TV Networks Don't Want DMCA Protection For YouTube

sburch79 writes "A brief filed in the Viacom v. Google case asserts that the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions were never meant to apply to sites like YouTube. It also goes on to say the if safe harbor were given to these sites, it would put too big a burden on networks to police their own material."

Comments

tough shit

[Anonymous Coward]

that's what you get for lobbying for such vague legislation then.

Re:tough shit

[TubeSteak]

that's what you get for lobbying for such vague legislation then.

They got exactly the legislation they wanted.
The butthurt started once they realized "holy shit the internet is big!"

Ever since then, they've been trying to get someone else to police it for them.

Re:tough shit

[gorzek]

Content providers have learned the hard way that the laws they've bought don't amount to much.

Sure, copyright infringement is illegal. Who is out there arresting and locking up infringers? Nobody, really. Only the most egregious offenders ever get busted.

Still, you can go after someone civilly, right? Too bad it's shitty PR to wipe out the life savings of single mothers because their kids downloaded a few songs. And you don't get much money out of it, either.

They'll keep fighting against the inevitable, but a self-policing Internet just isn't going to happen, and copyright infringement isn't going to stop. It is technically unfeasible and not the least bit cost effective.

Re:tough shit

[nine-times]

I think it's more like, "sorry, you don't have some inherent right to have special laws for yourselves." I think the problem is that these companies don't think copyright protections should apply to authors and individuals and tech companies. In the minds of the "content industry", all copyright protections are devised to uniquely benefit them and provide them with a guarantee of profitable business dealings. I'm sure Viacom will only really be happy if they manage to get copyright law rewritten to say, "If you enjoy any piece of video, you must pay Viacom. Viacom is permitted to use material which you produce however they want."

Re:tough shit

[bit01]

Copyright law give profit per copy (rewarding the distributors appropriately) not profit per unit of creative effort (rewarding the creators appropriately).

Since distribution costs virtually nothing (whatever marketing parasites might like to claim) copyright is intrinsically biased against creators and for middlemen.

---

Marketing in a saturated market is a zero-sum game. When one player wins another must lose. In a saturated market; marketing = un-marketing = arms race = parasites.

Boo Hoo

[whisper_jeff]

My sympathy for major media companies being forced to do some work for their money is pretty much non-existent. Welcome to the real world with the rest of us. Enjoy your stay. Get to work.

Re:Boo Hoo

[dgatwood]

Agreed. Hear that sound? That's the sound of the world's tiniest violin playing the saddest song in the world.

Sorry, Hollywood, but YouTube is precisely the kind of site that safe harbor exemptions are for. It is an ISP whose material is provided exclusively by its users. What, you thought that somehow a site shouldn't count because it is getting too big for you to bully? Waaaah. Cry me a freaking river.

Re:Boo Hoo

[DavidTC]

Cry me a freaking river.

Especially as they were forced to make the 'safe harbor' provision in the DMCA to be allowed some of the more egregious stuff.

'Safe harbor' may seem to be fair and sane to most people, but it's important to note it's not particularly supposed to be fair, it's actually intended to be rather lax. It's a compromise reached to allow tougher laws against people who knowingly facilitate the distribution of copyrighted material.

And now they're bitching and whining about it, complaining it is doing exactly what it was intended to do...not require companies to police their customers.

So, of course, now they want to use the harsher laws that they only have because of 'safe harbor' to go after YouTube.

We might all whine about companies issuing DMCA takedown notices, but at least those are under the threat of perjury and are actual filed legal documents. Too many people have forgotten about the universe before that, when companies would call other companies and have some non-lawyer hint heavily about lawsuits and have them remove content that they had no legal ability to object to or sue over, but the host company didn't want to risk it.

I am, of course, in favor of actually filing some perjury charges here and there over obviously bogus takedown notices, but even without that, the system is still better, both for hosting companies and end users. So of course content providers object to it.

Re:Boo Hoo

[nomadic]

Sorry, Hollywood, but YouTube is precisely the kind of site that safe harbor exemptions are for.

I don't think Hollywood is reading this.

With great power comes great responsibility

[dacarr]

Part of copyright is that one should be watching out for their own material, and have any documentation to back it up. While many people do so as a courtesy, it is generally not the responsibility of somebody else to make sure that material they are not responsible for does not wind up in places it doesn't belong.

Re:With great power comes great responsibility

[AndersOSU]

I think it's also worth noting that copyright isn't like trademark. You don't have to enforce it to maintain it. So ... if there's little commercial value in yanking Hitler parodies off You Tube, there's no reason to continue to do so.

Re:With great power comes great responsibility

[Nadaka]

Sure there is. It is called intimidation.

Re:With great power comes great responsibility

[UnknowingFool]

The brief basically spends most of the time rehashing the DMCA and the Safe Harbor intentions. While it mentions that the Safe Harbor protects those providers who are meeting the obligations of the DMCA, it fails to credit Youtube with doing enough. Youtube does comply when notified; however, the brief faults Youtube with relying too much on being notified. The other thing to note is the tone of brief. It all but accuses Youtube of encouraging massive copyright infringement and doing nothing about it.

The brief also shows a lack of understanding of technology. While Youtube (when notified) removes a copyrighted video, it argues this is not enough; Youtube should remove all the videos of the same copyrighted work. This detection is not easy. The problem is that while there exists some technology that assist in this, it's not perfect. The brief seems to imply that this detection is an easy thing technologically and that Youtube simply isn't doing it. Copyright owners should not be responsible for finding all videos and this should be the entire responsibility of Youtube, the brief argues.

Re:With great power comes great responsibility

[sjames]

...argues this is not enough; Youtube should remove all the videos of the same copyrighted work

I argue that if they think it's so damned easy, then what are they griping about?

