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YouTube Was Evil, and Google Knew It
pcause writes "Silicon Alley Insider has the most damning evidence released in the Viacom/YouTube suit. It seems clear from these snippets that YouTube knew it was pirating content, and did it to grow fast and sell for a lot of money. It also seems clear that Google knew the site contained pirated content and bought it and continued the pirating."
I'm still waiting for the evil part.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
I find it unlikely that Google considers this evil. After all, given their stance toward books and other literature, they seem to think that they have every right to reproduce and host content at their whim.
This isn't a double standard at work. Google simply believes that it's above the law, and 'evil' can be conveniently redefined to mean whatever suits the company's interests at the time. Don't fall for the feelgood narrative.
im also still waiting for the evil part. if anyone blabbers to the contrary, im ready with a phletora of evidences of REAL evil ranging from monsanto to comcast-nbc, viacom, microsoft, and many many more.
Read radical news here
404: Evil Not Found
AnimePapers.org: Anime Wallpapers Handled With Care
The ethical status of doing all this notwithstanding, and especially _knowingly_ relying on it as part of one's business plan, it would appear that Youtube had safe harbor to do all this under the online copyright liability limitations enacted as part of the DMCA.
Wow, that's even debated? Did anyone honestly believe that the biggest search engine in the world was completely blind?
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
So this is a direct response to http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/18/2059236/Google-Slams-Viacom-For-Secret-YouTube-Uploads from Viacom ?
One interesting quote (by Patrick Walker of Google) was this:
Top 10 reasons why we shouldn't stop screening for copyright violations: 1. It crosses the threshold of Don't be Evil to facilitate distribution of other people's intellectual property, and possibly even allowing monetization of it by somebody who doesn't own the copyright.
A handy assessment of copyright and IP from an ethical (as opposed to legal) point of view. Next time the topic on how Google "really" feels about copyrights comes up, you know the answer.
I just upload videos of me and my friends; they're all from hell.
If you had been privy to the ACTA preceedings, you'd know "evil" has been redefined. Fools.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Napster knew that they hosted copyrighted material, SCO knew that they didn't own Linux, and Mark McGuire's trainer knew that he took steroids. This knowledge was related to personal gain. Film at 11.
It also seems clear that Google knew the site contained pirated content
Well, yeah, it seems likely that they had in fact heard of YouTube before buying it and therefore knew that it contained pirated content. I think you need a little bit more than that to hang them or else the trial is going to be very very short.
Is a way of life, time to get over it and embrace it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You tube ans its employees were the only ones on earth not aware of the stolen content. Oh, and Googlers too.
Next scoop: bittorrent creator WAS aware of copyrighted content being shared via his protocol.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
No, what YouTube (and Google) was allegedly involved in was gross copyright infringement. Quit calling it piracy already.
Of course. I mean, it's a mere 400 years of precedence for the word "piracy" having the meaning of "copyright infringement"; nothing to bother about, right?
1. Google Search
2. I'm Feeling Lucky
3. AARRRRR!!!
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Are like morals, they are relative.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Nowadays, words have more than one meaning. If you think that's bad, you should probably avoid the topic of "Abbreviations" altogether.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/03/broadcast-yourself.html
"Pirating" is such a slanted, unhelpful framing of using and sharing digital material without permission.
It's perfectly viable that someone can run a site where up to 99% of the content is pirated and be completely oblivious about this fact.
Quit calling it piracy already.
But The Copyright Infringer Bay just doesn't have the same ring to it...
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
It was propaganda then and it's propaganda now - "pirate" was the "terrorist" of its day. It was a cheap attempt to blacken the name of people who didn't agree with the evil of copyright law by likening them to the much more serious real pirates.
Propaganda isn't just a 20th century thing - the nazis and americans refined it to an art in the 20th century, but it existed long before then.
And remember- 400 years isn't a particularly long time by european or chinese standards.
for creating a global repository for audio/visual culture spanning every single country on this marble, people said they could never deliver the bandwidth but amazingly they did
Viacom is just pissed that their content is no more popular than cat videos filmed with a mobile phone hence they have to employ marketing agencies just to get the views they do
Just remember that and keep saying it over and over. Google is our friend. Google is our friend. Google is our friend.
I don't think people's opinion of Google would change if they installed an application that uploaded to their servers anything that contained the word "copyright" in it and they then sold access to these gathered files. Better yet, just made the files available with embedded advertising. Imagine getting access to movie scripts as works-in-progress with some topically relevent ads sprinkled in. How about design documents for new consumer electronics gear, a year or so before it hit the market. You could market this under the moniker "Open Google".
The problem with Google is they got so incredibly big so incredibly fast without ever having to learn anything about growth or ethics. A lot of the senior staff are very young and have little experience other than Google. If it can be monetized, there is no reason not to do so in their eyes, especially if it doesn't seem "evil" at first glance.
They probably did need that infringing content to survive. But now, they've reached a point where that's no longer the case. If you really could remove all the stuff on YouTube that's unauthorized and doesn't qualify as fair use, it almost wouldn't matter any more. Nearly all the most-viewed videos now are some type of personal video, or something that's authorized and legit.
It's also really hard to make a claim that YouTube has hurt content providers more than it has helped them. You don't see full TV episodes or movies for instance. All you find is short clips that, if anything, function as advertising and get more people to purchase them than would have otherwise. Perhaps the same is not entirely true for audio tracks and music videos, but those have been so trivially easy to acquire illegally for years now, I'm not convinced YouTube had a net negative impact for those kinds of content providers either.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
400 years of precedence you reckon?
the first 'copyright' law was from 1709, so how does that work? nothing to bother about, right?
They'd have to be idiots not to know YouTube was carrying some kind of infringing content somewhere in its library of user-uploaded videos. The important question is not whether they knew this general and largely inevitable fact, nor even whether they thought they might benefit from it. What's important is whether they knew of specific instances of infringement and did nothing to correct it.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
If you want to accuse anyone of piracy, then accuse individual users, not the site. The site itself only serves as a distribution media, acting against reported violations upon request.
