worth that much to a company as big as Google, especially when they already have Google Video and could easily outgrow YouTube by spending a tiny fraction of the takeout price on advertising and promotions.

The whole deal is just downright strange.

Re:Google bites the dust on this one

[mav[LAG]]

Google is not run by fools. By inheriting YouTube's (fairly minor) legal hassles, they - and not someone else - get to decide what battles to fight and what to settle. Google has already done this with the library and book projects - picking and choosing their fights so that they get to determine what legal precedent is set. Some fights they won, some they lost but it was a lot better than sitting on the sidelines watching someone else being sued.

Video is going to make Google an absolute fortune in five years time. The last thing they wanted is someone with shallower pockets determining the legal landscape for them. The technology is not yet "commoditized and trivial" enough. But it won't take long and when it is, the legal and business environment will have been determined by Google itself and no-one else.

Re:Google bites the dust on this one

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod the parent mutha up! That's the first sensible explaination of the GooTube buyout I've read.

Re:Google bites the dust on this one

[foobsr]

The whole deal is just downright strange.

Not so.

Sequoia had made a good amount of money when Google agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65B. It is believed that Sequoia's $11M investment translated to 30% of the ownership.

cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_Capital

CC.

Re:Google bites the dust on this one

[Anonymous Coward]

Please Mod parent up... I've been enlightened!!!

Re:Google bites the dust on this one

[QuantumFTL]

Seriously, I think that's the single most insightful post I've seen anywhere on Google+YouTube.

Re:Google bites the dust on this one

[mantissa128]

I think Google stepped in precisely when they wanted to, when YouTube was sufficiently popular. Google wanted to demonstrate the folly of current intellectual property law to hundreds of thousands of tube junkies.

A big part of YouTube's success came from clips of copyrighted/licensed material. In turn, that popularity gave success back to that same material. Now all that's gone - just video blogs, stupid pet tricks, and mentos. Yeah, still funny but... not the same. It could have made the 'push' broadcasting model of content delivery obsolete and established a new market. Good thing all those artists are protected now.

Lorien: A brilliant strategy. He's making a crucible which he hopes will force out the truth. Quite brave. Possibly futile, but very human.

Re:Google bites the dust on this one

[Dawsons]

this comment really placed everything together for me on the subject... makes perfect sense...

Re:Google bites the dust on this one

[Fnkmaster]

OK, that's a reasonable explanation for the deal - we could look at it as Google paying for the right to control enough market share today (between Google Video and YouTube) to set legal precedent for the period down the road when they actually start making money on video content. Then the differential value of the market share could definitely be worth in the billions to Google, not because they couldn't duke it out with YouTube and win over the next 2-3 years at a fraction of the cost, but because they want to be the 800 pound gorilla right now so they can put the squeeze on the content owners right away.

I hadn't thought about the legal leverage advantage of having that market share today vs. having it in 2 years, and I am now inclined to agree with you on that point.

One minor issue - I still stand by my comment that the technology for online video delivery is commoditized at this point. I see dozens of small startups doing the same video hosting stuff with zero differentiation and almost zero software development investment, so clearly that meets any reasonable criteria for commoditization.

Work is Hard

[mpapet]

This is SOP for anyone re-distributing anything made in hollywood.

Nothing to see here, please move along.

Re:Work is Hard

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more than hollywood, read accounts by authors about the incredibly complicated ownerships and rights involved in speculative works, works for hire, worlds and settings created for hire, screenplays written in established storyworlds, and so on.

Sure it's complicated and messy because this is a new use of copyrighted works, but I'm sure in no time lawyers that specialize in knowing their way around the new landscape will be in there making a buck.

How about following the law?

[StevenMaurer]

As much as the Slashdot community hates it, the DMCA is utterly clear on the topic. If a copyright owner can't even be bothered to send a DMCA-takedown notice about their content, then no harm, no foul.

This required "opt-out" of other people using your material is a pretty powerful concept. That's why Clinton & the old Republican Congress balanced it with such an easy to use form.

Google/Youtube has nothing to worry about legally. Other than ass--le judges who try to reinterpret law to add damages where none are warranted.

Re:How about following the law?

[PCM2]

As much as the Slashdot community hates it, the DMCA is utterly clear on the topic. If a copyright owner can't even be bothered to send a DMCA-takedown notice about their content, then no harm, no foul.

