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Google Sends Repeat Infringers To Copyright School

Posted by timothy on from the what-about-topless-clowns? dept.

maczealot writes "Google is launching a new 'Copyright School' for use as a re-education tool for offenders on YouTube. The apparent purpose being to head off additional legislation, lawsuits, regulation and other negative impacts to the site. They even have campy cartoon videos for this school."

7 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Finally. by BitterOak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Finally, a sensible approach to copyright infringement. Instead of suing everyone in sight into oblivion, they've decided to follow the model used by traffic police. Force violators to attend "school" and try to educate them about the law and the dangers of violating it, instead of the shoot first, ask questions later approach.

    I'm sure this won't work for everyone, but hopefully it will save a good number of people from being bankrupted.

    --
    If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
    1. Re:Finally. by bieber · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Neither solution makes any sense. Mandatory traffic school is no better a remedy for traffic violations than this "copyright school" is for copyright infringement. Not that the two are really comparable, because no one is going to be forced to watch these videos in lieu of being fined, but lets go with the analogy for now. People don't violate traffic laws because they don't understand them, they violate traffic laws because they don't think they'll get caught. Same goes for copyright. "Educating" infringers about laws they almost certainly already understand isn't going to do anything...well, I guess in the case of traffic violations it makes for an effective transfer of money from citizens to the companies that run the traffic schools...

    2. Re:Finally. by somersault · · Score: 4, Insightful

      People really don't understand copyright - I've seen hundreds of videos with things like "I DO NOT OWN THIS SONG", "No Copyright infringement intended" etc. Admitting you don't own a song does not make it legal to copy it, and you are taking part in copyright infringement just by uploading a video you don't have copyright on. Whenever I've tried to point this out to people, I get the usual Idiocracy "you're a fag and your shit's all retarded" type responses from morons.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    3. Re:Finally. by sco08y · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I get the usual Idiocracy "you're a fag and your shit's all retarded" type responses from morons.

      I call bullshit. Even on the odd chance one of them didn't abbreviate "your" as "ur", no one commenting on Youtube uses apostrophes correctly.

  2. What they should do... by Haedrian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is force copyright owners who flag videos for no reason whatsoever to watch that as well.

  3. Don't infringe copyright (unless you're a megacorp by syousef · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Hi kids, today's topic is copyright law and how we're allowed to copy anything we like because we're a multi-billion dollar company and can afford more lawyers than God, while you're just a schlep at a computer who's going to have their ass sued and thrown into jail.

    By the way have you heard of Google books....that's right if you can't find it at a used book store, chances are we've copied it to put online.

    So remember kids, don't infringe copyright. Let us do it for you, and enjoy the ads!"

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  4. Pot Calling the Kettle Black by Eightbitgnosis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Like when a certain company decides they have the right the republish every book? Where's the cute little cartoon for that lesson