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YouTube Can Be Liable For Copyright Infringing Videos, Court Rules (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: YouTube is known to be a breeding ground for creators. At the same time, however, it's also regularly used to share copyrighted material without permission. While copyright holders can issue takedown notices to remove infringing content, a preliminary ruling by the Commercial Court in Vienna has decided this is not sufficient. The ruling follows a complaint from local television channel Puls 4. After a thorough review of YouTube's functionalities, the Court concluded that YouTube has an obligation to prevent third parties from uploading infringing content. In its defense, YouTube argued that it's a neutral hosting provider under the provisions of the E-Commerce Act. As such, it should be shielded from direct liability for the actions of users. However, the Commercial Court disagreed, noting that YouTube takes several motivated actions to organize and optimize how videos are displayed. By doing so, it becomes more than a neutral hosting provider.
Venice Austria this time, not California
Google/Youtube has been documented as taking an active and proactive role in removing and suppressing videos that run against the inbred leftist bent of the SJWs that run the Google/Youtube operation.
Their argument of being a neutral hosting provider hasn't been true for a long time. It's about time they're held up to their responsibilities of being the curators of everything that's published on their web site. It was their decision to make, to advocate socialist positions, and suppress conservative viewpoints. It's good to see some court finally recognize that, and issue an appropriate ruling.
Frankly, I doubt that this has much chance of surviving the whole process including appeals.
And even if it does, all that would happen would be geoblocking of Austria by YouTube.
Tell that to the companies sending you emails as a consequence of the GDPR.
``OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?''
So, conversely, does that mean you agree that Budweiser, which is owned by InBev, a European company, can sell alcohol to 18 year olds in America?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Well,
below 2.2% or something like this a beverage is not considered to contain alcohol in Europe.
I believe around 2.3%/2.4% you need to mention the percentage on the bottles etc.
(Otherwise every juice would contain something around 1.0% alcohol)
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Austria is a small country, they'll cut only Austria, not the whole universe.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Imagine (... and some more crap)
Nope. It's the 21th and things changed. Get on with it.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
If YouTube were only doing business in the U.S. that would be true, but I suspect that they also have a branch that operates in Austria and accepts money from Austrian companies for the purposes of advertising. If merely being incorporated in a different company allowed you to skirt any laws that you wanted, there would quickly be dozens of sites offering any copyright material you wanted with no possible legal recourse from anyone simply because that company happened to pick a country that doesn't recognize copyright laws.
We still do see quite a large number of sites that try to do this, but there is legal recourse against them so they do tend to get shut down frequently, or in some cases the people who run them are arrested and put in prison. It's mostly legal whack-a-mole though and does little to stem the overall amount of infringement.
the internet has tons of sites that upload copyrighted works with no real legal recourse. they normally operate in country's with relaxed copyright laws or none.the worst thing they do is get them shut down threw political pressuring once they hit mainstream. then of course 6 more take there place.
with the privacy laws and this au ruling i wont be shocked to see youtube block them. but it wont hurt the users any thanks to there spying laws most of them use vpns.
nope they changed ad sense it would be very hard to get enough subs on a channel that gets shutdown in a few hrs to make any money.
youtube is bad enough with there bot flagging everything. or the fake copyright trolls. with over a billion uploads a day you are correct they simply cant stop everything.
But none of those sites, to my knowledge, has been used to host significant amounts of content that belonged to a business where I worked, in direct competition with the business itself and making real money for both the infringing poster and the hosting site through attached ads. YouTube has, and its takedown processes were absurdly onerous compared to the effort for someone to just create another new account and upload again, and it failed to comply with the rules about persistent offenders even under the very generous protections it gets with the DMCA and EUCD. So frankly, it made its bed, and now it gets to lie in it. I have absolutely no sympathy for it.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Once they do that, the rest of Europe will file a similar suit. Just because a company is big and the product is wanted by many does not make it ok to do things that are deemed illegal. If that means that said company stops doing business, so be it.
The fact that Copyright is stupid the way it is now is a pity. I blame Mickey Mouse. Still not OK to do illegal things.
Allowing a company to do something illegal because they are wanted and/or big is like looking away when a sports person rapes somebody, so he can still play. It's bad, mmmkay?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Some businesses outside the EU are already doing that because of the perceived threat of the GDPR. The potential damages for a site like YouTube, which has had a very comfortable ride in recent years given the nature of what it does and the normal effects of copyright law if not for the safe harbour schemes, could easily be high enough to justify pulling out.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
If the US company supplies goods and services to the foreign company then they will need to abide by their rules.
