Copyright Axe To Fall On YouTube?

theoddball writes "In what should come as no great surprise, Universal Music Group is preparing to file suit against YouTube for copyright infringement, the AP reports. Discussions with the site's owners have broken down (although talks are apparently still progressing with Myspace / News Corp over similar issues). From the article: 'We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars,' Universal Music CEO Doug Morris told investors Wednesday at a conference in Pasadena. This development follows last month's announcement that YouTube is negotiating with labels to legally host videos. While the primary complaint is against music videos, one cannot help but wonder if this will also impact the many, many homemade videos using copyrighted UMG songs as a soundtrack (or — *shudder* — a lipsync.)"

Tens of millions

With the various lawsuits going on, and settlements seeming to arise regularly... I wonder whether they're actually making more profit for these various companies than some of their CD/movie sales. Certainly the lawyers are munching on a fair chunk... but how much are the studios taking in as profit?

Truely a sad business model... especially when they're going after companies that are actually trying to negotiate legitimate mutually-beneficial deals.

Re:Tens of millions

What I don't understand is why the hell youtube is talking to a record company in the first place. Why aren't they dealing with a Copyright collection society [wikipedia.org]? (I don't know the name of the US one). They are an orginisation attempting to make money with content including copyrighted material, which the copyright holders are legally entitled to recompense. But their business model is more like the modern day equivalent of a tv station, so they should be paying in a similar way to how tv stations pay for their use of copyrighted material.

One of the biggest issues for the Internet

I think this is another example of one of the biggest legal issues on the Internet today.

Whether it's YouTube, or P2P software, or posting reg-required articles verbatim on Slashdot for that matter, it comes down to the same thing: we now have services that can host/transport copyright-protected content on the Internet, which mean that content can reach huge numbers of people very quickly.

Now, as the saying goes, technology is neutral and it's what you do with it that counts. Clearly there are valuable uses for rapid, widespread distribution: look at the use of BitTorrent to distribution large OSS installers, or the small bands taking advantage of the opportunity to increase their profile. On the other hand, let's not kid ourselves: the vast majority of the content on some of these services is infringing someone's copyright. Those people aren't always the big players, either: YouTube is full of rips of specialist videos/DVDs about hobbies, made by teachers who aren't going to get much compensation in return for their efforts even if everyone in their small target audience buys a genuine copy.

The problem is that this is a legal rock meeting an ethical hard place. The legal concept of a common carrier, and more generally the idea of unmoderated forums, have served us well historically. No-one's going to run a large-scale communications service if they're legally responsible for every transmission they carry. They don't have the resources to check everything. Even if they did, I don't think we should appoint commercial entities to the role of courts. And they can't possibly know about every copyright in the world, so they couldn't guarantee the right decision even if they were checking.

On the other hand, copyright holders have a legitimate grievance here. I know people who teach various hobbies I have, and I've seen copies of their videos on YouTube, and (this is the bit that annoys me) I've heard people talking about ripping those videos rather than buying them. I may not have much sympathy with the RIAA and their ilk -- they're big enough to look after themselves, and hardly paragons of ethical virtue -- but I have a lot of sympathy for the little guys, and there must be a lot more of them. I think it's really sad that the number of specialist DVDs being produced for my hobbies by world-class teachers is dropping fast, and I have a pretty good idea from all sides about why that is.

That all said, I think there are some inescapable conclusions if we're going to keep any hint of sanity in the legal position:

1. Infrastructure providers are facilitating widespread copyright infringement.
2. It is unrealistic to believe that there is no damage caused by the copyright infringement.
3. It is also unrealistic to believe that there would be no damage if the infrastructure was completely shut down (even if this was technically possible, which is doubtful).
4. It is unrealistic to expect infrastructure providers to filter all content to prevent that copyright infringement ahead-of-time (and we probably shouldn't ask them to even if they could).
5. It is easily possible for infrastructure providers to block or remove specific content if they know what it is and where in their system to find it.
6. Requests by individuals to infrastructure providers to remove content put them in a difficult position, because again they are being asked to act as judge and jury, and potentially liable for making the wrong decision either way.

As long as our copyright system remains in something like its current form (for example, with copyright being assigned, without explicit registration, to any artist who publishes their material) I think the most realistic approach is to have a system where copyright holders can show infringements to some binding authority, which can then instruct infrastructure providers to block that particular infringement quickly to limit any damage they're helping to cause. (An infrastructure provider that fails to honour suc

Looks like the rider beat the horse

In a horse race, you don't want the rider to come in before your horse. YouTube seemed like they were desperately hoping that their horse would get bought up by a big media conglomerate before the litigation rider came calling.

