Google to Viacom - The Law is Clear, and On Our Side 290
An anonymous reader writes "Google responded to the opinion piece in the Washington Post by a Viacom Lawyer with a letter to the editor titled 'An End Run on Copyright Law.' Their strong wording sends a very concrete message: 'Viacom is attempting to rewrite established copyright law through a baseless lawsuit. In February, after negotiations broke down, Viacom requested that YouTube take down more than 100,000 videos. We did so immediately, working through a weekend. Viacom later withdrew some of those requests, apparently realizing that those videos were not infringing, after all. Though Viacom seems unable to determine what constitutes infringing content, its lawyers believe that we should have the responsibility and ability to do it for them. Fortunately, the law is clear, and on our side.'"
Tag this: (Score:4, Funny)
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It looks like Google did in fact know exactly what they were doing when they bought YouTube. Right now Viacom looks pretty much like they just stepped on head of a rake and got whacked in the face.
If there's one thing you can say for Google, they know how to stand up for sane copyright law.
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That's because Google's entire business model is based around using other people's copyrighted material.
It's a symbiotic relationship where Google can use pieces of peoples content to advertise over while simultaneously causing that full content to be consumed, making the creators money.
What a strange new world...
DMCA safe harbor does not apply to Google (Score:2)
I hate the DMCA. I hate the copyright cartel. However, the DMCA is on the cartel's side here. Google is in trouble, because they are in fac
Re:DMCA safe harbor does not apply to Google (Score:4, Informative)
The actual words used in DMCA 512(c)(1)(B) are
"does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity; and"
Google does not lose the safe harbor by making money off of YouTube; if they did, the DMCA safe harbor would be vitiated. The benefit has to be _directly_ attributable to the infringing activity; an indirect benefit like "more people come to the site, and thus see the ads, thus raising revenue" does not qualify.
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So now what? Does she write book 2 knowing that if she publishes it she'll only sell a few hundred thousand copies before stores are swamped with the (now legal) copies from the major publisher? Or does she just quit writing.
If there's no copyright, than it makes a lot more sense for media publishing companies to quit paying artists, and specialize in leeching off of small publishers. Which in turn means the small publishers will increasingly make no money for actually paying the media creators, which means the media creators eventually go back to flipping burgers.
In short: abolishing copyright entirely completely eradicates the financial incentive to pay artists to make work. I'm sure some will do it anyway, but most people have to make a living, so there will be virtually no professional, full-time artists of any kind ever again. That, to me, is insane.
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Interesting choices for examples of stuff people are willing to produce for free. Each and every one of those is a derivative work, or at least based on someone else's original work -- which is mostly likely copyrighted and created at least in part for profit.
So we'd lose all of the original work, and be able to 'mod' and 'remix' each other's derivative dreck. Woo hoo.
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The Real Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Real Problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Already can be done - licensing. Artists aren't obliged to sign their copyrights away - they can instead let somebody license the work from them with whatever restrictions they feel fit to place upon it.
The problem is, historically, the cost is distribution. To make any money from your copyrighted work you need to distribute it, distributing it means going to the big media companies and they'll only distribute if you hand over the copyright, not license it from you.
The internet, computers, podcasts, YouTube and the like are moving the distribution cost lower and lower. Hopefully we'll get to a point soon where artists realise they aren't beholden to some of the current companies to get their works out and make a reasonable sum of money from it.
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You right to do what you wish with something is generally limited when you sell that thing.
"why is a company that has not produced anything creative allowed to take advantage of a legal right that was supposedly enacted to protect creativity?"
Because they paid the creator for the creation. It's supposed to encourage creativity by helping the creator
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In short, why is a company that has not produced anything creative allowed to take advantage of a legal right that was supposedly enacted to protect creativity?
