YouTube Wins vs. Telecinco In Spain 68
eldavojohn writes "A Spanish judge has dismissed a case brought against YouTube by Spanish television station Telecinco for violating Telecinco's intellectual property. The ruling reads in part: 'YouTube is not a supplier of content and therefore has no obligation to control ex-ante the illegality of those. Its only obligation is to cooperate with the holders of the rights in order to immediately withdraw the content once the infraction is identified.' Telecinco brought the case against YouTube when it found that episodes of its television programs were turning up on YouTube prior to their official air and release date on their television channel. Things are looking up for Google's video service as YouTube was granted safe harbor from Viacom earlier this year in the United States. You can find an official response from Google on their EU Policy Blog."
weird (Score:4, Insightful)
Did the spanish try to send a takedown to Google, or they just run to the Court?
One would think, sending an email is cheaper, faster and generally more effective.
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Takedown notices only apply in the US; the DMCA is meaningless anywhere else.
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Takedown notices only apply in the US
And YouTube complies with US law. In fact, they make it very easy to send a takedown request: http://www.youtube.com/copyright_complaint_form [youtube.com]
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You are wrong, there *are* takedown notices in Spain as well:
La Comisión de la Propiedad Intelectual, órgano creado por el Ministerio de Cultura, se dirigirá al responsable de la página web que considera que ha vulnerado los derechos de Propiedad Intelectual y le pedirá la retirada del contenido conflictivo. Si éste no es retirado después de que la comisión lo haya solicitado hasta en dos ocasiones, el denunciado podrá presentarle sus alegaciones
(too lazy to translate but Google is your friend)
However, it seems in Spain there is a special comission who is the one in charge of issuing the notices, thus you cannot send everyone you like such kind of notices (well, you can, but they wont care).
At least that is what I read from there, maybe a Spanish guy can shed more light?
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linky [20minutos.es] for the quote (slashdot ate my link in the previous post) in Spanish.
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Yes, it seems to be somewhat similar to DMCA. But Telecinco filed suit in 2008, the new law was approved this year.
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Spain implemented the EU version of the DMCA back in 2006.
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the DMCA is meaningless anywhere else.
Except those countries like Spain which have implemented into law the EU Copyright Directive which is the EU's version of the DMCA.
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Telecinco is owned by Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset. Has far as I know, there's no direct connection to the Spanish government.
Inquisition (Score:1)
Well, actually first they tried sending the Spanish Inquisition, for surely nobody would expect that!
However, the inquisition got bogged down in a dialogue about their diverse weaponry and fancy red uniforms... so Telecinco decided to take it to the courts instead.
Re:weird (Score:4, Insightful)
Doing nothing at all is cheaper, faster and.. well, not more effective, but it's not particularly all that much -less- effective.
Here's the rub.. if your content is popular - and I'm guessing it is - then it will end up on YouTube. So what do you do..
A. Pay a staffer to monitor YouTube continually and a legal department (or lawyer) to draft legal complaints (DMCA takedown notice if applicable), send this to Google, wait for reply and video takedown, then wait some more to see if the person who uploaded is feeling fresh and decides to tell Google that they think the upload was fair use or somesuch, and you get to write some more legal documents, or they just bow their heads and admit that it was infringement at no cost to them beyond reading the youtube e-mail subject (don't even bother with the body content). In the mean time, start your work with the legal peeps to deal with the other 2 videos of the exact same show, uploaded while you were dealing with the aforementioned. After all.. Google isn't obligated to remove -all- the videos.. just the one you complained about.. and you can only complain about one.
B. Try to sue Google to get them to implement better filtering methods, fingerprinting, removal of -all- the videos that match ones you've already complained about, etc. and spend a whack of cash... that you would've been spending under A anyway.. but of course go nowhere because the courts do firmly side with Google on this.
C. do nothing.
of course there's also...
D. upload the videos yourself, be the official channel for that show, and people will have less of a reason to visit JoePirate's version of the video with crappy compression and "A JOOOOOEEEEEEEEE PIIIRAAAAAATE production!!!!" leader in front of it with its feeble "I'm not the copyright holder - I do not mean to infringe on any copyright!" description that would make me wonder about the uploader's frame of mind if not for the fact that this is, after all, YouTube.
