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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."
Can somebody please explain to me why it is apparently illegal to simply receive or observe a performance that violates a copyright? I was of the impression that only the distributing party would be liable.
...can we sue the musician?
Nothing beats a failure like failing again!
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Can somebody please explain to me why it is apparently illegal to simply receive or observe a performance that violates a copyright? I was of the impression that only the distributing party would be liable.
Because you copy the work into your computer's RAM to view it. There is an exception in countries' copyright laws covering necessary short-term copies, such as 17 USC 117 and foreign counterparts, but a lot of these exceptions cover copies only from those copies that are lawfully made.
Logs to get who viewed the videos. Is that not crazy?
the way i see it is that there's two types of artist. those that produce works for money, and those that don't and get money anyway. the former tend to be the one's doin' the sue-in'. that doesn't mean to say that they don't produce good works of art, it's more the situation "you WILL pay to enjoy my art" as opposed to "if you like it, pay me to produce more". it just doesn't feel right somehow
They have no business in knowing who viewed the videos. After all, since YouTube explicitly disables videos which are infringing, I have to assume that if I see a video on YouTube, I have the right to do so. If a video happens to be uploaded illegally, that's not my fault as viewer, and I cannot be made responsible for the fact that I was shown that video.
Just for the record: I don't have any idea whether I've seen any of those videos. Since those are just 500 videos, and YouTube has so many more, I suspect I haven't. But even if I have, I have done nothing wrong, and therefore they clearly have no moral right (and I really hope also no legal right, although in these times you never can be sure) to demand to find out whether I've seen any of those videos.
I hope I'll not have to start using anonymous proxies to protect myself when just doing normal, legal activities!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
...as well as who viewed 500 specific videos
The possibility of being dragged into a German court just because you viewed something is a game-changer, I'd say.
You'd have to weigh the potential time and money lost responding to German legal proceedings against just how bad you want to see any website that is within reach of the German legal system - unless you know the contents of all Flash animations and other media for the entire website in advance .
Does Google accept !GermanContent as a query modifier?
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
You have no idea of modern art. You still think art has to be something traditional like music, paintings etc. Actually they are producing legal art by using the law in creative ways (and creativity is the base of art, isn't it?) and performance art where the performance is done by lawyers in the courtroom.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Whether or not you can be held responsible for viewing the videos does not matter. For all non-Germans who might not know: This is the court in Hamburg. When it comes to copyright and internet you cannot find a more stupid court with more imbecile or corrupt judges than the one in Hamburg. You have enough money? You can get any ruling you like. Usually it does not hold before a higher court, but this is not necessarily expected by the "plaintiffs". The main task for the court in Hamburg is to be used to threaten and intimidate the monetary weaker party. In this case Google is not the monetary weaker party, but at least there is a chance that the "plaintiff" gets the data who watched the videos. It is very unlikely they will be sued directly. Though before the court in Hamburg this might be successful. It is most likely that the people who watched the videos get some sort of 'cease and desist letter', which costs them several hundred dollar. In Germany this is a legal way blackmailing people to pay in order not to get sued. In this case, if they do not pay probably nothing will happen. The legal base is just too weak. But enough will pay out of fear to get sued so that this scam will pay off nicely.
Don't tell me, tell the judges in Hamburg. Good luck. :-)
...you have to explicitly say "Music Rights Holders" instead of "Musicians".
As the supply becomes infinite, what happens to the price? As people have the ability to copy and now distribute data, text, music and movies at virtually zero cost, why is this data worth anything anymore?
I disagree with your terminology here. Not your argument or conclusion (I have yet to take a stand on those), but your terminology.
(maybe that makes me a pedantic, but so be it. If the mods don't like this, oh well; I have karma to burn and I'm willing to have it be burned to say what I want to say.)
Value and price are two differen things. Value is, roughly speaking, how much we like having something and/or how badly we want it. Price is the amount of resources we trade away to get it.
I value much of the software I run. I value listening to JT Bruce's "A skeptic's Hypothesis". I value watching "Big Buck Bunny". But I pay aprice of 0 for all of these. (There's a transaction cost toall of these, sure, but no price).
What will happen to the value as supply rises? Pretty much nothing. The price will likely drop to zero. Also, people might get a closer approximation of their real preferences if there is more competition.
But they'll still like listening to $BAND just as much.
(someone used to call this "value in trade" versus "value in use"; I think it was a greek, but you're armed with the power of Google, so use it if you need.)
Plus, how are you (the viewer) supposed to know if the video infringes anything until you have WATCHED it? You can not possibly go by the title! Have you seen how some of the vids are titled? They often have little or NOTHING to do with the video content.
And even after you have watched it, how are you really supposed to know the legal status of the video? It is not like you know if the uploaded has written permission or anything!
Not to mention that YouTube always takes the middle of the video for the thumbnail. Some uploaders are abusing that to post completely unrelated videos with the middle few seconds being what they want the thumbnail to be.
YouTube should make the thumbnails from random places so that uploaders can't fake them so easily.
It's not exactly +1, Funny; +1, Informative applies better. The Landgericht Hamburg is known for their peculiar opinions. For example, they maintain that someone running a website involving user content (like a forum or anything with a comment function) is liable for everything anyone writes on that website. And I'm not just talking about thinfs like hate speech, I'm talking about "a company sues the webmaster because a random user falsely said they have been sued in the past".
Oh, and if you delete the post and sign an agreement stating that you won't say that ever again (even though you never said it in the first place)? The user just needs to come back and repost his allegiation and you're getting a fine (historically in the five digits).
The real kicker? The law says that you're responsible for user-generated content on your website only if it's technologically feasible and reasonable to monitor the content. However, the LG Hamburg is of the opinion that it's always reasonable to thoroughly monitor all content, even if your forum generates 200.000 posts a month - as in the "Heise verdict", which has luckily been revised in the next instance so that you only need to remove posts you know contain illegal content. Yes, the LG Hamburg maintained that you're supposed to know for every single post made on your site whether its content is legal or not.
It's no surprise at all that Hamburg is the venue of choice to sue YouTube and possibly its users over videos infringing on someone's copyrights. I'm positive that the LG Hamburg will come to the conclusion that every user can be expected to be fully aware of the licensing status of all background music in random videos. Before they even watch the video and know which song(s) it contains.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
You aren't. You're supposed to pay up for each and every item you ever view, hear, watch, or play.