A couple things to note. First of all it's interesting that you qualify corporations with "large". I take it you understand why corporations are so important to modern business. What they do is limit the risk of any investor to only their investment. In ot
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Re:Tag this: (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the artist's income only that copyright seeks to protect, it's also the cultural enhancement that society itself recieves and benefits from, which is more intangible but nevertheless a Good Thing. Yes, if all copyright were abolished some artists in some mediums would continue to produce, but we would not have anywhere near the amount of creative works we have now since it would be much harder to earn a living without doing some other parttime work. Copyright is supposed to strike a balance between the needs of the creator (income) and the needs of society (entertainment, culture) but lately the balance has been pushed by corporations far in favor of the creator, or rather the holder of the copyright. One way that this might also be addressed is to prohibit the wholesale transfer of copyrights to corporations, removing the incentive for a corp. to hoard works and lobby for ever stronger/longer terms. Just a quick thought, needs more fleshing out.
My main point was to defend the parent who I believe is essentially correct: removing all copyrights will in the end hurt artists by making it harder for them to make a living solely from their works and returning us to a period where works are produced mostly on commission, which means only the wealthy could afford what we take for granted today. It won't happen overnight, and it won't stop all artists from producing, but the variety, quality, and breadth of works currently available will definitely decrease.
Re:Tag this: (Score:5, Insightful)
I get the impression that you don't understand what copyrights are. If you have a copyright to an idea you do not own that idea. Ideas can not be owned. Period. Copyright laws and patents do not contradict this common sense notion. A copyright law does not grant you ownership of an idea. It grants you ownership to exclusive rights to control the distribution of that idea for profit.
This isn't just a matter of pragmatics (although that comes into it to) but also of ethics. If it takes me 1,000 hours to write my novel is it fair that anyone else can come and copy it and sell it? I invested the work, but if there's no copyright law then they can reap the benefit. Most people agree that this is not fair. So artists deserve *some* rights.
On the other hand if I spend 1,000 hours writing a book does it makes sense that I can then sue someone for quoting a passage from my book? Or that I can stop people from reading my book if I don't want them to? Imagine an author wandering around a book store "I don't like the looks of you, give me that book back. Get out." So clearly giving artists *all* rights is also not fair.
Since both extremes - no rights and all rights - are not ethical than if you want to find the ethical then by definition you are looking for something in between. You are, as it were, attempting to strike a balance.
Do physical property laws "strike a balance"? No, what's mine is mine, and what's your is yours, period.
This is false. Both taxes and eminent domain demonstrate that we do, in fact, strike a balance in this case as well. If you own a house on land the country needs for a road, then you don't get to say "what's mine is mine". The gov't knocks your house down (and pays you for it).
I disagree. The total quantity of works produced might decrease, but I think the variety would actually increase.
It's called the tragedy of the commons. If everyone can profit from an copying from an invention as much as from inventing the invention, then everyone has the incentive *not* to be the one that does the hard work of inventing. This is a more fundamental law than your liking for indie music. Why should there be a larger variety of music if people are being paid less to make it? It's not as though anyone is forcing people who are willing to make music for free not to make it now. So right now everyone that is willing to make money for free makes it, and also people who need or want to get paid make it. You take away the option to get paid, and only the people willing to make music for free will make it. How are fewer artists "more variety"?
Re:Tag this: (Score:4, Informative)
IANAL and neither are you. For one, you are confusing patents and copyrights. Copyright is an artifical monopoly granted by the government in respect to a particular expression of an idea. It is not possible to copyright an idea - as you would have learned if you had checked Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] before posting.
Copyright law is not a matter of ethics. It is simply law and public policy. As the Constitution puts it: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." You'll notice that the focus is on progress - not because it is "right" from any moral perspective.
Further, there is a problem in your premises. Specifically, you aren't using your imagination or referring to historical precedent where copyright did not exist, yet creative works were produced. The University system and patronage are historical examples. I can imagine cooperatives that could provide a basic standard of living for artists and other possible formulations that you probably haven't considered. Copyright is only one way to skin this particular cat.
