YouTube Is Purging Copyrighted Clips

[NashVegas]

Hitting the financial jackpot, it appears, may have created some headaches for YouTube, the wildly popular video-sharing Web site that has agreed to be bought by Google for $1.65 billion in stock.

The site late last week began purging copyrighted material from Comedy Central, including clips from YouTube stalwarts like “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” “The Colbert Report” and “South Park.”

The action was “a result of third-party notification by Comedy Central,” according to one such e-mail message sent to a YouTube user, Jeff Reifman, who broke the news on the Web site NewsCloud.

...

In an interview with Wired magazine in September 2005, Mr. Stewart explained his view: “We get an opportunity to produce this stuff because they make enough money selling beer that it’s worth their while to do it. I mean, we know that’s the game. I’m not suggesting we’re going to beam it out to the heavens, man, and whoever gets it, great. If they’re not making their money, we ain’t doing our show.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/technology/30youtube.html?ref=business

[KurtNYC]

1. Comedy Central should sue for their part of the $1.6 billion

YouTube will drop like a stone if they only have "AngryBusMan" to offer.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. They CAN'T sue.

Youtube's removal of user-posted material that infringes on Comedy Central's copyrights in a timely manner after receipt of a DMCA takedown notice puts them within the protection of DMCA "safe harbour" regulations. Comedy Central thus has no recourse to claim commission of a tort, nor to sue for damages. Not against Youtube, anyway. They CAN subpoena the names of individual users responsible for infringement, however.

[KurtNYC]

10. I'm not saying for Copyright infringement

It seems clear that YouTube's value in the present deal was elevated as the result of YouTube's distribution of content produced and owned by Comedy Central. Comedy Central should not be denied their portion of the value which YouTube derived from their content.

Once an entity moves, beyond simple copyright infringement, onto selling material they don't own, then the crime is compensable in Civil Court to the rightful owner of that material.

One of the key differences between YouTube and others like bittorrent/Napster/Grokster is that YouTube hosts the copyrighted materials on their servers as opposed to P2P services which link copyright infringers directly to each other. In fact, it seems YouTube's business model was to spend a fortune on bandwidth, nothing on content and hope they get bought before the whole thing collapses.

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. That's utter nonsense.

It's very far from clear that the fact that Youtube users illegally posted material that infringes on Comedy Central's copyrights had ANYTHING to do with the sale price; it's much more likely that the perceived value of a recognised brand, so to say, with a well-established presence among a fairly large segment of the online community, hosting content that propagates in a viral manner through social networks, was probably far more significant.

And they didn't sell anything they didn't own; they hold no responsibility for content posted by users, and if it's infringing, they'll remove it upon receipt of a DMCA takedown notice (which was the case before the Google buyout as well, as far as I know).

[KurtNYC]

13. Tell it to the Judge

YouTube knowingly hosts and distributes copryrighted material on servers that it own, controls and promotes. YouTube is currently being sued for these ongoing offenses. The Judge in the USDC in Central California has failed to agree with your assessment that the suit is utter nonsense.

One legal opinion:

Although lawyers agree that YouTube should be protected by copyright law as long as it responds to content owners' requests to take down their works, it entered uncharted territory when it recently began adding ads next to search results.

The law prohibits a site from benefiting financially from infringement, but the company argues that it's protected since it doesn't sell ads against individual videos.

[NashVegas]

15. That's Just Not How It's Done

When a company wants you to stop playing something, the first step is a Ceast and Desist order. If that's ignored, hardball ensues and if that fails, then it's time to go to court.

Google knew at the time of the sale they'd have to remove copyrighted clips where there was no consent. You can safely bet that was factored in.

Unlike college students trading mp3s, Google & YouTube have very, very well-paid lawyers, AND the means to make a deal, for content, that's profitable for both parties. Expect them to do so at some point in the future.

[KurtNYC]

19. Some entities are working wth YouTube to promote their material

which complicates the matter for clips they DON'T want in the public domain. And what I describe is not the way things have been but YouTube did 2 things that prior entities have not done:
1) host the copyright infringing material, and
2) place content-appropriate ads next to the videos.