The problem is that it's not feasible to request every user to demonstrate that they own the copyright or are otherwise authorize to publish content. If I want to publish movies of myself playing games (which is the only thing that I use Youtube for), the requirement to prove that the movie was in fact my property would be enough to turn me off, especially since I may well not even be the owner of those movies since they can be considered derivative works.
I think if they search harder, they may find that as a search engine, google indexed pages about piracy, hate speech, and terrorism. How evil is that?
Don't get me started about the PHONE COMPANY. They carry all sorts of damnable content. I've heard copyrighted music over a phone, before.
25 of the 27 slides on that site were from dates prior to google's acquisition.. I'm not sure if that excuses them but none the less its not quite the "google is evil" mantra the OP is trying to deliver.
Was the quality good enough to call it "pirated"?
I don't remember ever watching an entire commercial show or movie on YouTube. It has a pretty bad reputation for clip length and resolution, so it's not exactly my first choice for watching, say, The Office.
Is it for anyone else?
It does? Prove it.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
As YouTube's council recently pointed out, more or less any video is copyrighted. If you make a video, it's copyright to you upon time of creation. Few people actually bother to release their stuff in to the public domain, so the works remain copyrighted. Now that does NOT mean they can't be posted on Youtube. The holder of a copyright can determine how it is allowed to be used, including given away for free to anyone.
Now, as that applies to big media companies the problem is that they themselves, or their agents, like PR agencies, do indeed upload content to Youtube. So just because a work is uploaded that is owned by a big company, it doesn't mean there has been infringement. Perhaps the company themselves did the uploading. They don't always do it through some official account.
As such it makes sense to respond to infringement notices and remove the content, but not to run around assuming that you know what is and is not ok to be on there. Other than videos by the government (which are public domain at creation) or ones that people have bothered to release in to the public domain, it's all copyrighted material. However a great deal of it the copyright holders WANT to be on there, including when said holders are major media companies.
pirate == bad?
The law is not 'fair'. It can be changed. It should be changed.
"Don't be evil" =! "Be legal"
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
You know what's evil? Copyright term of "70 years + life of the author".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_term
Almost every single thing creative that someone creates today will *never* enter the public domain within our lifetime. Nothing. The owner of the copyright must explicitly grant it to the public domain, or license it for other's use, distribution, sharing, mashing, basically anything more than fair use... Copyright is no longer about promotion of creativity, its a legal exclusivity and an effectively permanent lock on all creative output by business interests. Add WIPO and ACTA and soon within 10 years or so, it will be a global exclusive lock, again driven by business interests.
The current copyright laws are simply a denial of any sense of balance or social good in intellectual property.
I know that, but calling 'gross copyright infringement' is nothing more then a marketing tactic (which has worked) to paint copyright infringers in the same light as those who go out on the high seas and steal stuff from ships when it isn't even the same thing. In piracy you steal a physical product. In gross copyright infringement you COPY something and then share that copy. The original product (legally bought or not is not the case here) is still able to be sold for fun and profit. Unfortunately the MPAA, the RIAA and other such organizations have yet to join the Intarwebs in selling their products at competitive prices.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Seems consistent with "Information just wants to be free" (as in beer?).
From Wikipedia article on copyright infringement:
"Even prior to the 1709 enactment of the Statute of Anne, generally recognized as the first copyright law, the Stationers' Company of London in 1557 received a Royal Charter giving the company a monopoly on publication and tasking it with enforcing the charter. Those who violated the charter were labeled pirates as early as 1603."
And, yes, there is a reference there. Go look it up yourself.
See reply to other commenter who asked for it first.
Am I the only one who wants to freak the fuck out about a 27 page slide show with thirty words max of content each!?
It's publishing like this that makes me happy I don't have TFA's web site in my Ad-block plus whitelist. Fuck'em.
Quit calling it piracy already.
It's piracy. Get over it. The word has evolved beyond parrots and yarrh's to include appropriation and distribution of files for which no license to distribute was provided by the content creator.
Language grows. "Hacker" used to mean a really bad golfer. And "Geeks" bit the heads off chickens.
Maybe someday, the people who argue over semantics will win. It'll go something like this: Congratulations. You won the semantic argument. We won everything else.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Now the serpent was craftier than anyone else the Lord God had let loose on the network. He asked the user, "Did God really say, 'You must not access any URL on the website'?"
The woman said to the serpent, "We may access most pages, but He did say, 'You must not load any URL from this particular IP, or you will die.'"
"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you load of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
When the woman saw that the response from the server was pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she bookmarked it. She also sent the link to her husband, who was following her twittering, and he clicked on it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they quickly searched for free antivirus software.
Yes.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Propaganda isn't just a 20th century thing - the nazis and americans refined it to an art in the 20th century
I'm sorry, but you just can't call out the Nazis and the United States for refining propaganda in the 20th Century and leave out the Soviet Union and China.
It's true that Western propaganda was heavily influenced by Viennese and American concepts and put to the test in the U.S. in order to push the country into World War I by Woodrow Wilson. However, that occurred in parallel with the development of Russian revolutionary efforts to sway the populace which would be enshrined as a central element of Soviet rule.
I'm not seeing the evil. All I see is discussions about covering their asses and a few individuals admitting to copyright infringement (with no actual evidence and no indication that this was done by YouTube itself). I see an acknowledgement that much of the material could be potentially infinging, but I also see discussions on how to proceed with takedown processes (whether to have a direct reporting link or wait for a takedown notice). As this kind of thing hadn't been done before, it could be argued that waiting for a takedown notice was a perfectly legal option, instead of having to be proactive.
There seems to be very little factual evidence in all of these IM and email quotes, not to mention that they are all taken out of context or given new context by Viacom's lawyers (prime example is the personal opinion that rightsholders were assholes being touted as a general disregard for copyright). It seems that much of this could easily be classed as hearsay (mainly the IM conversations) not factual evidence, and is only really useful in establishing character of the Google and YouTube management.