If they don't get acquired right quick, it will be a sad day for all of us YouTube lovers.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

Why buy youtube, when you can sue youtube and take the site as a settlement instead.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

The site itself is worthless. Other than maybe the name (which would be destroyed once they win), YouTube is worthless. It makes no profit (the bandwidth used to stream videos on the front page alone is mind boggling) and lets be serious, the moment they win, every OTHER group will demand the site more or less be brought down completely.

This is more or less the same way Napster was destroyed and why is never reclaimed the crown as a music distributing software. By the time Napster was re-released it was too little, too late. And then of course there would be the copycat sites, the backlash against the industry and the grassroots attempt to stop this. (Remember the publicity Napster got before they brought it down?)

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

(Remember the publicity Napster got before they brought it down?)

Part of the reason for the publicity of the Napster case is that it happened in the days of Web 1.0 and many people, heck the entire world, were watching to see what would happen. It wasn't exactly clear that Napster would lose. In fact, early public opinion of Judge Patel's ruling was that she didn't know enough about technology to generate a sensible ruling.

When (not if) YouTube goes down, it's gonna do so lickety split because it has the pathway (I'm not sure it's precedent) of Napster to take. This is gonna be fast, folks. Allowing users to violate copyright on a mass scale using centralized servers is entrepreneurial suicide.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

I'd say this is less clear cut than the original Napster. Despite what people claim about 'only some people used it to violate copyright', a good 90-odd% of file transfers on Napster was unauthorised copyright copying (statistic purely based on anecdotal evidence, bite me). Youtube is a lot less clear - granted a lot of stuff on there is clips from TV shows and films, music videos and stuff, but there is a LOT of original content on there (mostly unwatchable garbage, people thinking they're good on a skateboard and whatnot). Of course, it becomes hazy when people use copyrighted sound tracks to their original creation but still - I think we can all agree that a significant % of YouTube users are using it for none-copyright-violating purposes.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

Sad? It'll take about a month for all the users to migrate to one of the dozens of alternative sites that act in the same way and have slightly different features.

Those that want DRM and community support will hit grouper [grouper.com]. Those that want porn will hit pornotube [pornotube.com]. The people who just want to use their webcams and view amateur clips will use vobbo [vobbo.com]. The ones that want to open license their content will use ourmedia [ourmedia.com], and the ones that want revenue sharing will use revver [revver.com].

Dozens of alternatives, just look at The list [fileratings.com].

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

their valuable property

What VALUE? WHERE ARE MUSIC VIDEOS BOUGHT AND SOLD?

Without YouTube NOBODY would watch music videos because otherwise THEY DON'T EXIST.

The only reason this argument continues is because copyright holders, for whatever reason, totally deprive their audience of what they want. People used to download billions of songs from filesharing networks. Then they turned around and bought 1.5 billion songs from iTunes. Why did they pay for what they could get for free? Because Apple gave them a high-quality easily found song for a reasonable price. If every music video were available for download off some record company site, this would be a non-issue.

Wait, it already is a non-issue.

I think food also wants to be free.

Food is free. Farmers provide the same service Apple does: a high-quality easily found vegetable/fruit/chicken dinner/bottle of orange juice at a reasonable price. And people pay for it despite the fact that anyone armed with a single orange can produce them in unlimited quantities.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

What VALUE? WHERE ARE MUSIC VIDEOS BOUGHT AND SOLD?

Well, for one, they're bought and sold on DVD all the time. Most people I know have at least a few of these. I myself have video compilations from Depeche Mode, the Police, and Puffy (as in AmiYumi, but it's a Japanese DVD so it's just Puffy).

So while I don't dismiss the RIAA's argument out of hand, I don't think they quite get the reasons why people use YouTube. YouTube's quality is really bad and you can't (easily) download clips from it, meaning it's no substitute for buying anything. I sample videos there all the time, and yes, I've downloaded some, but only videos that I literally can't get any other way. It's a last resort for videos I want to keep, while at the same time serving the same purpose that MTV did in the beginning - it's promoting all these bands I otherwise wouldn't be thinking about. Seriously, if I see a video on YouTube that I like, the first thing I do is see if I can buy it anywhere. This is not like the original Napster, where there's really no difference between the song you could download and the song you could buy. On YouTube, in most cases you can't buy what's on there, and if you can, there's a vast difference in quality and features.

