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YouTube Granted Safe Harbor From Viacom
eldavojohn writes "It's an old case, but there was an interesting development today when a judge ruled that YouTube is protected from Viacom by the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, since YouTube helps rights owners manage their rights online and works cooperatively with entities like Viacom. Google's calling it a victory, but I'm not sure if Viacom will take this without a fight."
Anonymous Coward FTW
About time. Now back to getting REAL high quality clips from bittorrent instead of crappy Youtube quality and annoying comments.
But viewers of Viacom remain at great risk.
From a randomly selected article
Viacom has partial content ownership, yes? So, the more Viacom squirms, the more they lay waste to the argument that copyright law is (functionally and intentionally) to protect the creators.
In this case it can only be seen to protect the intermediary party -- what do you think the artists say about this? I'm sure they're appalled with the new Youtube policies. Many of you have already seen this
.
Not only should YouTube not be liable for what its users choose to post online, YouTube shouldn't even have to provide copyright holders with any special tools for handling infringing content.
If we as citizens are required to live with the DMCA's restrictions, it is only fair that courts give Viacom no special treatment either. Google's only responsibility is to take down infringing content when properly requested to do so by copyright holders. As long as it continues to do that according to the terms of the DMCA, YouTube should not be expected to do anything more. Viacom should consider itself lucky that YouTube goes beyond the DMCA's requirements and provides them tools such as content detection and a streamlined process for getting rid of allegedly infringing content -- they are not entitled to any of that under the law.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
This does seem to be pretty much what the safe harbor provisions are about.
Okay - really it was written at a time when people actually paid for web space, and it was to protect the providers from the copyright infringement of their paying customers rather than their free users, but in principle this is what the provisions are for.
I can't understand most of the PDF posted there, anything in there about how Viacom uploaded their own material so they could bust youtube for it? It would be nice if that bit of douchebaggery came back to screw them over, though I expect that's too much to ask from justice.
(A) As used in subsection (a), the term "service provider" means an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user’s choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received.
(B) As used in this section, other than subsection (a), the term "service provider" means a provider of online services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefor, and includes an entity described in subparagraph (A).
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Glad to see that YouTube is protected they do there best to keep an eye on what is posted but YouTube is such a popular site they can't look at every post. Plus people should be smart enough to know what they can and cannot post.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
they'll probably just try and shut down the whole internet if they don't get their way. I hope we can stop them!
Finally!
This is just Chapter One. Google can only win at this stage if you consider all of the facts in Viacom's favor and, given those facts, rule that the law requires that Google must win.
The upcoming appeal to the federal circuit court is the really big next act. If Google wins there, it may portend total victory. Otherwise, it's back to the federal district court for more litigation (and more money for the lawyers!!!).
Veoh won some of the first strong precedents in this area, and the current case cites its cases prominently (see pp. 24-27). The cost of the litigation sent them into bankruptcy soon after winning, though.
Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, this time they seem to have picked an opponent who is very hard to beat in a war of attrition.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
So can someone please explain the difference between Youtube and Limewire/Bittorrent?
Is it just Google as a parent? Or is there any legitimate reason why Youtube isn't liable for infringement but all the p2p's are?
FILES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY
"Fuck you, you Google bastards!"
Maybe they should just show their films and TV shows in a secure underground bunker to viewers who are patted down and forced to watch the movie wearing handcuffs, blindfolds, and ear plugs. After "watching" the film, they must submit to a mind wipe on the off chance that they detected some copyrighted detail.
There, now your copyright is safe!
Wait, scrap that. Let's just cut out the middleman and send thugs to beat money out of people directly if they are suspected of thinking of watching a movie.
Whaddaya mean IF? ;)
On the other hand: Who would willingly watch their stuff anyway?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Well, a bunker is extreme. But I see no reason why the studios shouldn't be told to retreat back to their theatres if they don't like the direction the digital market is going. They seemed to be doing fine before the "home" market was created, and I'm sure ticket sales would increase if they let more willing participants move unhindered into the digital market. Their rights are preserved, the consumer rights are preserved. Seems like a reasonable middle ground, to me.
"The Beast Below" and the big red FORGET button.
Don't press FORGET and you'll be sent to the Spaceship UK crapper.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
normal resolution videos work perfectly through one run, while 720p and 1080p videos often hang after playing a few minutes; forcing to re-stream (a few times).
An annoyance even worse than the spinning ball of death through Flash applications.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
From the Guardian...
"Most embarrassingly for Viacom, court documents revealed in in March that at the same time that it was suing Google and YouTube, Viacom was itself uploading its content in secret and trying to make it look stolen - so that people would be more interested in it.
One excerpt from the documents filed by YouTube was particularly notable for the embarrassment caused: "Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jun/23/youtube-wins-viacom-lawsuit
So Viacom were being pretty dodgy about IP in the first place, then complaining!
The case was about the inventers of youtube purposefully uploading copyrighted content to boost its user-rate to get offers to sell. It also stated that Google knew what was going on when they bought it. Not just that "oh Joe in Jersey uploaded clips of Thundercats."
You forgot the part where Viacom saw YouTube was the "hot" marketing thing and started uploading its own content there disguised as pirated media. And then they often couldn't figure out they had authorized the material and sent Google a DMCA takedown for their own uploads.
There are two sides to this case. I'm waiting for the discovery evidence of Viacom's behavior to become part of the pleading in a private infringement case:
"But Judge, we've seen in Viacom vs. YouTube that Big Media upload their own content disguised as pirated stuff --- I just assumed that [random torrent] was such a disguised authorized distribution!"
I foresaw this as the prime reason that Google bought out youtube. Simply so it could bring the brunt force of it's moneybags to bear and defend not just youtube, but user-uploaded video on internet. With this ruling, they have kept the internet free to the people, and assholes like viacom will have to police their own shit, rather then control the pipes.
It's a win for google, and it's a win for the netizens. Horray!
YouTube is granted immunity from persecution because they're being their own internal enforcement arm for RIAA corporations like Viacom.
Instead of getting whipped by Viacom, users now have the privilege of getting whipped by YouTube on Viacom's behalf. The difference now is that Viacom doesn't have to pay for the whip.
I've never felt so free.