It seems that if Viacom are dredging up these emails and IM conversations as key evidence, they may not have much of a case, and that putting them out there is more about trying to publically shame YouTube into a settlement. If this is all they have to file for summary judgement, the rest of the case may be pretty flimsy.
Contrast this with YouTube/Google's filing for sumary judgement that argues that Viacom were placing videos on YouTube through covert and very deliberate means. This shows Viacome were being complete hypocrites, and it can be easily argued that Viacom could have been using this to entrap YouTube. If Google/YouTube have actual evidence of that, it could very easily be a smoking gun.
I don't think Google was pirating anything on YouTube. That would be like saying T-Mobile is part of a conspiracy if I make a plan to buy drugs in a cell phone call.
There are safe harbor laws for a reason. It's up to the copyright holder to police their property, otherwise how is YouTube supposed to know which videos are piracy and which are just being uploaded by Viacom's idiot guerrilla marketers?
Porquoi?
Really? Is this the most damning evidence? On a scale of 1 being least damning and 10 being most damning where does this fall when also considering that Viacom was uploading videos to YouTube in an effort to make YouTube look like it was infringing?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/18/youtube-viacom-would-demand-removal-of-videos-it-covertly-uploa/
Fuck the media conglomerates. I hope they all rot.
Or is Viacom just suing to remove the competition. After all the sneezing panda video was way more popular than any Viacom show. They don't like being beaten in the ratings by home videos taken at the zoo.
copyright infringement != piracy
They're using their grammar skills there.
Location: http:
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 169
<html>
<head>
<title>Evil moved</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Evil moved</h1>
<p>Evil has moved to <a href="http://google.com/">http://google.com/</a>.</p>
</body>
</html>
Correct me if I'm wrong, but TFA only shows that:
- BEFORE the merger, Youtube was intentionally lax about video copyright;
- Google knew it.
That can be easily downplayed in court by Google, by saying "yes we knew but that's why we bought it, so we could fix that part". Plus, Google's got plenty of evidence of their effort to remove copyrighted stuff AFTER the merger.
Now, about countering "your evidence of infringement was uploaded by yourself"...
Sharing is good.
Capitalist greed is bad.
Rant over...
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
Great point.
I wonder how many people would say it's "not really identity theft" since you still have your identity ... it wasn't "stolen."
Or "I didn't steal the cable/satellite/internet - they still have it."
If we can have theft of identity (and your identity is Intellectual Property in its purest form), ad we can have theft of signals and services, when nothing is actually physically "taken" ...
We should go back to the common case - you used something without permission and permission was required, then you're a thief.
They could have done the diligence and said "We'll have to clean that up after the purchase".
No sig today...
Get this off the front page or correct it, it's out of context and was probably sparked by viacom or one of its fanboys.
in context:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/18/viacom-may-be-misrepresenting-youtube-founders-call-to-steal-it/
Trent Reznor once encouraged fans at a concert to steal music, "Steal it. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more, and give it to all your friends.. and keep on stealin."
But that's out of context! Here's the context:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ5iHaV0dP4
Maybe it's Viacom that's being evil?
your 'founding fathers' ( i cant understand why you people separate them as if they were not just participants in age of enlightenment as revolutionaries) founded and supported the patent system because otherwise british would screw it up for everyone because they already had a patent system. its basically the equivalent of acta. in 100 years brits would come demanding rights on anything in america with their patents. so, they had to set it up to compete.
'patent systems spur innovation' is the biggest bullshit that is perpetrated around. there was a patent system long in existence in dutch republic circa 1590 AD. and trade and enterprise was SO free that it was even possible to trade with the enemy city while your own army was laying siege to it, and sail into the city port under the noses of your own army's guns, citing 'free trade is a legal right', and get away with it easily.
yet, it didnt spur anything. industrial revolution didnt start in 1590, it started 150 years after. why the hell didnt industrial revolution start in dutch republic, if patents were so encouraging, despite they had that much trade and entrepreneurial freedom there ?
BECAUSE PATENTS DONT SPUR ANYTHING. markets do. there wasnt enough markets to sell mass produced goods back in 1590. industrial revolution was to start only after sufficient markets in colonies and conquered places like india came into being for europe.
The reason that "most of the copyrights are in the hands of large companies" is that people SELL the rights to their creations. What's wrong with that? Or are you of the opinion that people don't deserve to be able to do that?
im of the opinion that it is beyond stupid to allow people to lay claim to logical constructs and designs. for if you do, you will eventually end up with companies like monsanto coming suing farmers into oblivion and taking their lands off them because the monsanto seeds which another farmer bought cross pollinated with the neighboring crops, and therefore created 'an infringement of intellectual property'.
and it happened. in YOUR country. but it appears, like you dont know about history of science (and therefore patents and patent systems), you dont know zit about what's happening in your country either. yet you are still able to come here talk arrogantly, and accusingly.
acquire a broader horizon and enough knowledge first.
Read radical news here
Is this really surprising? I mean, no shit people were aware that material violating copyright was being uploaded to youtube, and that they were aware of it. Do we really imagine that google bought youtube and then had to do a double-take and say "Wait a minute, there's COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL here? Oh my!"
How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
And, yes, there is a reference there. Go look it up yourself.
And if you actually try to follow that reference you'll find that it is nonexistent.
Nice try though.
I don't even mind the term Piracy since it is unlikely anyone will actually mistake it for actual high seas piracy, and while it certainly is a slanted term which implies theft, it is certainly a more convenient term than copyright infringement. What really bothers me is when people call it Theft. It is clearly not theft, yet people might easily confuse it for theft. That is the battle I fight. I fear the piracy battle is already lost.
FYI, a "reference" is not necessarily a link. So long as it specifies the title and author of the work, it's still a valid reference - JFGI. Or check a local library.
Since this, apparently, poses an insurmountable challenge to some people, here is a direct link to the text of the work in question (PDF).
