Music Rights Holders Sue YouTube Again 145
bennyboy64 writes "NewTeeVee reports on a criminal investigation that has been launched against senior executives of YouTube and parent company Google in Hamburg, Germany over allegations of copyright infringement. The case started after a complaint was filed by German music rights holders. Hamburg's prosecutor has formally requested assistance from US colleagues to compel YouTube to produce log files identifying who uploaded as well as who viewed 500 specific videos."
Free advertisment (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously?
Youtube is free advertising, not piracy.
Many times i've seen a band on youtube and then went and bought music from it. Not just listened to youtube to avoid buying stuff.
Pretty much makes Europe offlimits, doesn't it? (Score:2, Insightful)
...as well as who viewed 500 specific videos
The possibility of being dragged into a German court just because you viewed something is a game-changer, I'd say.
You'd have to weigh the potential time and money lost responding to German legal proceedings against just how bad you want to see any website that is within reach of the German legal system - unless you know the contents of all Flash animations and other media for the entire website in advance .
Does Google accept !GermanContent as a query modifier?
Re:Performance != Observance (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Copyright is Sacred.
Copyright now essentially resembles a religious institution. Modern proscriptions on the copying and redistribution of data in the digital age resemble, if anything, proscriptions on the distribution of translations of the Bible in the 1500's at the advent of the printing press. In both cases the technology exists that enables people to transmit information freely and cheaply. In both cases, this new ability threatens the monopoly of an established order. In both cases, that order goes to extreme and unreasonable lengths to defend a status quo that has become farcical.
So, like the bishops of old, the copyright industry is forced to extreme measures. Attack anyone, at any time, anywhere who seeks to defend or aid or in any way comfort those who break their canon, and do so with the utmost ferocity possible. Our modern legal system enables them to be as vindictive as they like with all the power of the courts behind the. Youtube is and always will be a prime target of their ire, being as it is, the bazaar of modern user content generation and distribution. If they can, they will send the state to smash and tear down the stalls seen here, and send all the meddlers packing. But, they are forgetting the forces that created the bazaar in the first place.
As the supply becomes infinite, what happens to the price? As people have the ability to copy and now distribute data, text, music and movies at virtually zero cost, why is this data worth anything anymore? Trying to argue about creators rights or fairness or legalities is to sidestep the main issue; the data is fundamentally worth zero. Attempt as you like to construct sophistic or legal or moral arguments around this. But you have sidesteped this main issue, and its fundamental and central issue is aptly demonstrated by the stampede of ordinary people from all walks of life crashing through it and filesharing as they see fit. The public has made its decision.
You can protest. You can condemn. You can litigate. But ultimately your position is like that of church leaders who protested against the popular printed Bible. People aren't listening. No argument or law or sermon is going to dissuade them from breaking laws they think are silly or unjust. The concept of copyright is too abstract a thing for most people to see breaking it as criminal. The cost of digital distribution too low for most to see its content as being worth anything. The internet has fundamentally changed the nature of content and copyright in a way just as profound as the printing press and the general public has very quickly woken up to this fact. It's time for our legal system to do the same.
Re:Performance != Observance (Score:5, Insightful)
That may be true but if the majority of the rules don't at least maintain a somewhat convincing pretense of being for the good of everyone than everyone starts to loose respect for all the rules not just the stupid and or unjust ones. You end up with the collapse of society into a state of practical lawlessness.
Then if your lucky you get a fairly popular revolution that leads to a fairly stable new society for a period of time. If you are less lucky you get an endless parade of strongmen slugging it out for power. These folks in turn produce equally abhorrent laws that the majority appear to respect out of fear but passive aggressively work to undermine the system until its weak enough that the next strongman takes his turn.
You can see the pattern across just about every culture and time period in history.
Re:Performance != Observance (Score:3, Insightful)
It can be argued that printing made culture possible. Before the invention of printing, the production of cultural artifacts was mostly embedded in rituals: they served 'magical' and religious (sometimes even legal) purposes, and what we now call art or culture were inseparable aspects of other social practices.
I believe the Internet has the potential to affect a change similar in scope. However, it is yet to be seen if it can reach its potential. They are key areas that are under constant attack (net neutrality, freedom of speech, etc.) - parent sounds optimistic when assumes that these will be fruitless. I hope he's right.
Re:Performance != Observance (Score:2, Insightful)
"The copyright system was designed with concepts like the internet in mind."??? No it wasn't bud. It was designed to give the cronies of the crown rights to make money from someone else's work. Then the idea came along that it would be better for the ARTIST to get the rights and not be under the whips of the DISTRIBUTORS so copyright was given to the ARTIST.
Well 180 years later and we have the distributors again owning the rights and stomping all over both sides.
Given you got that so horrendously wrong, what's the likelihood anything else you wrote is worth reading?
Re:They have no business in knowing who viewed the (Score:2, Insightful)
Plus, how are you (the viewer) supposed to know if the video infringes anything until you have WATCHED it? You can not possibly go by the title! Have you seen how some of the vids are titled? They often have little or NOTHING to do with the video content.
And even after you have watched it, how are you really supposed to know the legal status of the video? It is not like you know if the uploaded has written permission or anything!
Re:They have no business in knowing who viewed the (Score:3, Insightful)
You aren't. You're supposed to pay up for each and every item you ever view, hear, watch, or play.
Re:Performance != Observance (Score:3, Insightful)