March 13, 2006 4:00 AM PST
Does video have a Napster problem?
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Despite all that legal activity, it's not all bad news for TV and movie producers. They have far better alternatives than the music industry did when it was doing battle with Napster. Apple Computer's iTunes Store, for one, didn't exist six years ago. Now "SNL" fans can buy many of their favorite segments for $1.99.
In addition, sites like YouTube and Google Video, which also posted the American Airlines video and was asked to take it down, have a legitimate purpose: allowing users to share their own videos. And they aren't pure replacements for TV programming the way peer-to-peer networks were a substitute for buying music.
"It's less Napsterization than it is a new clip culture," said Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "You have to remember what Napster was about; people were getting for free what they should have been buying."
So far, NBC has asked less than 10 sites, including YouTube, to remove more than 3,000 video clips the network says are copyright-protected and being distributed illegally. "We don't want to let anything slip through the cracks," said Julie Summersgill, a spokeswoman for NBC Universal. YouTube, she said, promptly responded.
But NBC is also trying to embrace the Net. The network created its own Web site where videos can be streamed for free, Summersgill said. By comparison, as much as the music industry complained about the peer-to-peer sites, it was several years before there was a significant legal alternative.
"We recognize that there is this demand from the audience to get this content and share it in new ways with people," Summersgill said. "But we must also balance that with protecting our copyrighted material."
Playing by the rules
The better-known video-sharing sites seem to have learned the hard lessons of their music predecessors. Julie Supan, senior director of marketing at YouTube, chafes at any comparison between her company and early versions of Napster.
"They were renegades, amateurs, kids straight out of college," Supan said. "They were in conflict with the music industry. We believe what we're doing is complementary."
YouTube executives argue that their site can act as a promotional tool for movie studios, TV shows and record companies. It appears some advertisers have been quietly seeding the site with ads, promotional content for TV shows and music videos. A video that re-creates the introduction to "The Simpsons" with live actors was posted on YouTube as part of a marketing campaign by U.K. broadcaster BSkyB. YouTube says the video has been viewed by 1.3 million people since March 3.
To ease doubts about the company's intentions, YouTube streams content to prevent someone from downloading a clip, producing a hundred copies and selling them, Supan said. The company maintains control of all video-clip links, which allows executives to remove any unlawful posts. The company has also given copyright holders tools to help them spot violations, Supan said.
YouTube has a fairly thorough "terms of use" agreement to protect itself. It says, in short, please don't post anything on this site that's copyright-protected. And if you do, you're on your own. "In our privacy policy statement we state that we will cooperate with U.S. state and federal law," Supan said.
In its landmark June 2005 decision (click here for PDF) in the Grokster lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a company can be held legally responsible if it engages in "intentional facilitation" of copyright infringement.
Grokster and StreamCast, creator of the Morpheus file-swapping network, did just that because they profited by advertising and failed to take any steps "to diminish the infringing activity using their software," the justices decided.
In other words, as long as YouTube and similar video-sharing sites respond promptly to complaints of copyright violations--and don't encourage illicit activities--they may have relatively few legal worries.
Of course, language in user agreements that instructs people not to submit material that is copyright-protected only protects the hosting company if it takes down the material as soon as it is asked, said Richard Lehv, a copyright and trademark lawyer.
"The language doesn't protect them," Lehv said, "unless they put some teeth into it."
CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh contributed to this report.
See more CNET content tagged:
Napster Inc., copyright infringement, file-swapping, Metallica, eDonkey
38 comments
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The studios make enough money when the film comes out in the theater. Just look at the obscene ticket prices! I rest my case!
Why don't you just shoplift the DVD from the video store and save
all that download time?
infringement, but it's not theft anymore than
it's embezzlement or assault.
Unethical? Probably, that depends on the
situation. A lot of content people trade is
stuff that's not commercially available, or
copyrighted material for which there's no
associated copyright holder (happens all the
time in the US, actually). Further, it depends
on what you use the work for -- were it for the
purpose of critical review, education, or to
further the public discourse, then it wouldn't
be infringing, but would it be unethical?
Receipt of a copyrighted work (such as
downloading it) is not actually an infringing
activity (in the US, so long as you don't also
distribute it or modify it), but does the fact
that it's legal make ethical? No.
The problem is that there's copyright law,
there's what media companies want it to be, and
there's what many consumers want it to be /
think it is -- and these are not the same.
Further, there is little intelligent debate on
the subject. The purpose of copyright was to
assure that authors could get their works
published, and that all works ultimately become
the property of society (originally, the idea
was that things would entire the public domain
within no more than 1/2 a generation so that
memory of the work would not fade from the
public consciousness). Copyright law as it
exists today serves media distributors very
well, but much less so the public or the
original authors/creators.
My guess is that the media companies will
continue to hemhorrage cash and push for
copyright enforcement regimes to the point that
it will become entirely unpalatable to the
general public (ask someone buying high-end A/V
equipment about their frustrations). At that
point, there will be some form of popular
backlash that will force a massive shift in
copyright law (or elimination of copyright
entirely).
The need for traditional copyright is more or
less gone today. It was never intended as a
revenue protection mechanism.
So for a DVD that I can no longer buy, how is downloading it copyright infringement? If there is no available outlet to purchase, then there is no way to infringe.
There are countless movies and music that are out of print... so the only way to get a copy is by downloading it. You may call it still consider it theft, but given the situation, it' the only option and I have no issue with that.
clips are available gratis on its website, but no one acknowledges
that you have to be a Windows user to view them there.
won't work with most browsers -- just 2 versions
of IE.
I always wondered why broadcast signals aren't
considered public domain. They are effectively
public domain for the duration of the
propagation of the signal, but that ends when
the signal has passed. Slow down the signal to
delay propagation? That's OK, time-shifting is
legal.
So where's the logic of attempting to thwart
distribution one you've ostensibly provided a
copy to everyone on the planet for free?
Obviously, not everyone will observe or record
the transmission when first made, but the fact
remains that EVERYONE "received" the
transmission once, and the transmission is still
propagating (perhaps not locally). So, what wee
are really trying to stop here is extemporaneous
perception of the broadcast already received
unless done by means of a device in your control
prior to transmission that was actively engaged
in recording the transmission as it passed the
point where the device was situated? I guess
that makes sense.
mark d.
so law is law, and that's why this whole thing can be napster # 2!
--
Stan Oleynick, founder: <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.enthem.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.enthem.com</a>
incomplete. It doesn't mention that the
copyright will expire, or that there are legal
exemptions, or that copyright may only cover a
portion of the work but not its entirety, etc.
Most people don't know what copyright is, how it
works, or why it exists. What they do know
typically comes from soundbites and propaganda
that intentionally attempt to confuse the
general public on the issue.
The law isn't very fuzzy. It's pretty clear --
anything you do with a work is legal save for
redistribution by copying and making a
substantively derivative work (well, that part
can be tricky), until a court tells you
otherwise. Ironically, making copies in and of
itself is not generally considered infringement.
A number of children's videos put out by Fox (I
think, who did "Robots"?) contain a terrifying
video set to hardcore music that flashes slogans
equating copyright infringement with theft and
associating it with drug use.
Millions of complete copyrighted newsgroup articles displayed without the permission of the authors
and used to sell advertising.