The practice of piracy originally had a positive (even proud) reputation. During the 10th and 9th centuries B.C. in Greece, small groups routinely engaged in the organized use of force; this was an activity seen merely as part of citizens' struggle for survival rather than anything immoral or illegal. Those who engaged in piracy seized essential goods, but the practice was not limited to necessities, since pirates also seized goods merely for gain. Whether for need or sport, piracy served as a wholly legitimate alternative to Greece's main gift-exchange economic transfer system. In this way, piracy was an original underground economy.
Then later moves on to the more IP-related piracy claims, such as:
Henry Campbell Black wrote in 1898, the term "piracy" "is also applied to the illicit reprinting or reproduction of a copyrighted book or print or to unlawful plagiarism from it." This definition is consistent with the 1798 case Beckford v. Hood, one of American law's first case citations that invoked "piracy" as a proxy for unauthorized copying. In Beckford, the court characterized the case's primary issue (an unauthorized commercial republication of a book) as "an action upon the case for piracy of copyright."
Refusing to use the term in a proper context is not the answer. Re-establishing the weight of the context will be a much more successful approach.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
I would. There's even a word for it: "impersonation"
Yes, indeed.
Or we could have a bit of precision, and distinguish the rather different cases of for instance, the physical taking of a manuscript, and the unlawful distribution of the text. Those are different crimes, with different consequences. I don't see why they should have the same names.
They understood that without a way to protect the intellectual creations, such as books, music, architectural designs, inventions, et al, there would be less motivation for people to spend the time, and energy, to create them.
They thought there would be insufficient motivation. But like many other 18th century beliefs, they were mistaken: don't forget that many of the founders owned slaves, too.
We in the 21st century now know that copyright is not required to motivate people to spend time and energy to produce such content: millions of people do it every day, for free, just because they like to share their creations.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Google can find much more illegal stuff without youtube. Why would they want to buy it?.. I guess it's just a respond to the article published earlier: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/18/2059236/Google-Slams-Viacom-For-Secret-YouTube-Uploads
The full context of the email threads that the quotes are extracted from shows a completely different conversation. Slashdot needs to be a bit quicker. We're on internet time. I hate going to a site and read news that's already been contradicted by more recent news.
This is stale.
Disney can own the character of Mickey Mouse, but they shouldn't be able to own the Steamboat Willie Cartoon, so if a company in China of Ohio wants to release a DVD of Steamboat Willie they can, but they cannot create a new cartoon with Mickey mouse in it. The only who can create a new cartoon with MM is Disney.
Eventually all of the Disney Classics should become Public Domain after 50 years after each one is released. They can own their own created characters like the "Disney Version of Snow White" but they cannot own the Character of "Snow White" because that one went into public domain with the book. Disney should be able to protect their plates with "Disney Snow White" on them from being copied, but shouldn't be able to prevent someone from creating their own snow white cartoon based on the original book which is in Public Domain.
Right now Disney is riding roughshod over copyright and public domain because a lot of their films should be entering public Domain but strangely enough they are not....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I don't know why this article was even posted. Mike Masnick actually put some time into READING the court documents, and Viacom (just like this poster) is taking things WAY out of context.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100319/1237138636.shtml
Read The Fracking Article!
si vis pacem, para bellum..."if you wish peace, prepare for war"
It sits there for a moment and then pops up an "Anti-Virus Software has detected an infection" Javascript window and then goes to town.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
And let's not forget Xenu. He managed to make us all think that those ideas mean anything at all!
Illegal and Evil are two entirely separate things. Anything that hurts the current media industrial complex is a good and righteous act as far as I'm concerned.
amusing conversations
Mediocasa, intermediazione e consulenza imobiliare.
But unfortunately that's what RL "evil" _is_: not giving a fuck about morals or others' rights, as long as you get what you want.
Virtually nobody has it as their goal in life simply to spend pain and misfortune. They just want to gain something. Be it money, power, attention, or just a quick amusement.
Even if you take a serial killer like Ted Bundy, probably his ultimate goal wasn't just murder for murder sake. He just wanted to amuse himself, get a bit of thrill, etc. The fact that someone had to die for that amusement wasn't goal per se, but just a case of "who the fuck cares?"
Stalin, the guy who caused millions to be killed and millions more to be deported to Siberia, wasn't in it just for the sake of killing people. He just wanted to protect his throne at all cost, and sadly saw conspiracies against him everywhere. But there is no indication that he took pleasure in the actual killings or torture. The more brutal reality is that he didn't give a damn. He just didn't care how many innoncents have to suffer, just in the end result that he gets his goal: staying in power.
Now I'm not comparing a bit of copyright infringement at Google with serial murder, but the principle of the matter is the same: just not giving a flying fuck about those pesky other people.
If you want other examples, take your choice of guy who scammed some investors with a Ponzi scheme. There have been a couple since the '90's. They were not some comic-book Super-Villain, whose goal is to destroy some people's savings and make them miserable. They just wanted the money, the spotlight, the adrenaline rush maybe, the feeling of power and importance, or whatever other tangible personal goal. Scamming other people was a tool to an end. The misery caused was simply a case of "who cares about that?"
It's just that willingness to put oneself above laws and redefine morals on the fly (which you call redefining "evil") that _is_ what RL evil is all about.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
duh.
The multi-billion dollar entertainment industry is crying like a dropped baby because some people briefly watch clips of their shows that have already been on TV.
Oh, my heart bleeds.
How about charging a fair price (read: about half what they do now) and delivering content on media that works properly instead of being crippled by DRM? My copy of The Beast With A Billion Backs only plays properly on one of the three laptops, and doesnt run at all on my oldest one.
I look at "Piracy" (be it infringement or swashbuckling) as opportunistic rebellion against the mercantile establishment. Even in cases where such opportunistic rebellion becomes hazardous to the innocent (present day Somalian pirates being a prime example) it is foolish to waste effort railing directly against the pirates that could be expended in starving them of circumstance to conflict with the establishment in the first place.