Tragedy of the commons is actually based on scarcity. The problem you have is that you are assuming that creative works are fungible. Here's the example that shows the flaw in your reasoning. Suppose The Beatles decide to release all their music and make it all public domain. Now, since all their music is available - according to your reasoning, no one will make any music anymore. No need to create derivative works. Why bother because The Beatles is freely available right? Wrong. People like to make music. They like to make new sounds/songs, listen to new sounds/songs and so forth. The fact that The Beatles catalog is freely available means I have a treasure trove of sounds to incorporate into my own music - and great music to listen to as well. The tragedy here is that in reality the Beatles catalog is not available in the commons. If it were in the commons, no tragedy of the commons would occur due to its available. Nor would the tragedy of the commons come into play if every copyrighted piece of music were available and copyright were abolished - any more than it would be for individual artists. Also as most musicians know, your money comes from touring - which isn't about copyright. You need to work on this argument.
Because most people making music don't make music for money. Even among those that do, most don't play solely music to maximize their profit.
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No, I'm not. I'm speaking in general terms about intellectual property - both patents and copyrights (throw in service marks and trademarks if you like, but I think those are kind of a different idea). Patents and copyrights, however, are essentially the same thing. You work hard to create something intangible. I said "idea". You could substitute "invention" for patent "work" for copyright: but the principle is the same. Provide a temporary monopoly so
Re:Tag this: (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to point out that the greatest works of art of all time were produced in an era where there were no such things as copyright laws. It's called patronage, and it worked for thousands of years.
Maybe if every teeny bopper whore who wants to pout at a camera, sing to an over-produced track and get paid millions for it suddenly can't make money because the artificial monopoly supporting such a business model vanishes, we wouldn't be innundated with mindless crap. Maybe we would all be better off if the only people who made art were the ones that were passionate enough to make it without thought of getting paid.
Nah, you're right. That's crazy.
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You go ahead and try to make an exact copy of Jackson Pollock's 'One: Number 31' [wikipedia.org] in 10s, 10m, 10h, 10d or 10y. Go ahead, start now. Let me know when you are finished and you can have your juice box.
Sure thing... (Score:2)
Re:Tag this: (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd like to point out that the greatest works of art of all time were produced in an era where there were no such things as copyright laws. It's called patronage, and it worked for thousands of years.
Thousands of years without every man, woman and child owning a high speed "printing press" in their homes
Re:Tag this: (Score:4, Informative)
This is actually a very historically apt example. From wikipedia:
Movable type
The printing press brought the possibility of compensation for literary labor. Very speedily, however, the unrestricted rivalry of printers brought into existence competing and unauthorized editions of various works, which diminished prospects of any payment, or even entailed loss, for the authors, editors, and printers of the original issue, and thus discouraged further undertaking. Any person with a press and some skills could use movable type to publish books and other items. Scribes and scriveners were no longer needed.
Protection for the authors and their representatives was sought through special privileges obtained for separate works as issued. According to Elizabeth Armstrong (whom the Curators of the Bodleian Library awarded the Gordon Duff Prize in 1965 for her essay on Printers' and authors' privileges in France and the Low Countries in the sixteenth century), "The republic of Venice granted its first privilege for a particular book in 1486. It was a special case, being the history of the city itself, the 'Rerum venetarum ab urbe condita opus' of Marcus Antonius Coccius Sabellicus" (page 03). [ Armstrong, Elizabeth. Before Copyright: the French book-privilege system 1498-1526. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge: 1990). ] "Venice began regularly granting privileges for particular books in 1492. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright
As soon as the means for cheap reproduction existed, the need for copyright was seen. Copyright laws date back to the 15th century. I'm not sure what "greatest works of time" you were thinking of, but I'd wager at least some of them actually came into existence *after* the printing press (and therefore were probably copyrighted at the time) and in any case the point remains: before easy reproduction there was no need for copyright law, afterwards there was.
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I'd like to point out that there was no such thing as effective copying. Patronage worked great when directly hiring a creator to make something was the only way to get it, because there wasn't any technical capability to make a copy.