To some, though, option B may seem more attractive.. perhaps it'll fly in some jurisdiction eventually.. but option A is certainly completely pointless. Option C is the only worthwhile approach if you abhor option D for some reason.
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The ruling reads in part: 'YouTube is not a supplier of content and therefore has no obligation to control ex-ante the illegality of those. Its only obligation is to cooperate with the holders of the rights in order to immediately withdraw the content once the infraction is identified.'
I would guess from this that it was not enough that Google followed their takedowns, they wanted Google to do all the work for them too.
Sanity from a Court! (Score:2)
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So, of the tens of thousands of videos submitted every day, a staff of 200 people is going to compare that to the myriad pieces of copyrighted works in existence today and successfully identify the original content copyright holder, contact them, and ensure that permission has been obtained?
No, sorry, that would take a staff of one person per day for each video uploaded, and it still wouldn't be very successful.
If you want to me to support laws to protect your intellectual property, fine. But you have to b
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This isn't a love of Google in particular, it's a love of an interactive Internet where I can freely post my thoughts and others can, too.
Google, if they have the resources to even attempt this policing, would in effect own most user-contributed content on the Internet. If they have the resources to police it, they'd pretty much be the only ones big enough to even try.
So, actually, this is pretty much the opposite of a love for Google. I don't want user-contributed content confined to only companies huge
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Google isn't even attempting to police theirs - not even a minimal effort.
Yeah, you're right. They don't respond to takedown requests at all. They don't have a "report copyright violations" to allow their users to help them identify violations. They've never suspended an account for repeated violations. They've never responded to a court order with the identity of a copyright violator. They haven't formed partnerships with companies who ask them nicely to scan for their videos and take them down automatically.
Except they've done all of these things. But other than that, you
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That's silly. The 'content owner' already identified the infringing material. So, why didn't they pick up the phone, and inform Google?
Is that so hard?
I'm pretty sure this lawsuit was lawyer business. And they didn't lose a cent regardless of the outcome.
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they are just asking Google to not host content that they do not have the right to have
How does Google know, solely from the uploaded bits, whether Google has the right to have the works of authorship that the bits represent?
Google has the resources to do it
In every minute, over 1,400 minutes of video are uploaded to YouTube. Just watching all this would require at least four shifts of over 1,400 full-time employees each. That's more than unprofitable; it's a guaranteed loss.
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Youtube already has an audio recognition system. That is how it can recognize that the sound comes from a specific song and show you in-video advertising for it. They could just as easily use that system to filter out copyright violations. A similar system could be used to filter video content. Remember, not every video needs to be analyzed, just those that are "copyright violation popular." Most youtube clips get a few hundred clips at most, those that contain copyrighted material gets tens of thousands in
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They already do it. Try to upload a video with a Morphine song. You can't.
The reason some show only the name and advertisement is because the content producer *chose that* and it's getting a piece of the profits.
But to benefit from that content producers have to send thei
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Practically speaking, someone will have to do this monitoring. There will be jerks who want to post content they have no right to.
But legally speaking (which we hope maintains some semblance of correct thinking.... LOL) the question must be answered: Who is responsible for the monitoring?
I happen to agree with the courts that [in this matter] the government is not Big Brother, and that Corporations can't demand that other corporations be their Big Brother either.
Want to ensure your content isn't pirated
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There is simply no way for Google or any other enterprise to monitor user postings for the billions of bits of copyrighted material out there. It's not only impractical, it's impossible. The onus is, has always been, and always should be on the copyright holder to defend their works
If hosting companies are required to monitor everything hosted on their sites and start being held liable for copyright or other issues with the content, then you'll see every content provider that allows user submissions shut
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Alright, tell me how to determine without ever generating a single false negative, whether or not any given piece of video data has been uploaded without the approval of the copyright owner. More specifically, since everything is copyrighted by it's creator by default, show me where in the data itself I can find a marker showing me that this specific clip is approved (or not approved, take your choice) by the copyright owner?