Lets say you have mold creeping up the walls in your bathroom. Perhaps it even endangers your children, who are allergic. Do you spend your time scrubbing the mold, which grows back faster than you can scrub? Or do you go to the root and fix the leaking pipe hidden behind the facade of your wall, and then mop up whatever mold still has the momentum to grow?
In the case of Somalia, change trade policy so that hijacking insured boats (where the boat owners and insurance companies also profit at the hazard of the crew) is no longer more lucrative for the fishermen than fishing or other endeavors might be. If there still remain knots of criminals too tough for the newly incentivized merchants and insurance companies to resist, then focus law enforcement scrubbing in that area.
In the case of copyright, we should elegantly and smoothly dismantle copyright. This would render most file sharers and even most back lot DVD peddlers into the sunlight where they would no longer need to be persecuted. All that would be left to scrub away are the plagiarizers and fraudsters, and they would be much easier to out and to prosecute without the censorship of copyright in the way.
For us infringers, "Pirate" is both a dysphemism and a romantic term. We've reclaimed it (as our founding fathers reclaimed "Capitalism" from Karl Marx), so look lively, ye scurvy scalawag! :D
People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
if the law itself is evil. There is no such thing as imaginary property. We do not need to create it out of thin air and coercive force in order to have a prosperous society where ideas and art flourish. Google FTW. Since they don't appear to have broken any laws anyway, it hardly matters. Viacom is just following the old legal maxim: "If the facts are against you, bang on the law. If the law is against you, bang on the facts. If both are against you, bang on the table." Banging on the table isn't going to get Viacom very far against a well-funded defense.
Remember, Google bought YouTube, started their book scanning project, etc. partly just so that they could be party to these lawsuits. They want to make sure it's Google that gets sued, so that they have a chance to steer the case law as they wish. When you have billions in cash you can act this way, and it is a good thing for society. Viacom complaining about DMCA protections? I think that's funny. Maybe even ironic.
Calling them Pirates then was the equivalent of calling them Terr'ists today. It was for political purposes, which are usually for monetary purposes.
We know what pirates really are, They rape and pillage, kill and steal with force. They were organised criminals, in competition with each other over the coastal areas and the waters nearby.
As much as we like to look back on history with _Insert_Tinted_Glasses, propaganda was alive and well even then.
Captcha: Dueling
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares?"
Sir, your sig dizzies me. I'm going to be thinking "whom cares" all day now and not get any work done. x3
People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
You won at the internet argument. I hope you are happy, because this means the universe cannot continue to exist.
.
Anyway, would I really scream bloody murder over an ftp site that knew people were uploading stuff that violated the GPL, but decided not to care and just act as a neutral hosting service until a GPL software copyright holder contacted them? Even if the decision was made because "neutrality" benefited them? No, not really. I'd be pissed at the one who stripped the GPL notice off in the first place. Not the ftp site that decided not to get involved in the fight and just serve as an ftp site.
You can not compare YouTube which is making seriously lots of money to a random dump site. The comparison is faulty. Instead, compare it to PirateBay who was making just a little bit of money without hosting copyright infringements and just linking to it. They got sued and lost according to Swedish law and google would too if it was based in Sweden.
But in the US, they have the DMCA and the safe harbor provisions. Basically as long as they remove content copyright holders complain about, they don't have any lawsuit to fear. Since the onus is on the copyright holder to locate and file DMCA take-down notices, a lot of copyrighted material can stay up for a long time. And whoever is hosting it has ample time to profit from it.
YouTube is not alone in this. Basically every video site on the net hides behind that same safe harbour clause. Take all the porn tube sites for example. Their story is that their users upload movie scenes which they merely publish in low resolution. Then they make profit by enticing users to pay for subscriptions so that they can download high quality videos. Except it isn't users that upload videos, it is the site administrators themselves posing as users. Those who *do* rip and upload videos, uploads them to torrent networks, why would they even bother with porn tube sites?
There are sites showing Lost episodes, The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, Terminator Chronicles, Desperate Housewives etc. They all operate the same way and are all legal according to US law because of the DMCA. Whether taking advantage of the DMCA safe harbor provision is "evil" or not is not a relevant question, but it is understandable why every copyright holder in the movie industry whats that law changed.
Football Odds
What an absurd position! Is it unacceptable to question the morality of something because doing so could be "contentious"? Is the opinion of the majority the last word on morality? (Some would describe your position as extreme political correctness.) Was criticizing the morality of the law "outside the scope" of the discussion when the Dred Scott ruling came down? By your measure virtually all moral questions would be outside the scope of this discussion. (I am absolutely not comparing the horrors of slavery with the dangers of maximalist copyright, simply highlighting the absurdity of your claim.)
You may think winthrop's post challenges the rule of law. I disagree. Laws are not legitimate and just simply because they are the law. The corrupt and undemocratic process by which maximalist copyright has been imposed is the real threat to the rule of the law, not the protest of those on whom the law is imposed. The legitimacy of that opposition is not in the least undermined by the fact that people use the technical means available (the GPL's use of copyright) in order to try to bring about change.
So I echo the question: What is the "evil" part? Maybe we all agree Google's actions are evil, but in the context of conflicts around copyright the explanation of why is rather important. Obviously spazdor is aware of the law. His question was effectively, "I know it's illegal, but why is it evil?", to which you have basically responded: "because it's illegal."
There are *gasp* copyrighted videos on Youtube?!
Seriously, are you Slashdotters actually raging over this or is today copyright trolling day?
Fuck copyright. And hopefully, Youtube will continue to provide news clips* and whatnot for years to come.
* FTFA
In a July 10, 2005 email to YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim reported that he had found a "copyright video" and stated: "Ordinarily I'd say reject it, but I agree with Steve, let's ease up on our strict policies for now. So let's just leave copyrighted stuff there if it's news clips. I still think we should reject some other (C) things tho..."; Chad Hurley replied, "ok man, save your meal money for some lawsuits! ;) no really, I guess we'll just see what happens.""