The record labels should be using YouTube as a promotional vehicle. They've got everything all backwards these days. They're even saying MTV was evil in the beginning for, god forbid, promoting their music. They don't seem to realize that the lack of music on MTV at present is a big reason why their sales are down. I used to watch MTV, find new bands I liked, buy that music and buy those videos. I have no way to do that anymore. Except YouTube.

Re:Looks like the rider beat the horse

What money is YouTube making? No ads, and a $1.2M bandwidth bill a month. They only received $11M in VC, so that clock is ticking, fast.

Pop quiz: When you're looking to buy a startup, do you go for one that's just had a massive lawsuit filed against it by the entertainment industry?

how insane

did you know that UMG just pulled their videos off of the music video station Fuse because they couldn't come to an agreement for compensation? http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=17040 3 [absolutepunk.net]

am i alone when i say i am blown away that record labels ask stations for a penny to show their videos? i don't know how they did things in the stone age, but MY generation will NOT pay major labels to promote THEIR albums.

Re:how insane

but MY generation will NOT pay major labels to promote THEIR albums.

Um, okay. Then what's the problem — They'll pull their "promotions" and you'll have no problem with it, right?

Way back in the stone age when one business existed to profit largely via the work of another (see Napster, YouTube, etc. Though YouTube has far more legitimacy given the vast number of user contributed, non-pirated content), the copyright system is geared to demand compensation. Sort of like how the GPL, via the same copyright, is geared to demand its own sort of payment.

Re:how insane

"am i alone when i say i am blown away that record labels ask stations for a penny to show their videos?"

Why the surprise? Music videos are certainly connected to albums sales, but they're also productive as entertainment in their own right. They're shown on TV, which generates viewership and sells ads, which means that someone is paying for it. Indirectly, sure, but they're paying for it.

That's all that UMG is trying to negotiate with Fuse. Both sides believe that UMG can charge Fuse, and Fuse can show the videos, generate viewership, and sell ads. If they didn't agree on that, they'd never have sat down to negotiate in the first place.

I suspect that, since the phenom is relatively new as a business idea, Fuse and UMG have somewhat different assumptions about what the value of the videos actually is. If Fuse pays too much, they can't turn enough of a profit on the content to bother, but UMG wants to charge as close to that point as they can get away with. This is a classic negotiation, and it's been done for years in TV. Give it time, and they'll work out how to do business in the new medium. Maybe another year or two, maybe different companies (YouTube, perhaps?), but it'll happen.

"...MY generation will NOT pay major labels to promote THEIR albums."

Which generation do you mean? If you're old, sure--geriatrics don't watch music videos so much. But if you're young, your generation most certainly DOES pay. You (collectively) buy product X, which was promoted by advertising runs on a channel showing music videos, which pays for the ads.

Simple, simple stuff, here, people.

Re:how insane

but MY generation will NOT pay major labels to promote THEIR albums.

Your 'generation' might not, but TV companies will, as people who are watching music videos can also be shown adverts which bring in revenue above the costs of the videos, thereby producing this thing called 'profit'.

This is a very simple concept, maybe your generation is too obsolete to understand how modern business works.

Re:how insane

What's this 'TV' thing I hear everybody talking about ? Is it something like the net ?

When will these people get it??

At the end of the day, these movie/song clips are just basically adverts. Its the ultimate form of Viral Advertising and the studios should be encouraging it, not trying to control it.

If they want to make money then this sort of stuff is gold for them, it doesn't cost them anything at all and its not hard to start something.

Its all stupid. You see them release "controlled" video's onto youtube and other blogsites when they are promoting a movie/song but if its something that wasn't thought of by them they suddenly want to sue the pants off everyone.

You can't have it both ways.

Re:When will these people get it??

The problem that the studios are having is that they don't want a repeat of MTV.

But what's that, you say? "MTV was a boon to the music industry, wasn't it?"

And yes, indeed it was. MTV not only promoted popular hits, but it allowed lots of artists that couldn't get airtime on the radio to find an audience via MTV. But, as we all know by now, the industry can't see the forest for the trees.

Here's a quote from this article [yahoo.com]:
Record companies are keen to avoid repeating the mistake they believe they made when Viacom Inc.'s MTV was set up 25 years ago -- allowing their artists' music to be aired for free.

Morris in his remarks to investors on Tuesday said MTV "built a multibillion-dollar company on our (music) ... for virtually nothing. We learned a hard lesson."

Yes folks, this is Hollywood's way of saying thank you to MTV. That channel grew a new outlet for music, brought even MORE interest to said music, and helped the music industry make billions, and in spite of all this, the industry is pissed that they gave MTV the tools to do it for free.