Whoah! Where did you get this wrong-headed, crackpot idea? As much as the Slashdot community may hate it -- yourself included, apparently -- the DMCA is not the be-all, end-all of copyright law. It's an addendum to a lot of law that was already on the books.

Some points you apparently fail to grasp:

• Copyright protection is automatic. As soon as you put down the pen, what you wrote is copyrighted.
• Notification of copyright is not necessary, though it does confer additional benefits. Your copyright can be protected even if you never put a circle-C on the work.
• You don't even have to publish a work for it to be copyrighted.
• "Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner ... is an infringer of the copyright." There's harm. It's a foul. Whether the author chooses to pursue a claim for the violation is another matter. It's up to the author. But to my knowledge there's no statute of limitations on copyright infringements.
• Even if an author has no idea what a work is "worth" -- even if he was giving it away for free -- he can still recover statuatory damages from a copyright infringer. That is, the civil courts have a mechanism to punish copyright infringers even when it's impossible to calculate the actual damages or money lost by the author.
• Willfully violating copyright for financial gain -- meaning you knew something was copyrighted (see the first three points, above) and you distributed it anyway, and you're a business, so presumably everything you do is to make money -- is a criminal offense. If you do it more than once -- say you're a Web site and you do it hundreds of times -- each offense after the first can land you ten years in prison.

Based on the laws on the books as they stand, YouTube is in a very precarious position. Probably the only thing that's kept the hammer from coming down already (or the guillotine) is that the owners of the videos on YouTube are trying to figure out if they can make more money by killing the goose or keeping it around.

Re:How about following the law?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

So you're arguing that the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA don't apply to Google? I expect that there is a case for that, given that not benefitting financially is one of the requirements (and if they're not benefitting financially, I'd like to see the due diligence reports that justified spending that amount of money to buy YouTube). On the other hand, it doesn't seem cut and dried to me as a non-US non-lawyer, given that the stated intent of those provisions was to protect service providers who aren't directly ripping stuff themselves from becoming liable because of the actions of their users.

Re:How about following the law?

[PCM2]

I think it's really questionable. The link you reference says the service provider has to have "no knowledge of, or financial benefit from, the infringing activity." If I'm a content site and I'm advertising-supported, the value of my ad impressions goes up relative to the quality of my content. So the ability to offer infringing content would confer financial benefit to me, no?

Actually, I'm not saying that is definitely the case, and IANAL, but I can definitely see smart lawyers having a field day with these issues.

Re:How about following the law?

[monkeydo]

It also wouldn't apply if they were soliciting copyright works. Do you think that people uploading TV shows (even if they wind up being taken down) helps or hurts YouTube?

Google is up to something...

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone has known the copyright issues right from the begininng - before Google bought YouTube. Google knew what they were getting into, they had a plan to use YouTube but I don't think it was just another popular website grab.

These latest comments confirm it. It almost looks like Google wants to use YouTube to change how copyright is currently handled. If this means greater support for fair use rights, go Google!

Capitalism at work

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't know what it requires, if the government needs to be involved," Mr. Hurley laughs. "I don't know."

Typical corporate exec. They're all about the free market and small government until it's their own bottom line at stake, then they'll suck every cock in Washington to get some favorable regulations signed into law.

If you don't want to tie shoes for a living....

[elcid73]

...you shouldn't be a shoe salesman.

Re:If you don't want to tie shoes for a living....

[Haeleth]

Does that make it unreasonable for shoe salespeople to observe that laces are difficult to tie, and to publicly suggest that shoe designers could improve the situation for everyone by designing shoes that are easier to fasten, or at least by agreeing on a clear and straightforward process for lacing them?

Re:If you don't want to tie shoes for a living....

[elcid73]

It makes it unreasonable if the primary reason you got into shoe sales was to sell a particular brand of shoe that is popular *because* they are difficult to tie. ...wait, I'm lost. Oh well, here's your wet blanket mr. joke analogy downer.

Re:If you don't want to tie shoes for a living....

[sparkane]

Does that make it unreasonable

Yes. And I'll tell you why. It's because in this case the laces are lawyers and the shoes come with fine print. Mmkay? ;)

Army of Darkness 2

[CrazyJim1]

I emailed Bruce Campbell about why they won't do AOD2 and its because so many companies own the rights that nothing could get done. It sucks too because he could be warped into a post apocolyptic future with Skeletons manning mechas and stuff.

You Tube will become a shadow of itself?

[bushboy]

When the Google buyout was announced, there was worry that this would lead to a multitude of law suits and this seems to be the case.

