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CNN and CBC Sued For Pirating YouTube Video

Posted by Soulskill on from the they-don't-believe-in-imaginary-property-except-when-they-do dept.

vivaoporto sends word that in a rare case of an individual taking on large corporations for copyright infrigement, a New York man has sued news networks CNN and CBC after they took a video of his from YouTube and broadcast it on the air without licensing it. His video shows a winter storm in Buffalo generating huge amounts of lake effect snow. The man, Alfonzo Cutaia, decided to enable monetization on his video, selecting the "Standard YouTube License," "a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of [the video]. All other rights are reserved to the copyright owner and standard copyright laws and exceptions apply." Cutaia says the CBC used his video with their logo on it. The CBC confirmed this, and said they received a 10-day license from CNN, who had no legal right to do so. His lawsuit now accuses them both of "intentional and willful" copyright infringement.

7 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. Re:WTF does that mean? by Calydor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It means that Youtube doesn't have to pay him royalties and can share it with daughter/sister companies, eg. Google+.

    It does not mean that CBC can sweep in, drop their logo on the video and call it theirs.

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  2. Settle by bondsbw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    CNN and CBC would do well to settle. Fighting this would be admitting that they don't truly believe that copyright deserves protection, and could be used against them in future lawsuits in which they are plaintiff.

    --
    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    1. Re:Settle by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I WANT it to go to court and I want them hit with copyright violation and have the plaintiff use the same calculation that the RIAA and MPAA uses and demand $4.6 billion in lost revenue as they shared the video with millions of people.

      The RIAA and the MPAA make up bullshit numbers. and it's time that same bullshit get applied to a corporation.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:Settle by vivaoporto · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is not one run-of-the-mill "personal use copyright infringement" suit. Some important things make this case special:

      1. The plaintiff is an intelectual property lawyer
      2. The use of the video was for profit
      3. As the article says many other news outlets sought permission or licensed the clip but these two, despite knowing the clip was copyrighted, choose to use them anyway.

      If Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay $1,920,000 for making 22 mp3 available for download (not for profit) how much should these media be liable in this lawsuit? How many other videos they use without proper licensing and/or attribution?

      This could be the first of many similar cases considering the media worldwide assume that if a video is available on Youtube they are free to reproduce them in their TV news and shows.

  3. Take down their site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    File a complaint with Google and have them take their entire site of the index.

  4. Re:WTF does that mean? by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think the argument goes that CBC thought they'd obtained a 10-day license from CNN .. which CNN wasn't authorized to provide them ... but after this good-faith 10-day license lapsed (which wasn't really valid), the CBC continued to use the material ... meaning that, even if they had obtained an actual license, and acted in good faith, they stopped acting in good faith when they used it after the 10 days anyway.

    So on day 11 you can no longer claim that you were using it under license if you knew you only licensed it for 10 days.

    I think it's like the Wookie defense, only with some actual merit.

    Up to day 10, you can say you got the license from CNN and if that was an invalid license then CNN misrepresented themselves, and you are a victim.

    Use it after 10 days, and you can't even claim that. Now you'd have been willfully violating the original (but invalid) license.

    The man does have a point. And I'm sure if you took a CNN video and used it improperly, they'd go all crazy. For them to suddenly claim "it was on YouTube so it's free" would be complete bullshit.

    So, by doing what would have been a breech of license if CNN was allowed to give you a license then your unlicensed use of the video violated your license because your license had ended.

    LOL .. yo dawg, I hear you like licenses.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  5. Re:Good luck with that... by The-Forge · · Score: 5, Informative

    The license only grants though permissions when they "access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service"

    I don't think there were playing it live from a YouTube page or through an authorized YouTube API application, so they were in violation of the license.