Does the "mindless crap" you're inundated with include the output of all programmers, architects, authors (non-fiction and fiction), eng
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This strikes me as really funny. Like it or not, the reason that pop songs like this keep getting made is because people by them. It's actually relatively democratic. I mean, you might not like the music. I certainly don't care for it. But you can't argue with the fact that a lot of people like the music enough to pay money to get it.
But rather than the democratic ideal you'd rather go back to a system where a few mega-rich fat dudes literally decided what got made. You honestly think that would be an improvement? You know what - evenif the mega rich fat dudes were all my friends and made sure that all my favorite screamo bands and prog rock bands stuck around forever, I'd still be deeply troubled by the fact that in general people had to buy music that was decided for them by a few rich people.
Consumerism lets people vote with their wallets. The trouble is, as you've observed, they tend to make stupid decisions. Still, I'd rather take the stupid masses than a tyranny any day: even when it comes to music and not politics.
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Copyright was originally created to protect content from those who would change it and resell it
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The problem with your first point is that the mega-publisher has no incentive at all to do that. They'd probably have to pay Rowling a shit-ton of money if they wanted to publish her next book, and all they had to do the first time is pay $20 for a retail copy. Do you really think they'll ever give up a deal that sweet for, literally, no reason? The Grateful Dead may have done a h
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In short: abolishing copyright entirely completely eradicates the financial incentive to pay artists to make work. I'm sure some will do it anyway, but most people have to make a living, so there will be virtually no professional, full-time artists of any kind ever again. That, to me, is insane.
otoh, it would discourage those artists who are cranking out mindless drivel (*cough* *cough* Robert Jordan *cough* *cough*) just to sell a few copies so that they can make a living.
As far as what J.K. Rowling might do in your hypothetical scenario, I think these options are more likely:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should abolish copyright law entirely, but holding on to outdated business models doesn't make
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As far as what J.K. Rowling might do in your hypothetical scenario, I think these options are more likely:
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More likely, the author would publish the book online, and rake in revenue from advertising. Sure, someone could leach the content, but the official site would always have the book out first, so everyone would go there instead of stealing it.
There
Law for ever (Score:2)
The problem isn't that copyright protects the Authors, which was the intent, but that a 2nd intent was that after some reasonable period of time, those works enter into the public domain. Without that, for example, a modern writer say of a TV series like Star Trek TNG, couldn't include a "character" like Sherlock Holmes. In fact when they tried, the Est
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There would need to be a separate flow of money to the author that didn't involve the publishers.
Currently, there are government and non-profit grants. There are also day jobs (a lot of writers are also magazine editors, columnists, teachers of various sorts, etc.).
In the case of Rowling, and the small number of other stars, they could setup a foundation that accepted payments from fans (fan clubs could probably be re-purposed for this). I imagine a lot of people would be willing to buy her books for
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OK, maybe it's not so bad. Maybe there's some other technology which can make infringing copyright hard again. But that technology can be easily defeated... so we make that illegal. But that law's unenforcable, so we make the tools for doing so illegal. But
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Your wife owns herself. And no one's arguing that we should drop ownership of property laws. Objects can be owned by nature of them being tangible.
Information is nothing but a different 'type' of object, and there's no reason there should't be ownership laws involved
How about "the will of the people?"
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This is silly. There's a very fundamental difference between tangible goods and ideas. If you take my car, I have no car anymore. If you take my song, I still have it. So you have not deprived me of the song.
You can not deprive people of ideas by "stealing" them, and thus stealing an idea is different than stealing a tangible object.
So the reason that people can't take my TV is quite
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So... how many novels have you seen performed? Not adaptations of novels, but actual novels? There's an argument to be made that copyright is less important for the performance arts, but in that case you're not merely selling the work, but the performance of the work. So it makes sense. But a lot of art is not performed. Just tough look to them? I suppose Terry Pratchett should just start writing novels live and charging $10 an hour to watch him work?