The premises are wrong here. I, for one, don't think that allowing people to upload basically whatever to Youtube is evil.
It's just a tool.
Viacom is already far, far more evil through what it has done than Google can ever be.
Constant excessive attempts to invoke the DMCA on content that is short enough to be covered by fair use, etc., etc., etc.
AND, lest we forget, Viacom is a cornerstone member of the MPAA. One of the most evil organizations in the world, with the possible exception of the RIAA.
So dear Viacom, please burn in the hell you deserve. I won't shed tear one.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
This is the only explanation I can think of. Either this or total failure to comprehend.
Another article:
Meanwhile, Google says, Viacom "regularly uses so-called 'stealth marketing' to get its content onto YouTube. The goal is to create the appearance of authentic grassroots interest in the content being promoted." Google cites a marketing executive at Viacom's Paramount studio who said that clips posted to YouTube "should definitely not be associated with the studio -- should appear as if a fan created and posted it." To accomplish that, Google says that "Viacom employees have made special trips away from the company's premises (to places like Kinko's) to upload videos to YouTube from computers not traceable to Viacom."
Also, "Viacom has altered its own videos to make them appear stolen." Indeed, Google says that a former president of MTV, not named, testified that Viacom didn't take down clips from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report because "we were concerned that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert believed that their presence on YouTube was important for their ratings as well as for their relationship with their audience."
So... who's evil here?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
That top executives of one of the worlds biggest websites are stupid enough to incriminate themselves in that way in a series of blatantly obvious e-mails.
According to slide on page 22 (sigh), You Tube is a "video Grokster". So You Tube promotes discussion of abuses of the law by greedy litigious bastards whose business model hasn't changed with the times.
Yeah, you're absolutely right that we should grandfather it in, never mind the difference between raping, looting and pillaging and infringing upon copyrights.
You know where we get grandfather clauses from, right? There were these "grandfather clauses" that said you could only vote if your grandfather had voted. Passed soon after the slaves were emancipated, for some reason. Coincidentally, the white grandfathers who had all been voting passed those rights on to their grandchildren. The black grandfathers? Not so much. (And yes, there were other fun things like poll taxes, tests, etc. in addition to the grandfather clauses.)
For the record, I publish all my stuff so that people can make free use of it. Heck, there was one thing I asked to be published only on the condition that I NOT receive attribution for it. In other words, they were free to do whatever they wanted with it and they didn't have to give me any credit for writing it (it was a research paper on Scientology if you're wondering; I gave it to the university, but I didn't want to get harassed by them, given that I lived right next to one of their franchises*). So no, I don't think that knowing there's copyrighted, or even copyright-infringing, content on YouTube is enough for me to consider it evil. If you want to talk about EVIL, I happen to know this interesting organization that was started about half a century ago...
* (I'm using the original term here. What are now called Churches of Scientology were originally called franchises. Until they decided that they didn't want to pay taxes any more. Then they came up with some rituals and changed the names of a few things and...)
Ethics can be a little fuzzy, especially about stuff like this. Nobody got physically hurt. Nobody died. Many people profited righteously and fairly, and a great many more continue to do so. A huge industry has formed and huge numbers of people benefit.
The standard isn't really, "if one kid uploads a 40 second clip of a new movie, four people see it and one of those who would have bought the DVD doesn't, that's evil and they should take a full page ad for their apology, fire all the employees and burn the building down". Well, most people wouldn't take that opinion. The legal experts down at the MPAA may feel that way.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
6. Your User Submissions and Conduct
1. As a YouTube account holder you may submit video content ("User Videos") and textual content ("User Comments"). User Videos and User Comments are collectively referred to as "User Submissions." You understand that whether or not such User Submissions are published, YouTube does not guarantee any confidentiality with respect to any User Submissions.
2. You shall be solely responsible for your own User Submissions and the consequences of posting or publishing them. In connection with User Submissions, you affirm, represent, and/or warrant that: you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorize YouTube to use all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights in and to any and all User Submissions to enable inclusion and use of the User Submissions in the manner contemplated by the Website and these Terms of Service.
So Viacom employees uploading content on behalf of their employer - the copyright holder, asignee or licensee - under these terms is the grant of a legitimate license to use the content forever. Google should go back and re-host all of this content again.
Also, I'm pretty sure that filing takedown licenses against somebody when you yourself gave them a license to use it is "theft of intellectual property in the first degree" as in, when they steal back this permission when they're not entitled do so, they actually do deprive somebody of something that was theirs.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Is he saying pirates are evil? Pirates aren't evil, they are lovable scallywags, aaaaarrrggghh!
0 X aaarrrgghhh!
The author thinks these guys are puffed-up buffoons and that they are murdering the English language and poetry itself. That's how he comes to the piracy metaphor. There is nothing about copyright infringement here.
However, I absolutely demand that others respect the licensing terms I distribute my materials under, and I respect the licenses chosen by others. Violating that is absolutely inexcusable. It irritates me to no end that the open source community will frequently scream bloody murder over a GPL violation, then turn around and say stuff like this "isn't evil."
If they believe in sharing information, wouldn't you expect them to support licenses like the GPL that promote sharing and oppose proprietary licenses that don't?
Personally, I only care about the GPL as a means to an end: promoting the free exchange and improvement of software. Copyright law takes away the ability to do that, and the GPL gives it back. But it's only necessary, and deserving of respect, to the extent that copyright law is taking that ability away in the first place.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
the % copyrighted material in the quotes is probably out of context, everything is copyrighted by their users via berne except for public domain stuff (most of google books especially). since video is relatively new most of it hasn't fallen into public domain yet. so saying a high percentage of the google stuff is copyrighted is a well duh and irrelevant. the only thing important is weather someone other than the user owned the right, and even then proving that they didn't have permission/liscence, and even then proving such use was outside the scope of fair use. given that viacom was uploading most of the stuff they are complaining about directly or via proxy, it will be very hard for them to show lack of license/permission.