I am looking at a charger that I bought a while back.
It is from Samsung (A Korean company), Which was made in Vietnam, but the Label notes that "This device complies with part 15 of FCC Rules" Because if it didn't they will not be able to sell it in the US.
Now You Tube offers services to other countries, it shows them adds, which they get paid for. There are companies from other countries that pays them money to show these adds. So they will either need to abide by the law of the country for content delivered there, or stop offering its service there.
US using its size and influence, may help ease some of these issues, however we are rapidly burning good karma with our trading partners, so they will less likely to be bullied, and will most likely pick away on non-essensials imports from the United States.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In the U.S. at least a copyright holder can notify Youtube and the service will pull the content. That's what the DMCA is all about. It shields Youtube and other service providers from just this kind of action.
I realize that its effect does not extend beyond U.S. territory. Likewise any ruling of law Austria might impose is not effective beyond it's own boarders (or perhaps the EU.)
Geoblocking is a thing. For that matter how much revenue does YouTube get from Austria compared to the cost of the almost impossible task of preventing users from uploading copyright material? If the cost is high enough pulling out of that market might be the better move.
The very *best* case scenario here if Austria gets what they are asking for is that this is going to result in entirely legal videos which might contain parody, satire, or commentary on copyrighted works being blocked from being viewed in Austria, as well as any other entirely original works that might happen to have some superficial similarity to a copyrighted work. It only goes downhill from there.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's a "solved problem in computer science"... but the people who solved it were auditors!
Have a peek at How NASDAQ solved YouTube’s problem. While this is not a perfect fix (you tube has some unique issues), it's a pattern that has worked for large-scale, high-volume trading.
davecb@spamcop.net
How is that better than what youtube does right now?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Of course. But that doesn't change the fact that foreign legislation does in fact compel action in US companies in the interest of compliance and homogeneity.
``OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?''
Truth is, if they are themselves liable for any copyrighted content, it would seem like every video uploaded would have to be vetted by every country in the world.
The takedown notices used now are not perfect, but they allow YouTube to exist. And is a county decides that is not acceptable, then that country needs to be denied access.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Re "Secondly foreign laws do not apply to US companies."
Wait for the blasphemy courts in distant nations to rule on the funny cartoons and the music they use.
Make fun of Communist party history? Will a court in China have to allow that?
Should a nation like Austria be allowed to shape US freedoms?
Every cult, faith group, Communist party will be looking into who they have in Austria to start their own court actions...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
So, conversely, does that mean you agree that Budweiser, which is owned by InBev, a European company, can sell alcohol to 18 year olds in America?
Of course not. American laws always apply everywhere in the world, but laws from other countries just interfere with American Freedom (TM).
Technically Youtube is not a US company. Youtube is a subsidiary of Google LLC, which is a multinational company whose current headquarters is in the US, BUT because they do business in multiple countries: the company has to abide by the laws of EVERY country in which they operate.
Which means that if a court in Austria rules Youtube must do X, then Google LLC has to do X, so the most restrictive laws or regulations of any country Youtube does business in apply to their entire operation.... And yes, that means if an Austrian court can decide Youtube must do X, or must remove Q video and do more to block upload of copyrighted things, and they must take those steps even in the US ---- If content is infringing upon an Austrian publisher's content, then because of various international treaty conventions signed by both the US and Austria: it's infringing in the US as well, also if something is infringing in the US, then it's also infringing in Austria.
Ignore parent post if you're planning to drive in Europe. The drink drive laws definitely care about 1-2% alcohol in your drinks.
foreign legislation does in fact compel action in US
They do it for their own convenience. The EU law has real penalties and real enforcement behind it, so they cannot flout it like they can with so many American regulations.
They should be compelled by comparable privacy protections in the US, either by law or by FCC regulation. How is this country no longer a leader in protecting its citizens' rights?
We're protected from corporate abuse by fear of European laws rather than our own laws. Pathetic.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
WTF? Country's? Threw? There? Retard.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
The local offices can be sued.
If they do it by mail order with no local presence than US law would be powerless to stop them. But if it manages to piss off the right people could lead to a customs crack-down, and an effort to confiscate the smuggled goods.
