Music Rights Holders Sue YouTube Again

bennyboy64 writes "NewTeeVee reports on a criminal investigation that has been launched against senior executives of YouTube and parent company Google in Hamburg, Germany over allegations of copyright infringement. The case started after a complaint was filed by German music rights holders. Hamburg's prosecutor has formally requested assistance from US colleagues to compel YouTube to produce log files identifying who uploaded as well as who viewed 500 specific videos."

Comments

Re:Performance != Observance

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Modern proscriptions on the copying and redistribution of data in the digital age resemble, if anything, proscriptions on the distribution of translations of the Bible in the 1500's at the advent of the printing press. In both cases the technology exists that enables people to transmit information freely and cheaply. In both cases, this new ability threatens the monopoly of an established order. In both cases, that order goes to extreme and unreasonable lengths to defend a status quo that has become farcical.

Freely and cheaply? Freely and cheaply is an illusion buddy. Sure, you don't pay much to copy the bits, but there are deeper costs, namely the supply of data copy. Your analogy conveniently fails to draw that parallel, the issue at the heart of this dispute.

Also, the "monopoly" you refer to isn't a monopoly, rather a series of miniature monopolies with a single product each, many of which can compete with each other. So, yeah, monopolies without the ability to price-gouge, and with plenty of independent competition.

So, like the bishops of old, the copyright industry is forced to extreme measures. Attack anyone, at any time, anywhere who seeks to defend or aid or in any way comfort those who break their canon, and do so with the utmost ferocity possible. Our modern legal system enables them to be as vindictive as they like with all the power of the courts behind the. Youtube is and always will be a prime target of their ire, being as it is, the bazaar of modern user content generation and distribution.

So, out of all the thousands (millions?) of user-created videos, exactly how many user-generated videos have been deleted, or who's logs have been turned over? Probably a few, due to over-zealous enforcement, but in proportion to the whole? A drop in the ocean. These efforts are not making a dent in the legitimate side of YouTube, and content companies know it. It should also be mentioned that there are official YouTube channels where music videos for singles are released (for free), so it's not like they're launching an all-out offensive against YouTube. It's just convenient for their opponents to believe so. It helps so much to have an evil villain to hate after all.

As the supply becomes infinite, what happens to the price?

It drops. Wake me up when the supply of fresh works is anywhere close to infinite.

Attempt as you like to construct sophistic or legal or moral arguments around this. But you have sidesteped this main issue, and its fundamental and central issue is aptly demonstrated by the stampede of ordinary people from all walks of life crashing through it and filesharing as they see fit.

There are very good logical, utilitarian arguments for copyright. We don't need to fall back on legal or moral arguments (although they don't hurt). And copyright doesn't sidestep this "main issue" (also known as enforcement). Content companies are enforcing their copyrights, and hopefully, if we can make copyright infringement criminal, we can simultaneously improve enforcement, and get some government oversight into the process.

Sure, we can't police private transactions, but then again, nobody really wants to. The damage of a particular copyright infringement is proportional to the number of people involved, which is proportional with the number of people you have to trust. If you share with a few close friends, then you're not worth it. If you're on a file-sharing network, sharing with thousands of strangers, then your of interest. That's thousands of potential sales lost, which will have an expected loss thousands of times more than a handful of friends sharing privately.

Now, one of the many things that anti-copyright arguments sidestep is that "everybody is doing it" does not equate with "you can't stop it", and especially "it is good". Another is that "big bad companies don't like it" does not equate with "it's

Re:Performance != Observance

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Interesting. It's your conjecture that the law was passed for the sole purpose of making money from other people's work, but then subsequently admitted that the proposal for the law (not even the law itself) was radically changed prior to the law coming into effect. You also admitted that it's the artists with the rights, but then, for reasons unknown, you also claim that now is somehow different.

You also, most paradoxically, claim that this somehow contradicts my point, which is that copyright is designed to prevent the abuse of copying technology, not to instantly fold to any that come along.

Well, now I can verify that, without a doubt, you had absolutely nothing worth reading. Thanks for the complete waste of time.