I don't care about publishers and distributors. They're just ripping off the creators like the railroad monopolies did to the farmers, and they can all rot.
They are *now*, but that's because now any 8 year old with a CD can make perfect digital copies of most forms of art. Music, video, or text. But publishing companies were invented when the means of publication and distribution were much, much more expensive. The plunge in the cost of publication and distribution is a relatively new thing, historically.
The publisher's teat is running dry. They are a fifth wheel trying to put more laws on the books to maintain the artists' dependence on them.
This is a drastic overstatement. One of the most important things publishers do is marketing. And as Google shows, that's still an industry that is thriving today. So publishers aren't dead yet. Furthermore, not all media is digital yet, and that means there's still a reason for publishers to exist. I want a hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Deahtly Hallows, not a
Why should I subsidize a full time artist with corrupt law that only promotes hoarding and speculation?
This is just silly. Copyright law doesn't force you to subsidize anybody. If you don't want to subsidize J. K. Rowling, don't buy her book. That's fine with me. Find an author that is willing to give their work away. But I'm happy to give J. K. Rowling her money. And if she has worked out a deal with Scholastic to print the book, then I'm happy to give them their cut. And if Borders is kind enough to take shipment of the books and provide nice displays for me to peruse, than I'll gladly fork over some cash to them as well. Conveniently enough for me, all that money is bundled into one transaction.
Copyright doesn't force you to pay money at all. It just gives authors the right to set limitations on their work. If you don't like the price they set: don't pay. You don't have some inalienable right to enjoy art you didn't create for free.
There is no reason a reproduction of work already performed should fill your wallet. Make your contract, perform the work, get paid, and walk away. That's all you or anybody else is entitled to.
Did you really write this entire thing without ever once stopping to think that not all art is performance art?
Re:Tag this: (Score:5, Interesting)
Both Google and Viacom desperately want to set the agenda and the precedent for online distribution of media. With the increased importance of digital distribution, the future of both companies may depend on convincing the courts to see things their way. These ploys are merely the skirmishes between forces scouting for good positions; the real battle is yet to come.
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Too late.. now people need to tag it !omfgpwnt just so it doesn't look ridiculous. You're right too.. I was expecting the article to be damning with a tag like that, but all the "good stuff" was in the summary.
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Now, if it became clear that flea market organizers kept welcoming DVD pirates back (after the infringing content has been discovered previously), then the organizer may be setting him/herself up for some argument of complicity...
Analysis from the Future (Score:5, Funny)
Pessimistic: we won't be allowed to tell them, for copyright reasons.
Re:Analysis from the Future (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the beginning:
For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college--when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.
Re:Analysis from the Future (Score:5, Funny)
Somehow I doubt there was ever a pirate sitting on the deck of his vessel in the early evening, sipping his tea and perusing The Lay of Leithian in his off-hours from pillaging the nearby towns.
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Realistic: more of the same, because stupidity never goes out of fashion.
Re:Analysis from the Future (Score:5, Insightful)
That won't happen. They will ask for and receive extension after extension.
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Personally, my magic number is 20 years. More than enough time to reap lots of money, IMO.
But copyright law will never change for the better in a two-party system until most people care about it.
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First you have to make it up your Mom's basement stairs.
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i dunno about the fat part, but beards seem to be rather popular with the women around here for some reason.
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Why, is there a bearded lady Training College in the area or something?
This requires some translation: (Score:2)
"Fortunately, the law is clear, and on our side."
This translates to "Drop your lawsuit or you're guaranteed to lose. Besides, our market cap is much bigger than yours so we can simply buy you to make this go away. Na na na na na na!"