A logical conclusion for YouTube will be a heavily "sanitised" version which will ultimately end with an upstart competitor taking over, as users leave in their droves because they can no longer exercise the freedom they once had.

One needs to only look at the history of file sharing, specifically mp3, to see where this is all heading.

As soon as there's a tie-in with a billion dollar enterprise, the law suits start rolling in.

On the plus side, this is just another step in the direction of reinventing copyright laws and realising that there's a new type of consumer - the "now" generation who want to DIY.

ORLY? NOWAI!

[Se7enLC]

What's that? Allowing anybody that wants to to upload anything they want to makes it hard for you to keep up with finding and signing the copyright holders?? Wow, I wonder if napster ever had that problem... I know ebaumsworld has no problem with that, since they just made their terms say "if you upload it, that means you must own it, therefore we now own it"

Re:ORLY? NOWAI!

[Mr. Underbridge]

I know ebaumsworld has no problem with that, since they just made their terms say "if you upload it, that means you must own it, therefore we now own it"

Yeah...just because they say it doesn't make it legal.

Re:ORLY? NOWAI!

[LiquidCoooled]

I like this way of thinking, even slashdot does it.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2006 OSTG.

Now, suppose I took the text of a popular book and pasted it wholesale into numerous comments or my journal, should slashdot be sued for it, or (as the DMCA provides) should slashdot comply with a reasonable takedown notice given by the copyright holder?

Same as iTMS + Unbox?

[ben there...]

Could this be the same reason that there are often episodes missing from a season on iTunes? That the episode had a different director, producer, or writer who had a different contract that may have prevented alternative broadcasts or demanded additional royalties for them? I noticed one popular iTunes show had just one episode missing, and it was the only episode that had a celebrity cameo. You'd think that they'd have all of the episodes available for encoding to iTunes, so this is the only explanation I can think of for missing episodes.

Mythology

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of the story of Baldur and the mistletoe.

Why bother trying to find them?

[Weaselmancer]

YouTube or its partners must locate parties ranging from studios to actors, and from music composers to the owners of venues, and get them to sign off.

Why?

I'm sure if anyone has a problem with something on YouTube, they'll contact YouTube about it. That's when you get them to sign off or take the video down.

Seems...almost too easy, doesn't it?

Re:Why bother trying to find them?

[jo42]

Even easier would be to put up a big honkin' link labeled Copyright Holders Crick Here to take them to contacts/whatnoteverelse page instead of burying it at the bottom in ultra tiny type.

Re:Why bother trying to find them?

[StewedSquirrel]

This is how it SHOULD work.

Sadly, when the case goes to court, GooTube is going to owe someone a lot of money.

The settlements are absolutely absurd. This is a bit like the copyright violation focused on by the RIAA, but orders of magnitude greater.

Do you think Metallica was damaged $25,000 per song when that 14 year old girl downloaded their songs? No. But the court was putting that much up as "damages".

What do you think the damages would amount to if the same group sued GooTube for putting up the same song in video form? don't you think they would argue for multimillion dollar damages for a single crappy video?

This is why they're trying to negotiate beforehand.

In a perfect world, they share content, people find their content shared and phone them up and say "check please" and they get a check for a predetermined amount, in the mail, simple.

But if they work for Sony or BMG, they call their manager who calls their agent who calls their producer who calls their distributor who calls their executive who calls their bigwig legal team who calls Google and demands a billion dollars.

Neat.

Then each one of the guys down the line gets his share and the artist takes the last few pennies and goes home.

Of course for Metallica, it's 30 million pennies, but that just shows you what scale the original numbers must have been.

Stew

Video Version of ASCAP

[mlmitton]

It seems like it's time for a video version of ASCAP. For those who don't know, ASCAP is an association of music writers. When your local bar plays a song, it is legally obligated to pay the writer of that song. It would of course be impossible for every bar, restaurant, night club to get permission from every songwriter they want to play. Thus comes ASCAP. Songwriters join ASCAP, bars pay a fee to ASCAP, and ASCAP distributes money to its members according to ASCAP's measure of what music is being played. (They sample.) This is an obvious, very big efficiency (which is why the government has let ASCAP and BMI bypass antitrust laws).

This hasn't been so much of an issue with respect to television. The number of outlets providing video feeds is, relatively speaking, quite small, and what they play is sufficiently uniform (or self-created) that a bureaucracy like ASCAP is unnecessary. But this changes with GooTube. Under the current model, YouTube does not have control over what gets uploaded to the site. This means they either have to police the site to be sure copyrighted content stays off -- which is difficult if not impossible, and not what the viewers want in any event -- or they have to slog through the myriad possible copyright owners who could end up on YouTube.