The reason web companies are complying with the GDPR is chiefly they have offices in the EU, that could be sued, and secondarily they don't want to risk the whole EU deciding to block their service for noncompliance.
If the US company supplies goods and services to the foreign company then they will need to abide by their rules.
Unless Alphabet/Google/Youtube maintain servers within Austria, they aren't actually supplying anything there. Some Austrian went to a German (or UK, or USA) site, fetched the content and imported it.
Have gnu, will travel.
I thought YouTube was a subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc.
How NASDAQ solved YouTubeâ(TM)s problem.
Levying fines as an income source. That's going to work really well when the uploader may not have supplied a real identity and can just disappear into cyberspace. I'd like to see what Youtube will look like when they start requiring verified accounts with SSNs and an organization like FINRA.
Have gnu, will travel.
copyright theft
There is literally no such thing as "copyright theft," and it is a stupid idea to call copyright infringement that (not only because it is factually wrong, but it sounds absurd - you don't seize the copyright by infringing on it).
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
If enough people want it, then it shouldn't be illegal. Think of speeding and jaywalking. Everyone's done it and the people who put them on the books are hypocrites.
If people want a YouTube with video recommendations, then making those recommendations should be legal. If people want a YouTube which allows anyone to upload without having a judge's prior approval, then that should be legal. Otherwise someone in Austria can start their own YouTube that abides by what appears to be insane Austrian copyright laws.
It is not neutral. It already censors and decides what is monetizable and what is not. They can't have it both ways. Either be truly neutral (like they used to be) or abide these kinds of rulings.
It's very applicable to people making money off ads. If you break the rules AND there is jurisprudence behind the rules, You Tube can lawfully withhold or seize payments you would ordinarily receive.
davecb@spamcop.net
All lower case is always a signal to me that the comment may safely be ignored, unless it's an e. e. cummings poem.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
That would only put Austria on a similar level as countries like China, Iran, Syria, North Korea and some others. For an entirely different reason, but the results would ultimately be similar.
Interestingly, China is doing fine with a Chinese variant of YouTube. But that's only possible with the huge Chinese market. With only 9 million people in Austria, all of them will need to give up a significant portion of their disposable income to support an Austrian YouTube, which will simply never happen, not the least because there would also be only 1/1000th the amount of videos available.
The question here for Austria's judges is which is more important for your country: YouTube, social networks... or a super heavy handed copyright system? It's ok if you value the second more, but the consequences of that wouldn't be very good for your compatriots, your economy, and your position in tech and as a modern society.
I'd say if YouTube pulls out, the vast majority of people who want YouTube would simply switch to VPN, and it would not really affect YouTube or Austrians much. Of course, Austria can also ban VPN like China does, in which case you'd be right.
> If enough people want it, then it shouldn't be illegal.
Ah, mob rule. It has a very long and distinguished history. Just hope the crowd with pitchforks and torches doesn't show up in front of your door.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
In order to comply with this, if (theoretically) it was enforced world-wide upon YouTube, would be for YouTube to have every video uploaded sit in a private space that only YouTube has access to, and have a human employee of YouTube view the video looking for copyright violations. In essense it would be the death of YouTube.
But wait, there's more: That would set a legal precedent for any media hosting on the entire Internet; everyone, from the largest to the smallest company, would have to do the same vetting of uploaded media in order to protect themselves from liability. Something like Facebook, for instance, would have to have every static photograph uploaded scrutinized, too, to ensure that there's nothing in the background that's IP belonging to anyone who would sue over it.
Theoretically, a ruling like this, if it was upheld worldwide, would more or less destroy the Internet as we know it. The only entities it would serve would be large media companies; the Internet would become, even more so than it is already, just a tool for business and revenue generation, not much of anything in the interests of private individuals. Many companies providing hosting of uploaded media would simply cease to exist or stop offering the ability to upload anything for fear of being legally liable for copyright violation.
The Internet is becoming a slow-motion trainwreck. Between government censorship in so many countries, cybercrime, abuses by people and organizations pushing 'fake news', and ISPs wanting to go back to the 'walled garden' business model, the Internet is slowly but surely becoming unusable.