The placement of ads, although automated, is an acknowledgement by YouTube that they have the technical means to "know" what content is being posted AND that they are exploiting those videos for profit. YouTube is not going to be able to hide behind the protections which were granted to ISPs since they are a website and NOT an ISP. There is now plenty of precident for the suits against YouTube to proceed successfully:

Last year's Grokster case, NAPSTER, Los Angeles News Service v Reuters, Los Angeles News Service v KCAL, Los Angeles News Service v AVR, the Sony Betamax case, and numerous other US and 9th Circuit cases.

[NashVegas]

20. See Post #18

..

[mogster]

2. Google influence, no doubt

God, I'm tired of these copyright woes. As if youtube exposure ever hurt the sales of CC DVD's :shrug:

[Ian David]

3. They were only a distraction from the important business of...

funny videos of cats falling off stuff.

Hey...

They're not going to delete Lynne and Tessa, are they???

:scared:

[Kolesar]

16. Huge numbers of Keith Olbermann commentaries ...

...for news nerds like me who missed the broadcasts.

[onehandle]

4. Goodbye, YouTube.

95% of the time I access their videos is to see "copyrighted clips."

It's "value" will now plummet.

[HeeBGBz]

5. I agree. That's the only use I got from it

That site won't be worth squat without the tv and news clips.

[rpannier]

11. Looks like Mark Cuban was right

[NashVegas]

18. Cuban's an Ass

Facing stalemate, in 1997 the industries settled on a compromise: something called the Online Copyright Liability Limitation Act, which became Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (§512 of the Copyright Code). It is this law that makes YouTube worth paying more than what you pay for its videos. And its long-term effects have been enormous—you might call §512 the Magna Carta for Web 2.0.

Why? Section 512(c) of the law applies to "Information Residing on Systems or Networks At Direction of Users." In 1998, that meant Geocities and AOL user pages. But in 2006, that means Blogger, Wikipedia, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, and, yes, YouTube—all the companies whose shtick is "user-generated content."

Thanks to the Bells, all these companies are now protected by a "notice and take down" system when they host user content. That means that if Jon Stewart notices an infringing copy of The Daily Show on YouTube, Comedy Central can write a letter to YouTube and demand it be taken down. Then, so long as YouTube acts "expeditiously" and so long as YouTube wasn't already aware that the material was there, YouTube is in the clear. In legal jargon, YouTube is in a "safe harbor." Earlier this week, when YouTube took down 30,000 files after requests from a Japanese authors' group, that was §512(c) in action.

http://www.slate.com/id/2152264/

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

23. Same here.

I mainly use YouTube to watch episodes of anime shows that I can't get anywhere else without buying lots of DVDs online (there are no good rental places where I live). Sure, it's probably slightly illegal, but since most of this stuff I'm not going to watch more than once anyway, I don't see why I should have to pay through the nose for it.

[robcon]

7. As soon as the opwners of YouTube have deep pockets...

... the lawsuits start.

[elehhhhna]

8. Time to startup MeTube? Seems like.

[Kolesar]

17. He, she, or it Tube ... eom

[Red Zelda]

9. YouTube is SOOO over

[bif]

14. YouTube is turning to crap already!

So what's the next YouTube?

[Sin]

21. this is a good start

http://www.throwawayyourtv.com/

[Occulus]

22. We very badly need to redefine copyright in this country

Limited time should really mean limited. The author's entire lifetime (or however obscenely long a time it is) being the definition is, effectively, forever. The public domain needs to have life breathed back into it; there's no reason under the sun why it shouldn't be- say- an explicit maximum of ten years.

If you can't make some cash off your copyrighted works during that time period, the work probably doesn't deserve to be sold in the first place.

[ScreamingWhisper]

24. As a visual artist,

absolutely not!
Copyright law as it was modified (circa 1986, I think) finally allowed the individual creator long-overdue co-rights
on work for hire, and equal rights of protection on individual properties. I LOVE youtube as much as the next person, but if my stuff appeared there (or anywhere) without being paid, or at least requesting permission, then I would fight for my property as well.