An ASCAP like organization solves this conflict, and it benefits both YouTube and copyright holders. By banding together in this type of organization, the copyright holders can leverage their collective value to extract money from YouTube (and everyone else). That is, all copyright holders acting together will get far more money from YouTube than acting alone. On the flip side, YouTube gets to avoid the significant expense of acquiring licenses (as TFA says), and insure against the always-real possibility of a lawsuit for copyright infringement.

It's a model that has worked in music for many decades, and it's what we need to look for in video.

Re:Video Version of ASCAP

[StewedSquirrel]

Ahh yes, it all comes down to one phrase...

"extract money"

I'm not a fan of organizations who's goal is not.... "provide a valuable service" or "improve content" or "do something".... their sole purpose of being created is to "extract money" from popular community sources.

Obviously it's not this simple. OBVIOUSLY, content takes time and money to produce... err wait, I guess Youtube sort of proves that wrong.

Still, anyway, existance with the sole purpose of "extracting money" is the capitalist way, but it seems a shady one nonetheless.

Stew

Re:Video Version of ASCAP

[kfg]

This hasn't been so much of an issue with respect to television. The number of outlets providing video feeds is, relatively speaking, quite small, and what they play is sufficiently uniform (or self-created) that a bureaucracy like ASCAP is unnecessary.

The bureaucracy that is "unnecessary" is called "BMI."

KFG

Re:Video Version of ASCAP

[cfulmer]

There's an argument that rights organizations such as ASCAP and BMI over-compensate the top players and under-compensate the little guys. On a site such as YouTube, you can see how this would happen. Sure, there are lots of clips from Comedy Central or SNL, but there are also lots of clips of Joe-Bob falling off his dirt-bike while trying to jump a bonfire. All of these clips are covered by copyright, but it's likely that Joe-Bob's videographer won't see a dime from a video rights society.

The other thing to be aware of is that a video often impacts other copyrights. So, if the video of Joe Bob jumping over the bonfire happens to include people singing "Kum-By-Ya" in the background, you might have to get the right to transmit the music. If he's clearly wearing a sponge-bob T-shirt while jumping, you might have to get the right to that as well. My personal opinion is that such things are covered by fair use. But, companies (especially video production companies, which naturally want to minimize fair use) go to great lengths to buy the rights to such content and will edit things out if they can't obtain such rights. Duke Law School has a great comic book (?!) about this at http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/digital.html .

Re:Video Version of ASCAP

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a good idea, except that video and film is way more complicated. Movies and television tend to involve multiple licenses for a variety of things: writers, music, images, actors, etc - all of which have to sign off on a single video clip.

It suprises me how many Internet media executives come off as so naive about copyright laws. "Gosh - I never realized there would be a problem here with this - I thought we were just providing a great service to the public. Shucks - can't we just let it slide?"

Re:Video Version of ASCAP

[pezzonovante1]

You hit the nail on the head with this one. Any bar that plays music to entice customers to go to their establishment is required to pay their ASCAP fee. I know chain resturants, such as Applebees and Fridays, also pay this fee although they do it through the service of Muzak. They also have rules stating how loud the music has to be played, if it has to be played outside (i.e. when you have seats for gusts to wait outside) and how far away it should be able to be heard.

I'm not sure if they have to pay for other types of media such as sporting events or music videos (or even the Sopranos as I know bars that would have Soprano Sundays) though they should according to these rules. If they do, it would be an outlet for YouTube to utilzie as well.

Re:Video Version of ASCAP

[mei_mei_mei]

Yes! And when this new organisation is set up it should, unlike the older organisations, accurately log the number of plays of each video. MCPS and PRS in the UK (US equivalents?) collect moneys for plays of music on the radio and in clubs etc. but the split out to artists is proportional, judged from a random sampling (they literally go into a bunch of clubs occasionally and count what is played for example), and almost certainly biased to the larger artists (or rather the larger record labels and publishers that they front). If the internet equivalents log use properly then smaller 'artists' can actually make money from the cool clips they put up. That's important to erode the dominance a small subset of people have in accessing media.

Re:Video Version of ASCAP

[Telvin_3d]

Yeah, god forbid that anyone starts or runs a business with the intent of MAKING MONEY. I mean, if that catches on, it could be the end of the economy as we know it.