But schemes like that are typically only available to the bigger players whose work gets ripped all the time. They're not much use to small, independent content creators, who may suffer significantly even from less frequent infringement but don't have the resources to be uploading everything just in case.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The trouble with this approach is that it's still YouTube itself still benefits from that content being available, directly or indirectly, and potentially at the expense of the legitimate rightsholder.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Agreed: YT is different from a stock exchange in that way. If I were the owner, though, I would probably prefer to maximize my theatre income rather than pick up a bit of income from ads. I would definitely prefer to starve the person who posted it, and might not mind YT seizing the ad revenue if that helped starve the bad guy!
davecb@spamcop.net
Right, but the real question is surely why YouTube should be entitled to benefit from copyright infringement either. The safe harbour provisions under the DMCA and its counterparts are really very generous to mass content hosting sites, and it's not obvious that they deserve the special treatment they get (again, often at the expense of legitimate rightsholders) just because their business model fails without it. It's not as if the market hasn't already given us numerous authorised alternatives for people who enjoy listening to music or watching shows online, and there's no inherent reason independent creators of original content like vloggers or game casters couldn't make their own arrangements to host their content instead of relying on the centralised money magnet that is YouTube.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It's not just uploads. Search current live streams and you'll find tons of rebroadcasts of copyright content such as Fox news and live sporting events.
None alone is sufficient, but together they grind down the infringers by attrition.
davecb@spamcop.net
So, conversely, does that mean you agree that Budweiser, which is owned by InBev, a European company, can sell alcohol to 18 year olds in America?
I'm absolutely fine with Budweiser selling alcohol to 18-year-olds in areas where that's legal. Youtube can also block videos in certain countries where such content is illegal.
But man, we're talking about a web site accessible globally. I have strong dislike for country courts that pull shit like this, just.. unilaterally deciding that user-generated sites have to proactively filter before posting. It completely breaks the entire model of "user-content websites" on the Internet.
I agree, their arguments are somewhat disingenuous. "We're extending GDPR protections to non-Europeans because"
"it's the right thing to do" So why didn't they do it before?
"we believe in user privacy" So you didn't believe in last month?
"we're just awesome like that" So you sucked until now?
The real answer being "It's really hard to distinguish EU and non-EU users, and we don't want to take the chance of getting it wrong"
That is true, but also: "we calculated that the people getting pissed off about our privacy violations is not substantial enough to justify not taking advantage of the revenue stream that violating user privacy means. Also, silicon valley execs said 'privacy is dead anyway, get over it,' so we're taking that to heart."
No, they don't.
The drive laws are about "permille (1/1000) " in your blood.
To get a noticeable amount of alcohol into your blood you need to drink 4 litters of juice, in a very short time frame (and need a digestive system that is quick enough to get the small amount of alcohol into the blood in a noticeable amount)
Hint: a beer, 0.5l (a bit less than a pint) has about 4.5% alcohol. It takes minimum 30minutes till you have a noticeable amount of alcohol in your blood. And after 2h - 3h the amount of one glass of beer, is burned already. In most countries the driving limit is 0.5 permille, some actually have a 0.0 rule.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
some actually have a 0.0 rule
Indeed, so 3-4 pints of 1% abv and you're well outside error range, over the limit and fucked.
Nope, ... no problem. :D
not fucked. As I said before, if you only drink juice then the burn down rate is quick enough to have no significant alcohol in your blood.
Secondly, you simply proof that you spent your time at place X and were only drinking juice
A blood test alone is not enough to "fuck you"
Assuming you had 4 pints with 1% alcohol and you drink them as fast as you can, and the complete amount of alcohol would get into your blood instantly, the percentage of alcohol in your blood would be around 0.1% Obviously that is impossible, so the most likely amount will be around 0.02% or something in that range.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
P.S.=> Your DIM brains are blatantly inferior evidenced by your FAKE NAMES online for FAKE lives of being "ne'er-do-well" scum having the AUDACITY to even TRY "F" w/ me & ones like you you INFERIOR swine as I cast PEARLS before SWINE like you... apk
Whatever happened to moocow man?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Well then, you'll be disappointed to know the number of countries that operate under "democracy".
What is this you say, ask the RIAA, MPAA, and whoever else to do something for free??? That's just crazy talk, you need to be medicated! Of course we're expected to pay, pay, pay for everything; what are you, some sort of communist or something? </extreme_sarcasm>
Direct democracy? Has there really been a direct democracy since ancient Greece?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.