And with that in mind, they fear YouTube will be the next MTV, and they want a piece of it. Like usual, they're shooting themselves in the foot. Again. It boggles my mind how utterly near sighted the industry is. It can't see the forest for the trees.

Re:When will these people get it??

At the end of the day, these movie/song clips are just basically adverts. Its the ultimate form of Viral Advertising and the studios should be encouraging it, not trying to control it.

They are encouraging it. But why shouldn't youtube pay for it like everyone else? Music videos bring in viewers which can be translated into revenue. Why should the music industry provide free revenue for youtube, MTV etc?

You can't have it both ways.

Actually they can, as it's their videos and they are free to release them for free or to charge for them as they wish. When you make a video you are free to do whatever the hell you want with it. But wait, that would mean work, it's much easier to sit on your arse whining at people who actually have initiative.

Re:First P2P, then Video Sites, then what?

No, First they went after sheet music: "If they wish to hear my music, come see my show" -very early John Philip Sousa quote, then they went after 78RPM "Buy the sheet music!", then Radio "Buy the 78s, Radio is music for Free!" then.....you get the picture. Technology never waits for the weasels in suits to figure it out, it just goes along its merry way inovating and waiting for humans, Yeah thats us, to figure out how to use it. Meanwhile the Curia argues over whether the church should ban printing presses since they will put all the clerics in abbeys out of work...

Had to be a *music* company

Of course it had to be a music company. A music company that is part of a much bigger media conglomerate, but it is the subdivision that is suing. And they are suing because someone creates a new music video for an old song. This at least involves some work by the person posting it. Yet there is so much content on youtube that is blatantly ripped from TV, but nobody sued about that yet.
Youtube is going to become Napster 2.0: once wildly popular, then sued into oblivion.

YouTube is not the new Napster

The difference being Napster was unable/unwilling to remove copyrighted content. YouTube is more than able and more than willing to remove copyrighted content. The Grokster case set a nice precedent in that a company must at least try to comply with copyright law. Not only that the vast majority of media companies have embraced YouTube, Capitol Records for example has uploaded their own music videos.

Prompt removal of copyrighted material not enough

So as soon as someone posts copyrighted material on a website, the owner of the website owes money to the copyright owner. I guess it's under the impression that for a brief period of time the website owner made money off ads and the copyright owner should get that ad money. It seems a little like the patent trolls waiting until a company has a successful product. If people want to use a song they will have to wait until the copyright expires .. oh, wait...

I don't get the tens of millions of dollars part though. I've heard of $150 million to $400 million a year in potential revenue for YouTube. I understand it from the greedy record company standpoint, but I can't see it from the actual damages perspective. I guess every single person who saw a video that had a copyrighted song copied the song and E-mailed it to their friends in the Hong Kong Triads who later distributed pirate versions of it throughout Asia.

There is incentive for major content providers to completely destroy user content websites. After all, the content oligarchy would not want competition, even poorly made funny cat video competition.

Dirty Play

UMG are just playing dirty. They are trying to negotiate with YouTube and MySpace and things aren't going (entirely) their way, so out comes the threat of potential future lawsuits with a nice big number (tens of meeeellions of dollars!) to crash the stock value of YouTube and MySpace today. The threat is basically: "Look at what we can do to your stock with a few choice words. Accept our last offer or we hit you again."

It begins...

It was ineveitable. Looks like Universal gave up waiting for YouTube to make some coin before they filled suit. I guess they realize now that YouTube will never make money.

The reality is that more people use YouTube to view content that shouldn't be on there than to view the content that should. I'm no exception. The only thing I really use YouTube for is watching South Park and other shows off Cartoon Network. I'll also use it to watch music videos, but not even watch the video. I just want to hear the song, and I know YouTube has it.

Sure, there are people who actually don't use YouTube for this purpose, but I'll tell you right now that they are in the minority.

The only way YouTube can save itself is by moderating ALL videos. That is, videos will only appear on the site once they are flagged, much like Google does. If and when that day comes, all the content I want will be gone and there's really no reason for me to ever go to YouTube again.

Did anyone really think YouTube was going to stay around? I'm amazed that investors kept pumping money into it.

Re:It begins...