Learn it today that the BIG G stands for GOOD, not EVIL 111
Now bend over and take it like a man you stupid mofo 111
Viacom wants to get in a datamining war with Google regarding email / discovery. Umm... ok... good luck with that.
Piracy is producing counterfeit copies specifically to sell for profit.
there can't be anyone around slashdot that doesn't know you're a clueless sensationalist and yet they still let you pick stories.
pot kettle and all that..
I like how there's this assumption that Google was somehow oblivious to what kind of content was actually posted on youtube. That's just a pretense user-generated content providers maintain in the hopes of getting out of legal trouble. It's like the Pirate bay half-heartedly trying to convince a jury that they just host Linux distributions. If somebody with an IQ of 60 can figure it out how to find pirated content on youtube, then so can the collective executive and legal team at google. The only question is whether there's documentation that proves they actually knew.
Google mentioned this in their blog post about Viacom, but....
"Copyrighted material" is everything that hasn't entered the public domain. If you make a video of your dog and upload it to YouTube (or wherever), it is copyrighted material by default under US law, and most other country's laws.
So the issue is not whether people were uploading copyrighted videos, of course they were. The issue is whether they were uploading copyrighted videos without the *permission* of the copyright owner. Now, you might think that's silly, because nobody would care if someone upload a video of their dog, but Fox would for sure care if you upload an episode of "the Simpsons" - but you'd be wrong, since Viacom itself was uploading videos to Youtube.
I'm not sure that knowing about it changes anything. E.g., when people defend p2p websites, they're not ignorant that there's bound to be copyrighted material illegal distributed there - that's a straw man. The argument is that a p2p website shouldn't be held liable for what the torrents point to.
There's also the difference between knowing that YouTube must have copyrighted material on it somewhere, and knowing exactly what all of them are. In the latter case, there's an argument that they should then remove those individual videos - but simply knowing that Youtube has copyrighted material on it doesn't help you find it!
It irritates me to no end that the open source community will frequently scream bloody murder over a GPL violation, then turn around and say stuff like this "isn't evil."
Ah, this straw man again. The "scream bloody murder" occurs when companies are distributing something commercially, and doing it themselves. This is not comparable to saying that the owners of a user-generated site should be responsible for what users upload. For all we know, there may be Creative Commons etc material on Youtube that doesn't follow the licence, but it isn't going to change my opinion of Google here.
I'm an open source author too. I'd be annoyed if someone making a profit didn't follow the licence. I wouldn't call a site owner "evil" simply because someone uploaded it in violation of the licence. Nor would I suggest that I deserve millions of dollars in damages, or that new laws be created to criminalise software to circumvent any protections on my software, or that people should be disconnected from the Internet if they distributed my GPL program without offering the source, or that websites doing this should be censored - you know, these are the actual things that people "scream bloody murder" about.
Can you imagine the story? "Linux binary uploaded to Google's server without source. Google are evil!" You really think people would give a damn, or conclude that Google are therefore at fault?
I did RTFA, and I see how biased the article is. E.g., http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-damning-information-viacom-dug-up-on-google-and-youtube-2010-3#youtube-tries-skirting-the-law-3 . This to me seems entirely reasonable and correct - if they try to police it themselves, it's harder to claim that they are ignorant, or that they should be treated like a common carrier. It is far better to leave it to the users, then it's their liability. If you think that's evil, then it's the law that's a problem, not Google. Similarly for http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-damning-information-viacom-dug-up-on-google-and-youtube-2010-3#youtube-was-getting-too-good-at-removing-illegal-content-which-worried-the-founders-10 - anyone who thinks this means they supported copyright infringement is an idiot, who doesn't understand the law.
Oh, so they used the phrase "copyright bastards". So company execs use naughty words too - how "evil". I don't think that using the phrase is unreasonable, when you consider how groups like the RIAA have operated. This doesn't mean they think copyright infringement should be supported.
On the whole, most of the emails seem to be about reducing their liability, which seems an entirely reasonable and sensible thing.
Then there's this one - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-damning-information-viacom-dug-up-on-google-and-youtube-2010-3#this-doesnt-necessarily-kill-them-but-boy-is-it-embarrassing-5 . How's that embarrassing? It shows that they are against copyright infringement, as he was telling them not to do it.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-damning-information-viacom-dug-up-on-google-and-youtube-2010-3#we-have-to-make-our-site-as-entertaining-as-tv-6 - what does this have to do with copyright? If it's entertaining, it must be infringing copyright? Nice spin there.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-damning-information-viacom-dug-up-on-google-and-youtube-2010-3#-17 - a company is evil if an engineer calls people "a-holes"? I suspect that makes most companies evil.
As for "evil", it's completely out of context. It comes from http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-damning-information-viacom-dug-up-on-google-and-youtube-2010-3#uh-ohhowever-evil-never-sounds-good-11 , but the "evil" does not mean copyright infringement, it means "user metrics" and "views"! This is not evil, and nothing to do with copyright, it's about spinning their publicity. I suspect "evil" is not intended seriously.
COMMERCIAL INFRINGEMENT is piracy. Not P2P, noncommercial. Frigging idiot.
> I think the word "need" is getting greatly watered down.
I thought that, also, once, but then realized that the Holy Grail for marketing (which is being paid for by these corps) is that, yes, everyone will feel their "product" is a "need".
So, in true reality, you are correct, but not in the distorted reality which these corporations would like to make reality.
I have my own thoughts about Google. However I'm going to just consider this action around the purchase of youtube.
Google bought a company that was known to harbor copyright material illegally. Google then implements several safe guards against and gives content owners the ability to have content removed at the very least.
I'm sorry but this is not an evil act in any way. In this instance they are doing with dollars what police and lawyers could not do. Thought not a 100% fix it is an improvement.
This whole article is a very poor attempt to attack google. Yes google needs to be knocked down a notch or six. However this was a really really poor attempt. Almost embarrassing.
You should spend a while thinking about his intensive purposes as well...
