On the latter point - let's start with the assumption that if you want to get paid, you have to copyright your work. Write a song and want to get paid, you need to copyright it and hope people buy the download or the CD. if they don't - you have to make your living a different way (maybe take a low paying job at Google?)
so who has to enforce it? An efficient system has you paying your $30 or $40 to get your copyright, wrap your song in DRM, and send it out to find buyers. Maybe perform it at concert halls and hope for radio (or internet radio) air play. Who knows - and then people come to your site to buy the song. What happens to that model if everyone can copy it for free and you have to go find them and then what, sue them?
Isn't it simpler if you could just upload your song into an Audible Magic or Gracenote database, and then YouTube knows it's copyrighted, and can match it and take it down if it's not authorized? Gracenote recognizes your cd when you put it in itunes - why not recognize it on Youtube?
First, the DMCA actually says, clearly, that it protects storage (and that's it). Not public performance, not transformation or derivative works. See Section 512(c)(1) - which follows sections that protect transitory communications and caching.
"A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, if the service provider . . . " has no knowledge of the infringing activity"
Second, in all intellectual property law, with these narrow exceptions, it's the obligation of the user, not the IP owner, to observe the rights. It's not fair to keep the benefit (running the site) and impose the cost (policing the site) on someone else. If someone drives their car over your front lawn, they don't blame you for not having a fence.
Third, although automatic filtering may not be perfect, it exists and is pretty good. After all, that's what the copyright owner has to do - search and match (and send a takedown notice). Worse, unlike YouTube, the copyright owner has to get beyond confidentiality (videos available only to friends) and scale (youtube already has stored its entire database, it also could search only the uploads for a day, rather than the entire site). In fact, MySpace is employing filtering from Audible Magic; there are a number of other vendors with scale. These work by asking copyright owners to upload their content to a database so that the filter can do a match. If Google wants to be even more helpful, it could implement a watermark detector - an electronic tag if you will. I'm sure copyright owners would be happy to embed the code in their material if it allows the automatic detection.
So Viacom's not "shifting" responsibility, but just insisting that responsibility be where the law requires and where it makes the most sense
Viacom is not trying to renegotiate the DMCA - Lessig is. And he's trying to persuade the Supreme Court to agree with him.
The DMCA protects passive storage - think web hosting companies. YouTube obviously has knowledge of what's up and filtering is implemented in a lot of places, including MySpace (with approximately equal volume). In short, YouTube is arguing that it can sell content to users (by advertising to them), but doesn't itself know what's on.
Lessig argues that the court in Grokster was wrong because it found a technology to be bad. It didn't. P2P continues on - its a platform for telephony (Skype) and even licensed television (Joost). What the court found is that if you write a business plan that says "let's find out where burglars hang out so we can fence their stuff" you have crossed the line from a second hand store to a co-conspirator.
Viacom argues that YouTube should do what it can to eliminate known infringements - what's wrong with that? If you put yourselves in the shoes of any artist - how do you feel when someone is profiting from your stuff without your permission? And how could you possibly police every company that sets up a user-generated content site? Viacom's not asking for YouTube to be shut down - only that it act responsibly. If you're constructing a building and cause damage to the building next door - you fix it and keep on building. Doesn't seem unfair.
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so who has to enforce it? An efficient system has you paying your $30 or $40 to get your copyright, wrap your song in DRM, and send it out to find buyers. Maybe perform it at concert halls and hope for radio (or internet radio) air play. Who knows - and then people come to your site to buy the song. What happens to that model if everyone can copy it for free and you have to go find them and then what, sue them?
Isn't it simpler if you could just upload your song into an Audible Magic or Gracenote database, and then YouTube knows it's copyrighted, and can match it and take it down if it's not authorized? Gracenote recognizes your cd when you put it in itunes - why not recognize it on Youtube?
First, the DMCA actually says, clearly, that it protects storage (and that's it). Not public performance, not transformation or derivative works. See Section 512(c)(1) - which follows sections that protect transitory communications and caching.
"A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, if the service provider . . . " has no knowledge of the infringing activity"
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#512/
Second, in all intellectual property law, with these narrow exceptions, it's the obligation of the user, not the IP owner, to observe the rights. It's not fair to keep the benefit (running the site) and impose the cost (policing the site) on someone else. If someone drives their car over your front lawn, they don't blame you for not having a fence.
Third, although automatic filtering may not be perfect, it exists and is pretty good. After all, that's what the copyright owner has to do - search and match (and send a takedown notice). Worse, unlike YouTube, the copyright owner has to get beyond confidentiality (videos available only to friends) and scale (youtube already has stored its entire database, it also could search only the uploads for a day, rather than the entire site). In fact, MySpace is employing filtering from Audible Magic; there are a number of other vendors with scale. These work by asking copyright owners to upload their content to a database so that the filter can do a match. If Google wants to be even more helpful, it could implement a watermark detector - an electronic tag if you will. I'm sure copyright owners would be happy to embed the code in their material if it allows the automatic detection.
So Viacom's not "shifting" responsibility, but just insisting that responsibility be where the law requires and where it makes the most sense
Viacom is not trying to renegotiate the DMCA - Lessig is. And he's trying to persuade the Supreme Court to agree with him. The DMCA protects passive storage - think web hosting companies. YouTube obviously has knowledge of what's up and filtering is implemented in a lot of places, including MySpace (with approximately equal volume). In short, YouTube is arguing that it can sell content to users (by advertising to them), but doesn't itself know what's on. Lessig argues that the court in Grokster was wrong because it found a technology to be bad. It didn't. P2P continues on - its a platform for telephony (Skype) and even licensed television (Joost). What the court found is that if you write a business plan that says "let's find out where burglars hang out so we can fence their stuff" you have crossed the line from a second hand store to a co-conspirator. Viacom argues that YouTube should do what it can to eliminate known infringements - what's wrong with that? If you put yourselves in the shoes of any artist - how do you feel when someone is profiting from your stuff without your permission? And how could you possibly police every company that sets up a user-generated content site? Viacom's not asking for YouTube to be shut down - only that it act responsibly. If you're constructing a building and cause damage to the building next door - you fix it and keep on building. Doesn't seem unfair.