Thinking back a month... Things I've watched recently on You Tube:

Trailer for Transformers [youtube.com] - Legalish
Transforming Robot Beetle [youtube.com] - Legal
Playing With Electricity Video [youtube.com] - Legal
Metalocalypse [youtube.com] - Not Legal
Ask a Ninja [askaninja.com] - Legal
Street Running [youtube.com] - Legal
ZeFrank talking at a convention - Legal
Some guy blowing the whistle on faulty helicopter design - Legal
Quake 3 Rocket Jump super skillz video - Legal

I know there are a lot of illegal uses for YouTube. But it seems like unlike a lot of P2P apps, the non-infringing uses are substantial. If YouTube could successfully filter out all of the illegal content, it would still have a lot of uses

Okay

"We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars"

Fair enough. Please direct us to the site where we can see Universal Music Group artists' music videos.

Okay. Please direct us to the television--

Okay. Please direct us to the DVD--

Oh, you mean nobody would ever see these videos otherwise? So if there's no market for these videos, how can it be established there were tens of millions in damages?

BZZZT. Thanks for playing.

well

Copyright Axe hasn't hit Ebaumsworld yet, and they have plenty of content ripped straight from DVDs. And hell, they even get a TV show out of it.

I can see their point

I was going to buy the latest Metallica album, then I realised that I could get all their film clips to be viewed in a blurry little window, with near-radio quality sound! Not to mention that a series of YouTube links doesn't take up valuable space on my CD rack! Chalk that up as one lost sale *cha-ching*

It's a control issue

For the RIAA, this is about far more than money. This is about control. Consider the high-profile members who are so much more than music companies. Sony. Warner Brothers.

This is about control over entertainment. You Tube is a form of entertainment that they simply don't control. They don't produce it. They don't write it. And they don't make money off it. Theoretically, a band could make a hit song that never passed through any of their doors. A person could make a You Tube video so famous that he could achieve status as a director without ever setting foot in one of their offices.

You Tube has the ability to deliver content to every person with an internet connection. Statistically, it is inevitable that eventually a breakout new band or director will arrive through You Tube without any member of the big corporations having their claws in them. For the RIAA this is about the fact that they want to retain control over every note of music you hear. It assures them they will never be caught by surprise. It allows them to stay in the forfront of new trends. It lets them juggle bands, hits, and artists with impunity. It lets them create restrictive contracts that give the vast majority of money from CD sales to them, instead of the artist. It lets them artificially inflate prices and manipulate the market.

That's worth infinitely more than $1 million in proprietary content that they might be losing, if we take the highest number imaginable. That's why they care.

think profits

We must never forget the purpose of copyright laws. They are there to promote the useful arts. Ask yourself: how is suing youtube accomplishing this?

The idea that no one will create anything if youtube users are allowed to use it in their homemade videos is absurd. But don't blame Universal. Blame congress for favoring promotion over profits and allowing the recording industry to make massive campaign contributions in what would *appear* to be an exchange for legislation.

The entertainment gives our elected officials about $30 million/year [opensecrets.org] to make sure they can bring lawsuits like this one.

This is stupid

Has anyone noticed videos on youtube don't even have sound in stereo? They are all in mono.

You can't even listen to music properly using the videos on that site, the quality is too low.

As for the lip-syncing and dancing videos, it's free advertising. I bet "numa numa" sold a lot more records since that fat dude posted a video dancing to it, in fact they are using that to market a new version of that song now...

Doing our business is what DMCA notices are for

I shudder to say it, but isn't this what DMCA takedown notices are for? If someone puts some music they don't own on the web space that their local ISP gives them, then the copyright holder's recourse is to send a DMCA takedown notice. The ISP handles it, problem solved.

Why should YouTube be any different? Send them a DMCA takedown notice, and surprise surprise, they'll happily remove the offending content. Problem solved.

There's only one reason why YouTube is getting treated differently. UMG sees a cash cow that they don't own, and they want desperately to milk it.

I hope they dont

Seriously, it is coming to the point that you can't even whistle your favorite song without being sued for copyright infringement.

Isn't that what YouTube basically does? User posted content? A person plays their favorite song, a person dances to their favorite song, a person posts a music video thats already available on MTV/VH1 (when those stations actually play music 1 hour a week).

Mark this, the end of cover bands, the end of whistling while you work, and the end of free speech.

How do they lose money?

You can't buy pop videos so no loss of revenue there.
You can download the video from YouTube, think 'I like that' and go out and buy the CD. Money made there.
I can't think of any downside to free pop videos online unless someone wants to rip the mega low quality sound off the video stream but frankly you'd be pretty desperate to do that.
Sounds like record company is shooting itself in the foot to me.

took this long?

I'm surprised that it took this long for a legal battle to start. YouTube was becoming the Napster of video and it had to be a target sooner or later.