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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.
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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?
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
Mod parent +1000.
One loses the safe harbor protection when they demonstrate awareness or knowledge of user-directed content's infringement. What if one of the users was a representative of a copyright owner? Just because something was expensive to make doesn't mean that your knee-jerk reflex should be removal.
Profit doesn't come into play in the general case, as they're not selling the content directly:
Title 17, Section 512.(c).(1).(B)
"does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity"
Even if the majority of your files are infringing, that's not the same as direct attribution of financial benefit.
This does demonstrate some awareness of materials that have studio copyright naturally attributed to them, but it doesn't mean that the poster didn't have copyright. Basically, there's a DMCA-specified procedure for notification, and many of these conversations discuss exactly how to go about handling those provisions.
Clips of shows like Leno and Conan could fall under fair use by users (news agencies do it), so, again, where's the beef?
This just plainly isn't that damning, and it's certainly not that evil. The original poster needs to chill out. Anyone who's ever sat in a meeting with lawyers discussing the ins and outs of the DMCA would find these statements in no way out of place. Put them in the full context of the emails, and it looks like Viacom's just out to make a money grab from deep pockets. The Viacom lawyers must be busy trying to wave shiny objects in front of executives to keep them from noticing the huge revenue loss that came from not sorting things out with Hulu...
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.
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.
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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.
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Your analysis that this did not seriously hurt the content providers, despite being "Evil", is I think, entirely accurate.
But what needs to be highlighted is the groups it DID hurt. It DID hurt any company, that for reasons of ethics, or not being able to afford as many lawyers as Google, chose to pursue business models that did not involve using "Evil" as a kind of bridge-loan to carry their company to success. My older brother is a VP at Google, and I am pretty disappointed with these attitudes from him, from Google, and more importantly, from the world's society and economy in general. I don't judge him harshly, because I absolutely do see that Google here is just playing the money game the way the money game is played. Sure, it is a moral hazard that Google used their facilitation of the oppression of human rights in China to leverage their position of corporate strength today. Sure it is a moral hazard that even if years later, they stop that "Evil", and stop the "Evil" of knowingly leveraging copyright infringers to gain momentum and market share.
Bottom line, it's a sad sad world, and everywhere you look, the good guys that play by the rules get crushed monetarily by the players who are willing to break the rules, even if years later after they have established themselves and are under more scrutiny, have to start playing by the rules. I view Google's malfeasance here as but a tiny fraction compared to what happened with the banks and the bailouts.
I'd say that it's going to get worse as the decades go by, but really, if you look at sexist and racist oppression, these moral hazards don't look all that scary. The world will muddle through. Fringe elements will commit terrorist acts. Probably ending up like the comical world of the movie Brazil. I.e. the occasional terrorist bomb will be as common as a traffic accident and ignored. With dental torturers getting the last laugh, and the tortured retreating to the safety of fantasies.
Blah...
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?
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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.