Comments on: Journalist at center of YouTube case

How a reporter fares in his copyright case against Google-owned video-sharing site could affect media conglomerates.

[Renegade Knight]

Fatally Flawed

Since Youtube is nothing more than a library for user provided content Youtube should be safe from infringment lawsuites.

In other words, only the infringers should be liable. The law is flawed.

[minoal]

Wrong

The ones making tons of money because they act as facilitator to access copyrighted work are liable. They are liable twice: because they facilitate robbery and slow down internet with video streamming for their own benefit!!

[Xenu7-214951314497503184010868]

Time to revise copyright laws

Copyright law needs to change to adapt to the practical realities of Web 2.0, the way that music has had to adapt to digital downloading and use. The biggest losers in the marketplace are the holdouts like, , who can't adapt and change. The amount of money holdouts stand to make while fighting for their outdated property rights, is is nothing compared to the amount of money innovators and early adapters will make. Losers sue, winners adapt and change to the new paradigm.

[dargon19888]

Nope.

The time is to revise and re-educate those who wish to promote the theft of material.

At the same time, the record companies need to be reminded of their rights and the right of those who purchase recordings. (We have the right to make copies of works that we purchased.)

[AbuLafya]

Why didn't he simply claim his content?

This journalist could have claimed copyright directly at the site and the content would have been removed, as per DMCA rules.

However, he instead opted to sue. A more costly endeavor with much less likely outcome.

Similarly, but perhaps more wisely, Viacom chooses to compete with the likes of YouTube by filing lawsuits and chooses not to remove its copyrighted material from YouTube, even though a very simple process for large media companies exist.

YouTube contains a lot of original material of people filming their friends. It does not allow more than 10 min video and hardly any Viacom content falls under 10 min.

Viacom's intent is to weaken the leader in online videos, as it is a threat to their own questionable future.

[rarpsl]

Viacom refuses to use DMCA Takedown Procedure

As stated in the comment "Similarly, but perhaps more wisely, Viacom chooses to compete with the likes of YouTube by filing lawsuits and chooses not to remove its copyrighted material from YouTube, even though a very simple process for large media companies exist.". They want YouTube to do the spotting of material that MIGHT infringe on a ViaCom copyright instead of following the DMCA rules that say it is ViaCom's job to spot the content and to inform YouTube of it (at which point YouTube must take it down). A blanket "There is infringing material - Find it for use and take it down" claim by ViaCom is not playing by the rules and is the cause of the Law Suit when YouTube told them to shove it and to tell them what was to be removed ITEM-by-ITEM if they claimed to have a gripe about their stuff being posted.

[NoVista]

Victimhood

I'm usually for the underdog but I find it really hard to sympathise with the plaintiff here.

He thought he was going to hammer two guys over a pizza parlor and now he's looking at an 800-lb. gorilla ... a King Kong not with a girl in his paw but a fistful of lawyers and $$$ ... it is to laugh.

As a published writer, I have to say that copyright is about [a] money and [b] attribution, being known as the 'author' whether book, magazine article or video. A fifteen-year-old video is ancient history to the Now Generation and I have no doubt he made his bucks when the item was current events.

I'd be willing to bet when he sold the video to a TV station the first time, the contract fine print very likely said they were buying 'all rights'.

Way back when, a writer could sell 'first rights' to an article, for example, and 'secondary rights' multiple times to different markets. Then the suits wised up.

[NoVista]

only a test

as I discovered something about formatting [b]by accident [b] by trying [/b]
use of square brackets in quick comments
hmmm following is [i] italics [/i] maybe

[Lucky Lou]

What should happen

It shouldn't be up to the copyright holder to spend his entire life
trying to chase down evey site in the world that is hosting his
content illegally. What should be enforced are the existing laws
that prevent illegally uploading copyrighted content, and
unauthorized hosting of copyrighted content.

YouTube is wrong. They should be responsible for the content
they are serving to others. If they are making money off other
people's copyrighted works without permission that is just not
right.

There is no way a copyright holder can be responsible for
policing his content throughout the entire internet. It should be
policed but then again what is realistic? Even if YouTube stops,
there will be hundreds of new video sites to follow that you can't
stop. The scum that abuse other people's rights will keep on
doing it no matter what the law is.

[whodisbeyo]

Yup

Google is severly exploiting the loophole. They built that business model of leveraging copyrighted content. Sure they remove it, but what's done is done.

I just feel it's like being the accomplice to theft - sure if they remove a video it's no longer available (unless someone reposts it). But the deed has been done and copyright violation has already taken place.

MySpace is trying to get on the right track with their new Take Down Stay Down software. At least it seems they're trying and making progress.

[whodisbeyo]

That's ridiculously unfair

So you think that it's easy to locate all the videos that are in violation? Viacom ordered for over 100,000 videos to be removed. You think you can just search 'viacom' and all the videos will show up?

Locating copyright infringement videos can be a hard task and it's unfair for Viacom to be forced to police this.

Can you compare this to Napster in a way? Viacom is kind of like the RIAA and them having to police and search for the illegal content. Napster back in the day was providing a way for people to swap illegal content.

Things will not work if you have this 'wash my hands clean' mentality. Google is providing a place for illegal content to be facilitated.

[niravabhavsar]

Do not be evil?

Google has been promoting "do not be evil" as their corporate motto. However, they are the biggest thieves among all. Microsoft has monopoly which they created by stealing technology from may be 5-10 companies but Google is stealing from millions of creators in their blind run for $$$s. Why aren't wise people not making fuss about it? People like to watch cops running after and chasing down small thieves in downtowns around the country but they don't make a sound when here a large company is hiding behind their twisted logic. GooTube must loose for the sake of creativity.