Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Embedding of Copyright Infringing Video Not (Necessarily) a Crime

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-that-the-industry-will-take-the-judge's-word-on-it dept.

Social bookmarking site myVidster was the target of a copyright infringement case because it allowed its users to embed videos from other sites on its pages. Some of the videos infringed upon various copyrights, and the plaintiff in the case was granted a preliminary injunction against myVidster in 2011. Now, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned the injunction, saying that merely embedding copyright-infringing videos hosted elsewhere does not necessarily contribute to the infringement. Judge Posner wrote in the opinion (PDF), "myVidster is giving web surfers addresses where they can find entertainment. By listing plays and giving the name and address of the theaters where they are being performed, the New Yorker is not performing them. It is not 'transmitting or communicating' them. ... Is myVidster doing anything different? ... myVidster doesn't touch the data stream, which flows directly from one computer to another, neither being owned or operated by myVidster." However, the door is not shut on this issue: "Flava may be entitled to additional preliminary injunctive relief as well, if it can show, as it has not shown yet, that myVidster’s service really does contribute significantly to infringement of Flava’s copyrights." If myVidster was actively encouraging the sharing, hosting the videos itself, or profiting from their showing, the ruling likely would have been different.

11 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Applicability to other media? by Banichi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >By listing plays and giving the name and address of the theaters where they are being performed, the New Yorker is not performing them. It is not 'transmitting or communicating' them.

    Now, if we can only get the Judge to see the same about torrents.

    1. Re:Applicability to other media? by rohan972 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Copyright infringement is a crime, no matter the way of committing it.

      In most cases of non-commercial infringement this is incorrect. Most non-commercial copyright infringement is a breach of civil law, not criminal law. If caught you may be sued, you will not be arrested, you will not be charged with a crime, you will not be convicted of a crime, you will not have a criminal record. You could be stripped of assets to pay for any judgements against you.

      --
      http://marriedmansexlife.com/
    2. Re:Applicability to other media? by redlemming · · Score: 2

      Your statement "Copyright infringement is a crime, no matter the way of committing it" is invalid.

      To the contrary, in the USA, all exercises of "fair use" rights are in fact copyright infringement, and as "rights" these are of course permitted by law. As a matter of legal procedure, it is typically necessary to note that an infringement has occurred before one may argue that the infringement was in fact of the type permitted by law. Doing something that can reasonably be considered fair use rights is not only NOT criminal, but is in fact expressly permitted by US Copyright law (which in turn reflects more fundamental rights "retained by the people" under the 9th Amendment and "reserved to the people" under the 10th Amendment).

      For that matter, any form of reasonable conduct, not just those relating to copyright, will be respected as a fundamental right arising under the 9th/10th Amendments in any jurisdiction where the Bill of Rights means something (arguably, such places are getting harder and harder to find).

      In any event, it is incorrect to state that copyright infringement is a crime. SOME forms of copyright infringement are criminal in some countries.
      The big problem modern societies face with respect to creative works stored on or in some form of media is deciding when and where it should be legal to copy this media. That is really what this discussion is all about.

      Incidentally, you probably don't want the legal professionals having the final say in this matter, as there are conflicts of interest that affect the whole legal profession which could get in the way of a long term resolution that is best for society. Or in other words, a government of the people, by the people, for the people should not be a government of the lawyer, by the lawyer, and for the lawyer.

      It is also incorrect use of the English language to refer to copyright infringement as something one "commits", as in "no matter the way of committing it". The verb "commits" implies a crime, at least in typical usage in matters relating to law.

      It is interesting to note that some businesses are putting notices equating or implying copyright infringement is a crime, or even referring to it as piracy, on "unskippable" portions of DVDs. There is no doubt that the legal professionals working for such organizations know that this involves providing incorrect and misleading information to the public, which in turn raises questions about their ethical integrity. Making false statements regarding the legal system (essentially propaganda) makes the laws even more complex and confusing than they already are, which naturally increases the demand for the services of legal professionals to interpret those laws for a confused public, and thus there is an ethical conflict of interest here.

  2. Tort, not crime by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Copyright infringement is not normally considered a crime. It is a tort. People that don't understand the difference between criminal and civil law probably should not be writing headlines for stories about the legal system.

    1. Re:Tort, not crime by Trepidity · · Score: 3, Informative

      While there is such a crime as criminal infringement of copyright, it's not frequently prosecuted, and it wasn't being prosecuted here. This was a civil lawsuit filed by Flava Works and the Motion Picture Association of America, not a criminal prosecution brought by the Department of Justice.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    2. Re:Tort, not crime by sjames · · Score: 2

      Since myVidster doesn't even HAVE a single copy of the linked videos, it is hard to imagine that they are violation copyright at all.

  3. Still sucking bandwidth by cpu6502 · · Score: 2

    By embedding someone else's video to Vidster, they are sucking someone else's bandwidth & increasing their hosting costs. I'm surprised the other host didn't just block vidster.com

    --
    My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
    1. Re:Still sucking bandwidth by ewanm89 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Does the video use less bandwidth when embedded on YouTube.com vs. some other site? Or does the stream itself use identical bandwidth but the page load use less because its not loading all the rest of it like the logo and comments.

      Some video hosting services, youtube being the obvious example, actively encourage embedding as they still get the fees from the advertising embedded in the flash video player or video stream.

    2. Re:Still sucking bandwidth by toejam13 · · Score: 2

      If you do not want your content to be accessed from other sites, there is a very simple way to fix it: simply configure your webserver to lock down the content using a whitelist of referrer domains. If a client attempts to fetch the resource from an unauthorized web page, they'll receive an HTTP 4xx error instead.

      Anyone who has visited a discussion forum that allows inline linking of images has probably seen an image or two that says "hot-linking not allowed" or "stop stealing my bandwidth" instead of the image the poster intended. That's another method where you substitute garbage instead of the real content from unauthorized referrers.

      Perhaps these media companies should learn a little more about how the Web works before they post their works up on it.

  4. Another interesting aspect of the decision by JDG1980 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Posner's opinion seems to say that while someone uploading a video is guilty of copyright infringement, the viewers who merely streamed the video are not.

    But as long as the visitor makes no copy of the copyrighted video that he is watching, he is not violating the copyright ownerâ(TM)s exclusive right, conferred by the Copyright Act, "to reproduce the copyrighted work in copiesâ and âoedistribute copies . . . of the copyrighted work to the public." 17 U.S.C. ÂÂ 106(1), (3). [...] The infringer is the customer of Flava who copied Flavaâ(TM)s copyrighted video by uploading it to the Internet.

    There is only one case I'm aware of where any company attempted to sue someone for simply watching a stream: the UFC lawsuit against Greenfeedz users. In this article, an attorney was skeptical that such claims would hold up, and Posner's judicial opinion seems to provide strong backing for throwing out those lawsuits.

    It is not clear to me whether downloading a video (as opposed to streaming it) would be considered making "a copy of the copyrighted video" under the Copyright Act. Has this ever been discussed in any other court case in the United States? Except for the UFC incident, I'm not aware of any lawsuits filed against end users for downloading alone.

  5. Same Posner as with Apple by Kergan · · Score: 2

    http://www.google.com/search?q=posner+apple