Slashdot Mirror
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."'"
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.
What it requires is that you pay them a shitload of money, Chad.
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!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
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?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
This is SOP for anyone re-distributing anything made in hollywood.
Nothing to see here, please move along.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
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.
...you shouldn't be a shoe salesman.
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.
God spoke to me.
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.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
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"
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.
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?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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.
"My girlfriend's got sodium laureth sulfate hair."
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.
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.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
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.
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.
...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.
Two words: Compulsory Licensing. It's been done before.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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.
Beware of Sleestak
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).
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.
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).
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
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.
The truth shall set you free!
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.
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
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>
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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...
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Cute welsh corgi.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7j8exGJ_7UM
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
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...
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?
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"
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
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.
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.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
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?
"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.
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.
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?
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.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
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 $$$£££€€€
"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.
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.
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.
Isn't the likeness of Mickey Mouse trademarked by disney and not copyrighted?
Sig withheld to protect the innocent.
> 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
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.
:(){
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.
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'.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What are you smoking dude. You sound like a freakin' commie nutjob.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Because you're poorly versed in art, his artistic example is invalid?
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
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.
Beware of Sleestak
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.
:(){
>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*
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
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.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
"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.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
"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.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
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.
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?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Most of the little guys have already signed their rights away to Universal, Sony, etc. Those are the ones YouTube is working with now.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
The mean old jukbox took your quarter!!!
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.
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: @_@ .
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.
Mark Cuban: 1
Google: 0
Table-ized A.I.
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.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
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.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
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.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
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.
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.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
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.
Says who? The law is there to protect private individuals from the public also.
Have you seen the shit on TV in other countries? Those south american telenovelas make Lost look like the Godfather in comparision.
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.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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.