Re:This requires some translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, Google doesn't want Viacom to drop the suit. Google was gunning for this fight and they want Viacom to come at them swinging hard. It's a fight Google is likely to win, but it has to be a fight otherwise it won't resolve anything and the rampant DMCA abuse will continue.
the flip side (Score:2)
Re:This requires some translation: (Score:4, Insightful)
Hi From Google! (Score:4, Funny)
Groklaw (Score:4, Interesting)
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I was on the Mad TV site... (Score:5, Interesting)
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I wouldn't be surprised if a large majority of Colbert Report viewers the first season have never watched a single Colbert Report episode on Youtube.
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It might, however, have had something to do with the content of the commercial: A topless girl waving a speed limit sign over her head.
I think we need an European youtube...
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Yes, we do.
It would look just like Daily Motion [dailymotion.com], but BETTER.
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Hee hee, go Google. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Last I looked, a DMCA take-down notice was made under penalty of perjury. Maybe if *someone*, like, say, maybe a judge, would actually hold the slimey lawyer who sent it to that penalty of perjury, viacom would do a better job figuring out what they own. Lawyers would be *far* more likely to think before sending if mistakes meant jail time or monetary loss.
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Why not? Because it's overkill (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, any elected official trying to 'crack down on speeding' by tossing speeders in jail wouldn't last long in office. When you give ridiculous punishments for minor offenses, you just breed contempt for the law (not to mention annoy everyone but special interest groups).
Re:It's a law enforcement issue (Score:4, Informative)
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Each party has a role to play. Google says it is willing to do its part. Suing Google just to get around a legal re
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No, I think the RIAA is trying to follow civil procedures. Unfortunately, what we have is a clueless Mom with an Internet account while the teenager downloads music to fill that 30Gb iPod. Mom gets a letter and cluelessly says "I don't d
You're overreaching (Score:2)
What the GP doesn't seem to get is that raiding someone's home because they stole some mp3s is like raiding someone's home because they swiped
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They do in Philadelphia and New York (remember the plunger incident?)
Or copyright infringement. Why do you think the RIAA has those SWAT-style jackets with RIAA on the back. Or "hacking". Or nothing at all... remember the Steve Jackson Games case?
Translation (Score:5, Funny)
Google to Viacom: *smack*
Viacom: *whimper*
automated copyright detection/removal - impossible (Score:2)
Re:automated copyright detection/removal - impossi (Score:2)
A machine, however, might be able to detect a pattern under which the metadata for an upload reflects a probable instance of infringement based on previous specifications.
If Viacom informed Google of a particular television series, and supplied --
- the name of the series
- the descriptions for each episode
- the cast list
- the uploaders caught uploading episodes so far, and what channels and tags have been used
You think Google couldn't build a pretty decent classifier that would have a pretty good chance o
Google flicks off Viacom and says... (Score:2, Funny)
IANAL but... (Score:2)
As I posted in a previous thread on the this general subject, Viacom's fight is not with GooTube - it's with Congress.
Real issue here (Score:3, Insightful)
Entity A has a service by which lots of stuff gets picked up and made available to others. Some of this is owned by other people and Entity A has no rights to it at all. Is it Entity A's responsibility to ensure they do not collect such material, or is it the owner's? DMCA pretty clearly says it is the owner's and this works on a small scale pretty well.
But when Entity A is the size of Waste Management and they "accidently" pick up every car in your neighborhood to sell them at auction, is it necessarily a good move to say that every car owner has to sue them individually?
YouTube is a vacuum cleaner of mammoth proportions and is certainly capable of sucking up whatever content there is to acquire through the dillgent efforts of anonymous contributors. There are vast similarites with Napster here - sure there is a lot of non-infringing content but also lots of infringing content as well. Grokster pretty much said the service can be held liable for copyright abuses of its users.
I don't think this is at all clear cut. Yes, Viacom probably could do a better job at identifying infringing material and a compromise might be to enable Viacom (and others) to have easy access to recently-uploaded materials for such identification purposes. But in no way does YouTube (or anyone else) get to say they have no responsibility in the matter at all.