Yes, there are some low-hanging fruit in both directions, but nothing you can appl
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I realize this might be a hard concept but copyright is a short term thing to encourage you to make new music in your case. It's not intended to make a new form of property. Society as a whole is already helping you out by criminal enforcement of for profit copyright infringement and civil protections. Making everybody else responsible to enforce your civil protections for you really goes over the top.
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Ooooooh.
Wish I had some mod points, but I don't. So, you get those letters instead: thx.
Soooo what's in it for Torrents?? (Score:3, Interesting)
So IIRC sites like Suprnova and other torrent *indexing* sites which are often attacked by the MAFIIAA should be safe in Spain after this judgement no?
I mean, Torrent sites are not even hosting a copy of the material (as Youtube does)!
Unfortunately this is a typical example of how justice only applies to big corporations while the small guy is always screwed. (well... I think in Spain are a better but still...)
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Exactly my thoughts, that would mean that no one can sue Torrent-Sites in Spain.
Do precedents work like that in Spanish court?
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Not completely. Only rulings by the "Superiour Spanish Court" (Tribunal Superior de Justicia) can be used as a precedent under the spanish law. Nevertheless, there have been *many* lawsuits against indexing sites (emule, torrent, megavideo, etc.) and *none* of them have been ruled out against the websites. Despite that, some of them settled by agreement where the website owner accepted a symbolic fine in exchange for preventing any further legal actions (and their associated lawsuit costs).
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I'd say that's true, as long as the torrent site has a solid track record of responding appropriately to takedown requests. I'm sure that, given their long history of immediate and dutiful responses to valid takedown requests submitted by the copyright holder, The Pirate Bay could safely move to Spain and... ah, screw it, I can't even TYPE that with a straight face.
Re:Soooo what's in it for Torrents?? (Score:5, Insightful)
media companies need to police themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
i don't have anything against copyrights but most of the pirated content is put on the internet by insiders. i know someone that gives me movies a few weeks prior to DVD release that are from the original masters. he used to get movies a few days after theater release that were originals as well. music albums pop up on bit torrent weeks prior to street date. same thing in this case, it's not like kiddie ninja's snuck in and stole the episodes. someone who works for telecino put them up on youtube.
i'm waiting for a case where discovery uncovers emails that the media companies did this as PR and publicity for some new release. it would probably kill most of the lawsuits
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Exactly. The ONLY way something can appear on torrent before the official release is if an insider sneaks a copy out of the door.
We have things to prevent this, they're called 'safes'.
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I'm pretty sure that was what was happening in the Viacom case, except the insiders were doing it intentionally to sue google.
Nobody expects... (Score:2)
...the Spanish Inquisition!
How about finding the source of the leaks? (Score:3, Interesting)
Today's paper had a similar Op-Ed [vancouversun.com] piece about needing better copyright enforcement.
The complaint is the same - people who leak unaired episodes onto the 'net, and thus they need stronger laws to protect that.
What I don't get is why don't they try to find the origin of the leak? If it costs as much as they claim, surely the one leaking it onto the 'net in the first place would be the best place to go, than the thousands of others to play whack-a-mole with.
A simple case of "clean your own house before shitting in everyone else's" or some such. It's just like camcording a movie - no one likes watching camcorded crap, especially since a leaked DVD screener offers far better quality and presentation.
Perhaps these production companies would rather sue everyone the horse visited after it left the barn, than to actually close the barn door. Fix the leaks first that's letting everyone download unreleased episodes prior to airing first, rather than trying to go after everyone who's spreading the leaked episodes. It's easier that way because no law can prevent it from spreading.
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You clearly have not thought this clever plan through.
Step 1) Have employee put unaired episodes of your own show on youtube with an anonymous account
Step 2) Pay newspapers to write articles about this instead of having takedown notices filed.
Step 3) Spin the articles into support for a new law that makes every media company that is not part of your cartel illegal
Step 4) Enjoy your monopoly
Step 5) ????
Step 6) Profit
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It is likely that the leak originates from an employee that works for the company in question. Now, how does the company prevent leaks from happening in the future?
1. Surveillance systems.
2. More surveillance systems.
3. Even more surveillance systems.
But leaks still occur, what to do?
1. More surveillance!
Do you honestly think it is beneficial for anyone for companies to treat their employees as criminals?
You should check (Score:1)
Sue the right people! (Score:2)