Grow up.

Lots of the content on YouTube did take large amounts of time and money to produce. No, little Timmy sitting at his computer uploading it did have to put much effort in to create it, but that is not the same thing. So, a television station or a group of artists or few friends spend anywhere from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands to make something. It hits the 'net and becomes popular. So, they are standing there going 'well, we're glad you all like it, now how about letting us make some of that money back so that we can make more'.

I have frequent problems with how the entertainment industry conducts itself, but this is not one of them. This is nothing more then a simple mechanism to see that creators and financers get paid for their work. It's not a perfect mechanism, but it is almost hassle free and relatively fair. The current setup that is used by the music industry is what allows malls to play background music, waiting music on telephone services and a thousand other instances. It would be nice if a setup like this would allow anyone to post almost any video content on their site with zero risk of receiving a takedown notice or getting sued.

Re:Video Version of ASCAP

[HTH NE1]

What does ASCAP have to say about bars that bump songs paid for on the jukebox from being played? I know of one that announces bogus phone calls while they press a button that clears all songs paid for by the person who requested the current song.

Oh, that's right, ASCAP has nothing to do with defending the rights of the listener. They'll gladly accept the percentage from the jukebox take regardless whether all purchased songs actually got played.

The question is, is the artist happy to get the money and not be heard? 'Cause I'm sure some of you could name songs you never want to hear again. Imagine how much money artists could make if for each song on a ClearChannel playlist any one person could veto it for only 25 cents, jumping right to the next song.

Now that would be a clear channel!

Re:Video Version of ASCAP

[jvkjvk]

Under the current model, YouTube does not have control over what gets uploaded to the site. This means they either have to police the site to be sure copyrighted content stays off -- which is difficult if not impossible, and not what the viewers want in any event -- or they have to slog through the myriad possible copyright owners who could end up on YouTube.

I don't believe that this is a correct reading of the current state of copyright. The only thing they have to do, it seems, it remove infringing content when served with the proper paperwork. It appears they don't even have to make sure that no one else uploads another exact copy, much less one that is not bitwise identical, though I may be off on that one.

Also, I don't see why we need to create another set of leeches and middlemen who take a cut of everything when it doesn't seem required. (The ASCAP certainly doesn't work for free does it?)

Re:Video Version of ASCAP

[cpt kangarooski]

Ugh, no. Performing rights organizations are awful enough as it is. The last thing we need is more of them.

You know, this may be the magic bullet

[the Gray Mouser]

that get's copyright law reexamined.

You're talking about interfering with my God Given Constitutional Right to watch funny videos on YouTube for crying out loud.

We all know that Google is a Good Guy(tm). If it weren't for them, the internet wouldn't exist. So if they a law is bad, then it must be true. Fire up the politicians and let's save YouTube before all our entertainment goes away.

Re:You know, this may be the magic bullet

[Nom du Keyboard]

We all know that Google is a Good Guy(tm). If it weren't for them, the internet wouldn't exist.

I never realized that Google was Al Gore in disguise.

Re:You know, this may be the magic bullet

[the Gray Mouser]

No, no. Al Gore only invented the internet. Google built it, organized it, and made it accessible.

Joking aside: many, many people get to the internet through google. To them, google is the internet (or at least, the keeper of the internet). They are not a hated corporation in the mind of John Q. Public.

So if it turns out that copyright law as written is bad for Google, they may be able to get John Q. Public's support for having it changed. Just think about what they could do with banner ads at every search supporting legislation or candidates.

Re:You know, this may be the magic bullet

[snuf23]

"So if it turns out that copyright law as written is bad for Google, they may be able to get John Q. Public's support for having it changed."

Copyright law is a minefield for any type of content that can be easily copied and redistributed. And now that means audio, video, text, images - the whole range.
The problem is that this is the new guy (AKA The Google) versus established revenue streams from long existing industries (your music, movies, TV etc.). Old media through DRM, sueing it's audiences and copyright lawsuits against new media companies is acting in a protectionist manner. At the same time old media is trying to move into new media's space to secure future revenue streams. They can see the writing on the wall.
The question is - who are the politicians more likely to back? The upstart companies, or those with decades long history of padding the parties (both of them) pockets?

Duh!

[BobSutan]

One part of me wants to smack Chad upside the head for crying about doing business. Another part wants to smack Chad upside the head for getting into a business that deals with horrendous copyright laws like we have here in the states. Perhaps this debacle can result in a new examination of US copyright laws so that they may be changed back to the way they were intended? You know, for the good of the nation...