Re:Throw em a bone

[Captain Spam]

Maybe youtube should try to police the material for a few days as a demonstration of how ridiculous such an attempt would be.

What human beings think when they see this:

1. Request is made for YouTube to police everything.
2. YouTube grudgingly complies.
3. Obvious difficulties are revealed.
4. YouTube cannot keep up.
5. People see and realize the problems, reconsider.

What executives think when they see this:

1. Request is made for YouTube to police everything.
2. YouTube grudgingly complies.
3. Someone else is doing the work for them; delegation successful, YouTube is now entirely responsible, this is no longer the concern of those requesting it.
4. Any future difficulties in this are obviously failures on YouTube's fault. Report as such.
5. Keep going until YouTube is dead; this is called "beating the competition". Declare victory.

Uh, yes it was...

[Ossifer]

The DMCA safe harbor provision was intended for exactly this case.

Response

[TheMeuge]

Big Media translated: "waaah we're too lazy to do our own work so we want the government to shut down Youtube."

Response of customers: "I've had it up to here with DRM, 'copy protection', and all the other anti-consumer shit. Big Media can go fuck themselves."

In addition: most of the stuff I've seen on Youtube should be covered under Fair Use, especially parodies. So double-fuck-you to the MafiAA.

Big media response to the viewers: "See, piracy is affecting out business".

Btw - viewers are very rarely "customers". Certainly for TV programming they are not, the advertisers are.

The customers are those who pay money to receive a product or service. The viewers are consumers.

Re:Response

[Zancarius]

Btw - viewers are very rarely "customers". Certainly for TV programming they are not, the advertisers are.

The customers are those who pay money to receive a product or service. The viewers are consumers.

Actually, I would suggest there are two customers: Advertisers and network providers (such as Comcast, Dish Network, etc.). Regardless, I think it's that exact viewpoint that's gotten the networks into the mess they're in. e.g. "We don't need viewers, they're not our customers."

This, of course, puts them into a bind: Without enough viewers, you can't justify the advertising costs for specific slots so you either charge less for a specific time slot in order to attract advertisers or you lose them. If you lose them, you're not bringing in the revenue. This is precisely what's been happening to the networks and many printed media services. The consumers may not pay money specifically to the service provider in these cases, but they can still have a very real impact if they go elsewhere.

In effect, consumers of TV programming are still customers in much the same way that purchasing a product through a retailer versus directly from the manufacturer makes you a customer. While you're not an immediate customer of the manufacturer, if a sufficient number of other consumers refuse to purchase a particular product regardless of the retail outlet, it has a very real impact on the manufacturer's bottom line. I think it's time that the networks realize this.

fourth branch

[orgelspieler]

Remember from your social studies classes in elementary school, there are four branches of government:

• Executive - Enforces the law
• Judicial - Interprets the law
• Legislative - Votes on the law
• Corporate - Writes the law, re-interprets the law, and helps enforce the law

Anybody who taught you otherwise hadn't read through the fine print in the EULA at the end of the Constitution. It's all right there.

Fix

[Anonymous Coward]

The viewers are that product

Fixed that for you.

Re:Fix

[c 0xFF]

It's a shame you posted AC. Now nobody will see your comment unless the mods help out.

Everything that Big Media does is to get eyeballs for their advertisers. Thus, the advertisers are the customers and the eyeballs are the product.

Now look at the copyright battles. The core issue is of control -- who can use the video/song/etc to attract consumers for their customers. Right now, it's YouTube that is getting the page hits. Big Media doesn't like that one bit, so now they're putting up a fight.

It's not a copyright violation that they're worrying about, but theft of their actual product: viewers.

So, what happens when the consumer and customer become the same person? That's the model Hulu and others have talked about. It's such a radical shift that it's no wonder Big Media has no clue how to handle that business model.

Too big a burden???

[e3m4n]

it would put too big a burden on networks to police their own material.

awww.. poor fucking babies. So instead its MY responsibility as an ISP to police YOUR fucking material? Who the fuck at your network do I send my invoices for my labor to do your fucking job for you? Either police your shit or dont prosecute for infringement. Anywhere else in society the financially harmed has to take civil suit action against those that do the harm for a tort claim

Safe harbor doesn't apply to YouTube? Bullshit!

[Adrian Lopez]

YouTube hosts content posted by third parties which it makes available to others without prior review. It is exactly the kind of situation the DMCA's safe harbor provisions are meant to address.

Fuck you Viacom for expecting to reap the benefits of copyright law while rejecting those aspects of it you dislike.

Oh boo f#$%ing hoo

[MikeRT]

Yeah, it's so onerous to have the power to send automated C&D letters that carry full legal weight if ignored, but carry no practical threat of legal reprisal if machine error caused them to be sent to an innocent party's ISP.

You're right, that's too much to ask of you...

Almost every video that is uploaded is protected

[Anonymous Coward]

"The problem that Google has is that almost every video that is uploaded is protected by copyright."

Amazing thing. You create a system that is an opt-out system for copyright, rather than an opt-in system, everything is indeed protected by copyright unless that right is relinquished. Even home videos! Not everything that is copyrighted has any commercial value. And, a lot of the stuff that the holder feels has commercial value, doesn't.

Re:no, that's what you get for PAYING for vague...

[spazdor]

That's what he said. "Lobbying."

Google is willing to share ad revenue

[tepples]

Google is more than willing to share its product (viewers' attention) with copyright owners. All the copyright owner has to do is sign up for Content ID, submit samples of works that it controls, and set the Content ID settings to "monetize".

Re:Google is willing to share ad revenue

[Opportunist]

All the copyright owner has to do is sign up for Content ID, submit samples of works that it controls, and set the Content ID settings to "monetize".

You mean, like, do WORK for the money?

You haven't been paying attention to the media business model, have you?