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The distinction is that YouTube isn't vacuuming up the content. Individuals are posting it there. YouTube simply provides the hosting. Not everyone can afford to run their own co-located servers to host their own videos, and the safe-harbor provision of the DMCA recognizes that the companies simply running the servers should have a way of putting the responsibility for what users do on the shoulders of the users.
This is much akin to the way UPS, FedEx and the USPS work. They move packages from point A to p
Corporate flame wars (Score:2, Funny)
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If Viacom can't do it, they shouldn't expect ... (Score:5, Interesting)
It has already been shown that ifilm contains material which they don't own the copyright. Viacom, can't police that material, why should anybody expect google to do what the originator of the lawsuit is crying about?
And google does have a way to report questionable material, you hit the "flag as innapropiate" and choose "Other terms of use violation". In addition the same button has a link for copyright owners to object to the material. That really seems fair enough to me.
The only technical solution would be to filter words, which is a stupid alternative. As I may want to upload parodies of "Steve Colbert" instead of actual video from his show.
Re:If Viacom can't do it, they shouldn't expect .. (Score:4, Informative)
They licensed technology from AudibleMagic [google.com].
(MySpace has also licensed the technology for filtering.)
YouTube only pre-filters content for media companies who have entered into a licensing agreement with YouTube. The company gives YouTube hashes of their copywritten works & YouTube plugs those into their database. Viacom briefly mentions all this in their editorial & in the legal complaint (paragraph #7 & again further on).
Anyways, maybe the Judge will tell Viacom to license AudibleMagic's technology and use it on their own site... Who knows? But the main thrust of your argument is based on the claim that GooTube can't filter and you're wildly wrong. Don't worry though, lots of other people have been making that same argument, wrongly of course.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I sincerely hope nobody from the MPAA, RIAA, or Viacom sees your post. "Well your honor, it's easier for everybody surfing the web to find our content and notify us if the find something infringing. So if you *see* copyright infringement and don't report it then it's a crime!"
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Re:After reading both letters... (Score:5, Informative)
Viacoms.
"...and remove..."
YouTubes.
" infringing copyright material?"
This isn't up in the air, debateable stuff; it's spelled out perfectly clearly in the law.
"I'm not a lawyer"
Clearly.
Re:After reading both letters... (Score:5, Insightful)
The DMCA safe harbor provision declares it to explictly be the owner of the copyright who must object & request the takedown of the material. In fact, it has always been the responsibility of the copyright owner to initiate any form of copyright complaint. There is no way that YouTube or any other content aggregate can determine if the material is:
Given those factors, it is strictly the copyright owners responsibility to identify & request the removal of infringing material. YouTube in fact goes farther & uses a hash system to block the re-upload of videos it removes - in effect performing the pro-active filtering that Viacom wants.
Talk about undue burden... (Score:2)
I do believe this would fit the definition of "undue burden".
Viacom needs to quit bitching about YouTube and realize that they aren't footing the bandwidth bill for this promotional material.
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I still believe that the content owner bears responsibility for identifying infringing content. Perhaps the
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IANAL (I didn't even follow the case), but it would appear to me that Napster was largely about trading copyrighted files in their entirety that weren't owned by whoever was seeding it (music, video, whatever), while YouTube is largely about trading copyrighted files that are owned by whoever put them online (or otherwise fall under fair-use laws). It may be as much about intent and purpose as activity. YouTube also made an effort to take down files that copyright owners claim were posted illegally - furt
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It's an ongoing situation, not a one-time one.
Let's say that Viacom sends Google a list of their popular shows that have been infringed upon, with URLs leading to specific examples. Note that, for the infringement to have any impact, it must be findable by users -- it must be identifiable via tag, title, description, author, channel, or advertisement elsewhere (blog post for instance). If people are uploading infringing material in ways that are all but impossible to find, than Viacom has little rea
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It doesn't matter whether Google _could_ do it -- of course they could, though they would of course err in both directions. It matters whether or not they are required to do it. And they aren't.
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Besides, such editorial comments have been a pa