Above poster is trolling with a virus link...
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Thank you, I will go to bed a smarter man than I woke up. (: Checking out the link now.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
on a single story. well, maybe not ever, but damn, i've never seen so many +5 modded comments in a single story, many of which deserved -1 redundant.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
"The emails and IMs also seem to show that Google knew about this plan when it bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006"
..."'
Everyone and his dog 'knew' there was copyrighted material on Youtube. What Google 'knew' is moot. Googles actions and policies at the time are most relevent. According to the actual text of the emails, Google strongly opposed profiting from 'pirated material'. And elsewhere it shows that content owners were actively uploading content. "we've uploaded boatloads of clips onto YouTube for distribution", Viacom. If this is The Most Damning Information Viacom Dug Up On Google And YouTube, then not much is all I can say.
slide 23
162. In a June 28, 2006 email to numerous other Google executives, Google vice president of content partnerships David Eun stated: "as Sergey pointed out at our last GPS, is changing policy [t]o increase traffic knowing beforehand that we'll profit from illegal [d]ownloads how we want to conduct business? Is this Googley?
slide 24
Google executive Partic Walker and email listing the "Top 10 reasons why we shouldn't stop screening for copyright violations," including: "1. It crosses the threshold of Don't be Evil to facilitate distribution of other people's intellectual property, and possible even allowing monetization of it by somebody who doesn't own the copyright";
"2. Just growing any traffic is a bad idea. This policy will drive us to build a giant index of pseudo porn, lady punches, and copyrighted material
"3. We should be able to win on features, a better [user interface] technology, advertising relationships - not just policy, It's a cop out to resort to dis-rob-ution";
"7. it makes it more difficult to do content deals with you have an index of pirated material.
And you'd be wrong - impersonation is a separate offense. I can steal all the information relevant to your identity and sell it on to someone else. In fact, that's what most identity theft involves.
Canada's criminal code doesn't require you to actually take a physical object: Theft
Your downloading an mp3 is converting something to your use.
You have deprived the owner of revenue which they would have had if you obtained it through legitimate means, which is on of their interests in it.
You have also deprived them of their further interest in their contractual right to control the presentation of their product, as Pink Floyd did with their albums, to control the layout of the songs so that they can only be distributed as a complete album.
An "interest in it" is not necessarily a physical thing ...
Same thing with theft of service such as cable tv, etc.
Downloading images and sounds to which you don't have a legal right is theft in Canada. Stealing games by downloading them would be covered by "signals" or "intelligence of any nature".
It's theft. Get over it.
And people being a bunch of retarded morons who LITERALLY did not understand what they were talking about FOR 400 YEARS sounds like a good foundation to base your argument upon?
Copyright infringement IS NOT PIRACY.
Piracy is not copyright infringement
Copyright infringement DOES NOT mean piracy
Piracy does not mean copyright infringement
Not technically, not legally.
Now sit down and SHUT UP and maybe you will learn something.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
that have been misclassified, and are actually good
the overriding moral challenge facing us is exactly how hard we can financially damage media companies, with the goal of their dissolution and destruction
in punishment for sponsoring onerous copyright laws which impoverish our culture and weaken our commitments to protecting liberty and freedom
fuck you viacom
we will pirate you all to death
death to ip law
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...that those very same a*holes apparently never heard of cover bands, given that one comment in the slideshow about performing a copyrighted song still being an infringement...
There used to be an EXTREMELY good cover band here several years ago... ...and I've heard some pretty shit ones as well, but most are.
You (and Viacom apparently) are intently focused on whether YouTube management know that copyrighted materials were being posted to YouTube. But legally, IT DOESN'T MATTER, because the law presumes authorization when content is uploaded.
First of all, understand that every single video posted to YouTube is copyrighted. Everything! Copyright is automatically created when any piece of copyrightable content is created. So to say that the YouTube management knew that they were hosting copyrighted materials is practically a meaningless tautology. Slashdot's owners also know that they are hosting a ton of copyrighted material (like this comment for instance!).
The question of legal liability stems from whether the owner of the copyright has authorized the license that is created when material is posted to YouTube (see here). The applicable law is the DMCA, which presumes authorization. The law was written that way very intentionally, to allow the free flow of information. The alternative would be to force each uploader to legally prove that they are authorized--a HUGE burden that would cripple communication on the Internet. For instance, I would need to legally prove that I hold the copyright to this comment before I could post it to Slashdot. And so would you for your comments. I like posting to Slashdot, but not enough to go get each comment notarized and file a copyright registration BEFORE I post it.
The question in this specific case is whether YouTube management knew for a fact that Viacom's videos were being posted by agents who were not authorized to do so. Read all the stories about this case and you'll soon see that Viacom themselves took advantage of the DMCA presumption, by posting their own videos to YouTube in ways intended to hide the fact that it was Viacom doing the posting. They even had their lawyers issuing takedown notices for content that a different Viacom division had uploaded! If Viacom itself could not keep track of what was authorized or not, how is YouTube supposed to?
I think Google probably did a very thorough due diligence, and that they just understand the law better than you do. Suspicion that content is unauthorized does not create legal liability. In addition, if YouTube can show that they ALWAYS responded to takedown notices in a timely manner, the DMCA should insulate them from liability.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Ah, good point there.
In that case I still say it's a misnomer.
I'm pretty sure Canada must have a separate section for copyright infringement somewhere in its code. Otherwise, again, you can't make a distiction between taking a CD, and copying its contents, which would be rather odd.
I disagree. Get over it.
monopoly grants used in europe prior to 18th century are NOT patents.
monopoly grants were basically like feudal grants, but effective in business. anything could be monopolized to anyone. it neednt be technical or any innovation at all
this has no relation to industrialization age and scientific age post 18th century. back in those days, except in late 18th century england, ideas and inventions flowed freely. brits were the bastards who sinisterly created a patent system to allow brits to call dibs on innumerable preexisting inventions and ideas.
it was basically what u.s. is trying to do with acta now.
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