Right now things are so lopsided that the end result is going to be the loss of decades upon decades of American culture, all because some greedy a-holes feels they sould be entitled to a buck every time someone wants to take a peek or listen to whatever. And since that's not what copyright was intended for (read: progress of American culture--not its enslavement to compensation), this all just goes to show how copyright has devolved into the un-American beast we have today.

Entertainment industry contracts suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Residuals and other bullshit have no place in the internet age, I don't get residuals on my work. The unions are going to have to suck it down, just like every other industry!

RTFA

[spiritraveller]

...before you say this was such an obvious thing, or that it's not the government's job to fix this.

This is not just about posting music videos or TV shows. It also involves every single homemade video that is posted.

A look at "Smack That" illustrates the complexities. Securing the online rights to the song by rappers Akon and Eminem -- No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart -- would involve permission from Akon's record label, Universal Motown. Most of the time, a label alone can grant a license for the use of a music video, but when it comes to videos involving YouTube users lip-syncing to the song, or any other use of it as background music, it also would take permission of publishers representing the four people listed as the song's writers: Akon (real name: Aliaune Thiam), Eminem (Marshall Mathers) and two colleagues of Eminem's from the Detroit rap scene, Swift (Luis Edgardo Resto) and Mike Strange.

This was a foreseeable problem... but it's still a problem. This could make it very hard to have an open forum where people post videos.

Because even if the teenagers who post this stuff make it themselves, they are bound to have some form of copyrighted material going on in the background. A song playing on the radio, a kid singing a song, even a movie poster on a bedroom wall.

It really does get ridiculous when you consider that "Happy Birthday to You" is still covered by copyright in the US. So every single video that includes someone singing that song could be a potential liability.

figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Youtube is run by filthy heebs, what do you expect?

If they can't get WKRP out on DVD, then ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Youtube won't be able to get much.
One of the main reasons that you still cannot get 1980s sitcom hit "WKRP in Cincinatti" on DVD is because they extensively used popular music on the show and just getting the rights would probably make a single season DVD set priced above $200
There are other shows too. Some tried to substitute music, but the fan outcry made that risky.

If you ever have a hit piece of music, make sure you hold on to those rights...you may not get any money NOW, but royalties twenty or thirty years from now will be big $$$

TDz.

Two Words

[Nom du Keyboard]

Two words: Compulsory Licensing. It's been done before.

Bring back registration of Copyrights

[Gonarat]

This is exactly the reason why they should have never ended copyright registration. If the Government still required registration in order for a work to be protected under copyright, then it would be easy to track who owns it. Require renewal every 14 years -- if the copyright is not renewed, then the work passes into the public domain after a 1 year grace period. This would make it easy to track down the rights holder(s). If there are multiple holders (i.e. recording artist, music writer, and lyricist), then they could all be listed or the copyright contact could be an agent.

Registration of copyrights would solve Google/YouTube's problem and would also solve the problem of abandoned works. If the work isn't important enough to register, then it should be fair game.

Awww

[Elwood P Dowd]

Awww, the poor multi billion dollar corporation wants some compulsory licensing.

I will be so pissed if YouTube manages to get some kind of compulsory licensing legislation passed that has a high barrier to entry, so that large corporations can use it but people can't on their own. We'd get all the artist-harming and none of the economic benefits of compulsory licensing (not that it's necessarily a perfect idea on its own).

So why not do like the record labels do?

[element-o.p.]

When a musician records a song that will be released by one of the record labels, there is a clause in the contract with the musician that states something to the effect that "all of the sounds, samples, etc. incorporated in this work are either solely the property of the recording artist or have been properly licensed by the legitimate owner(s) of such sounds, samples, etc."

This way, if I record a song that uses a snippet from a movie or from another song without having permission to use said snippet, then if^H^Hwhen the record label gets sued, they present the contract that I signed showing that they have done their due diligence (or whatever; IANAL) and that any copyright infringement is strictly my problem.

Seems to me that Google/YouTube could include a clause like that in the upload form for videos they host...

Re:So why not do like the record labels do?

[cfulmer]

They're still liable for the infringement -- the "But, he *told* me it wasn't infringing" defense doesn't exist. The contract may get them out of willful infringement, at least unless they had notice. But, all that does is reduce the high end on damages that they'd have to pay.

