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Viacom Says User Infringed His Own Copyright
Chris Knight writes "I ran for school board where I live this past fall and created some TV commercials including this one with a 'Star Wars' theme. A few months ago VH1 grabbed the commercial from YouTube and featured it in a segment of its show 'Web Junk 2.0.' Neither VH1 or its parent company Viacom told me they were doing this or asked my permission to use it, but I didn't mind it if they did. I thought that Aries Spears's commentary about it was pretty hilarious, so I posted a clip of VH1's segment on YouTube so that I could put it on my blog. I just got an e-mail from YouTube saying that the video has been pulled because Viacom is claiming that I'm violating its copyright. Viacom used my video without permission on their commercial television show, and now says that I am infringing on their copyright for showing the clip of the work that Viacom made in violation of my own copyright!"
.. and sue them good!
Fair use is limited to reasonable excerpts. Otherwise, what's stopping me from copying an entire movie, then adding "I liked this movie" at the end.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Someone argued the exact opposite in an earlier post: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=283809&cid =20410121
Who is right?
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
*sends a letter to everyone that uses thepiratebay.org*
ok, from now on, in order to avoid infringing on copyright, to every movie you upload/download add a 4 second clip of yourself to it saying "this movie was [insert adjectif]", we should all be safe from here on out!
MABASPLOOM!
Two wrong don't make a right.
He should sue viacom.
...and that is all I have to say about that.
http://jessta.id.au
No, IANAL, but from the YouTube Terms of service (point 6C):
"For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels."
Basically when uploading you give youtube a transferrable license to display and distribute your work. Viacom's segment showing this work, however, did not come with any license to distribute. So if YouTube gave Viacom permission to use the content, Viacom had the right to do so, but the original author had no right to use the Viacom segment, except maybe as 'fair use' citation.
But Youtubes terms also include:
"You also hereby grant each user of the YouTube Website a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Website, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Website and under these Terms of Service."
This seems a bit ambiguous to me, but could mean that any user of YouTube are allowed to redistribute the content.