The solution:

[mypalmike]

Cute welsh corgi.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7j8exGJ_7UM

not excactly..

[way2trivial]

the loophole is closed.

WKRP music was permitted with the show- as the music was licensed for the shows.
at the time, no one concievedof such home recordings, and no provision was made for those rights.

in a similar vein, disney artists (voice artists) have sued disney for their likenesses which were used in theaters, but never licensed for use for dvd distribution.

some of them picked up a few bucks..

now- it's over- artistic licenses/contracts are written to "include future means of distribution, as yet unknown"

Youtube's users will be the targets

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait until the user lawsuits start - even if Youtube responds to a DMCA takedown notice, the user who uploaded that content is still guilty - since Youtube tracks download stats, it can be easily proven by subpoenaing evidence from Youtube that violation has clearly taken place (unlike many p2p sites).

Basically, if you are a user uploading content to Youtube, you better hope you're not going to be using your google account or any other personal details to do so, because it means youd be pretty much sue-able by the MPAA or other rights-holders any time they felt like it.

I mean come on...

[T.Louis]

Surely Google management, board etc had some kind of process of coming to the conclusion of going ahead with purchase of YouTube.

Manager #1 says, "Omfg that clip was hillarious!!!!111

Manager #2 says, "O M F G rofl lmao!!!!!!11"

Manager #1 says, "Lets purchase YouTube!"

Manager #2 says, "Yeaah wtf it pwns our video.google.com!!1"

I mean really, what was the evaluation process for such a purchase?

Re:I mean come on...

[Anonymous Coward]

Decision:
If they have more traffic/revenue than you and the cost to increase your traffic and increase your functionality is greater than the cost of acquiring them minus the gains you get from them... then buy them. Or something close.

Re:I mean come on...

[T.Louis]

Thank you, I did understand that part, but the other parts copyright yes yes?

Re:I mean come on...

[AmberBlackCat]

Manager #1: Well, we got away with all this bullshit. We'll probably get away with that bullshit too.

Manager #2: Let's buy it.

Latest in eCrime - YouTube Baiting

[rHBa]

step 1. Create cheap copyrightable content.
step 2. Get person who cannot be connected to you to post it on YouTube.
step 4. Sue YouTube for $$$£££€€€

Re:Latest in eCrime - YouTube Baiting

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 3. Get you head out of your arse.

Re:Latest in eCrime - YouTube Baiting

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 4. Create shock site using pictures of aforementioned act.
Step 5. Profit .. I think?

Better Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Eliminate copyrights alltogether, as there are no good reasons to have it. All it does is it creates monopolies.

Re:Better Yet

[Gonarat]

I think complete elimination of copyrights would be as bad as the current system where copyright keeps getting extended 20 more years every 20 years (Bono Act) and the hated DMCA and DRM. There has to be a middle ground where people (I won't say consumers) can get easy and open access to works while the creator can make a living. Requiring registration in order to get copyright registration is a first step. Compulsory licensing for non-profit uses may be a second step.

For example, I have seen some excellent amateur Doctor Who videos set to pop music songs on YouTube. With current copyright law everyone loses -- the video, while well done and enjoyable to watch is technically illegal and neither the BBC or musicians get a cent. I would be willing to pay say $5 to $10 dollars a month extra (collected by my Internet provider) into a fund that would allow videos like that to be legal (and the artist(s) compensated). It would also be nice to be able to fire up my favorite p2p software (legally) and have a share of the fund go to the creator of the song, TV program, or Movie that I downloaded.

I realise that there is a lot of negotiation, planning, and work that would have be done before such a scheme would work, but it would be nice to see everyone win for once. The current system is badly broken, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not the answer.

Let them come to you

[Dachannien]

The answer here is pretty simple. As long as YouTube complies with DMCA takedown requests, they're safe. So, whenever someone files a takedown request, take down the content (temporarily) and negotiate a deal with them.

Oh, and YouTube should be careful about this. I'm sure there are lots of folks out there (RIAA included) who will happily file takedown requests and then take money to put the content back up when they don't even hold the copyright in the first place.

Say what?

[DeadCatX2]

The media cartel is terrible I agree too but maybe copyright isn't related to them.

Did you completely miss the GP's comment about a tree?

There's a reason it's called the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. I think it has a little something to do with, you know, Sonny Bono, and the fact that he's a musician.

Re:Say what?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Sonny Bono was a musician. He died some time ago. I fail to see how extending the term of copyright for another three centuries would incentivise him to produce any more music. This is why copyright of a reasonable duration is a reasonable idea, but copyright extensions until effectively forever are a very bad idea.

Re:Say what?

[cpt kangarooski]

It has to do with Sonny Bono having been a Congressman, dying in a skiing accident, and his wife, Mary Bono (who now represents the same district), being a complete idiot with regard to copyright, and getting his name put on the bill to honor him.

It didn't have that much to do with him being a musician. There are other artists in Congress, you know.

Re:Say what?

[geminidomino]

There are other artists in Congress, you know.

You do realize that "Bullshit Artist" is just an expression, right?

Copyright clearance is tough

[Animats]

Google bought themselves into a real mess. All those crap "videos" that consist of a slide show with pirated music require vast amounts of effort for copyright clearance. You need a "mechanical license" to cover reproducing the audio. You need a "synchronization license" to cover using the audio in conjunction with the visual work. You need copyright clearance on each still image. Face it, that stuff isn't original. YouTube is going to end up having to take down all material of that type unless the user goes through the copyright clearance process.

I have a video on YouTube with audio, and I actually did get copyright clearance for two songs. With lesser bands, it's not too hard. But it does take time and effort. Also, you can buy, or even get free, "royalty-free music", although it tends to be rather bland.

Re:Copyright clearance is tough

[Scrameustache]

All those crap "videos" [...] YouTube is going to end up having to take down all material of that type unless the user goes through the copyright clearance process.

So, you're saying the byzantine copyright system is a good thing? ;-)

What shit on TV?

[myowntrueself]

Most of the time, yes. Have you seen the shit on TV these days?

Me, I watch neither Japanese 'endurance' shows nor 'reality TV' so I havn't seen the literal 'shit on TV these days'.

The apathy defence

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this precisely why Google and the biggest libraries bucked the trend and went for the Opt-Out approach to scanning copyrighted books?

Isn't that how the internet is supposed to work now? Or does the publishing industry just need bigger lobbyists?

Shakespeare

[DeadCatX2]

However, if Shakespeare was alive today, maybe he would write his first play, make lots of money that he could devote all his time to further writing plays only and actually end up writing more plays?

I think he'd be a little more intelligent than that. He could write a few plays while he was in his 20s and live off the royalties until he died, upon which time his children would live off his royalties for another 50 years, then get some legislation passed so that they can continue reaping the seeds their father sowed.

Fair use?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about fair use?

I can understand they cant host a whole movie without permission. But host a clip of a couple of minutes should be under "fair use"?

You have got to be kidding me.

[/dev/trash]

The mean old jukbox took your quarter!!!

Re:You have got to be kidding me.

[HTH NE1]

The mean old jukbox took your quarter!!!

It actually took $1.50 before the bartender relented and allowed the song to play.

License

[Xymor]

How about creating a new license, All rights reserved, except for Youtubing. We can call it Tuberight and it could be represented by this symbol: @_@ .

Liabilities and off-topic comments

[Antony-Kyre]

The liability should always fall upon the person uploading the copyright infringing data. YouTube should not be held liable. However, they do need to take responsibility in pulling the video when the copyright holder confronts them with evidence it is infringing.

In my opinion, copyright laws need to be changed. One thing that should be done is to have a low-quality exemption. If something is of significant low-quality compared to the original version, it should be exempt from copyright laws provided the material was viewable to a majority of the public in the first place. This would primarily affect television shows, which are seen by most of the public since most have basic cable.

"I told you so"

[Tablizer]

Mark Cuban: 1
Google: 0

Artists still deserve to get paid

[mikehihz]

Part of my job every year is to try to get video footage to make up reels that demonstrate a company's products at trade shows. Every year we have difficulty getting rights to include TV shows. Why? Because SAG, the Screen Actors Guild insists that actors appearing in shows which are sublicensed for commercial use get compensated for their work, even in a medium like a tradeshow. Guess what folks--not every actor makes a million per year and that residual check from reruns and iTunes means a middle class existence for many SAG actors. Why not force YouTube, which is a commercial interest making money from copyrighted material get held liable for paying what is legally due to an actor appearing in something on YouTube? Once YouTube started to sell ads, they are WAAAYYY out of fair use. And while I'll get modded flame bait, musicians fall under the same category. Once a musician's work is stolen from someone's fair use, they cease to make money from their efforts. Music isn't free. TV isn't free. Get over it. As a former actor and former professional musician, I like getting paid for my efforts like every one else.