Copyright infringements and Youtube

[Antti]

I have noted that people often find acceptable to watch Youtube videos that are uploaded without any permission from copyright holders. I am quite sure that it is not considered being "an actual piracy". You cannot be arrested because of watching Youtube videos so it is rather safe. People can usually even safely use their computer at work to watch those videos because there are no legal consequences because of piracy. The employer probably would not like those lost working hours but it is not the point here.

What makes this more interesting is that those same people might actually consider using peer-to-peer networks and sites like The Pirate Bay to be a serious crime. In my country, the Pirate Bay is actually being blocked by some ISP (not voluntarily) and it seems that other ISPs must follow. This has raised a fear that Internet censorship will expand. It goes without saying that currently these restrictions can be easily bypassed.

I find this rather contradictory that with Youtube people seem to find it OK. I am not saying that it is not OK but I am just wondering the huge difference between "the old-school piracy" and Youtube piracy. In addition to this, one of the biggest difference is that Youtube is extremely widely used. When looking peer-to-peer networks that contain no commercial aspect, it is actually less bad than commercial Youtube. Do you believe that Youtube would had been so succesful without any proprietary (read: worth to watch) material?

Personally, I do not what would be the best solution. Are people too accustomed to watch and listen free content? I am not very excited about the idea of putting advertisements everywhere. However, that is the price of freedom in a long run. Spotify-like services may be a way to go with a reasonable monthly fee.

I am listening Metallica ...And Justice For All full album from Youtube when writing this.

[bluemoon]

There is difference between "piracy by law" and "piracy by moral". Youtube should have spent effort to make sure they do not break the law themselves.
And if someone upload copyrighted material, the crime is usually on the uploader.

It's like gun factory, when someone is shot the crime is on the user, but not the provider.

[Love4Boobies]

YouTube goes through a lot of trouble analysing the uploaded videos and if copyrighted material is detected, the copyright owner is contacted and asked whether it is ok or not---unless it already knows the answer. Their detection is still far from perfect but they actually do take some measures (i.e., to make the video unviewable from other accounts).

[Antti]

That goes without saying that the uploader starts the copyright infringement. However, Youtube needs (a strong expression) those users that do copyright infringements. It makes it what it is: a very good place for finding almost anything.

Analysing the data and other acts of preventing copyrighted materials being uploaded are done because it makes it look like it is against the piracy. It makes it legal by law and moral. The latter seems to be working quite well in general.

Maybe my posts goes more to category "piracy by moral". I will give an answer to the viewpoint that will be posted soon: Yes, Youtube is developing and there are more and more "legal copyrighted material" and appropriate royalties are paid. However, a vast amount of the contents do not fall to this category and that is the thing I am talking about.

[Owen]

Google are very smart in what they do with YouTube. They analyze everything uploaded: Be sure, that with a very good degree of confidence, they can identify these uploaded videos.

The copyright holders of the content get to choose what they wish to happen when their content is uploaded to YouTube. They can:

• Allow it, whereby it works like any other YouTube video
• Monetize it, whereby they collect the ad revenue on this video
• Block it, whereby the video will not be approved/will be removed.

I suspect most of the videos uploaded to YouTube fall under the second category.

[Antti]

The situation seems not being so bad than I first thought. However, I am afraid that these monetizing things concern only the biggest media companies. Do you know anyone how has gotten any revenue from Youtube? How do the Youtube contact the copyright owners except the biggest media companies that have some agreement with Youtube?

I read a Finnish article about the performance rights organization that collects royalties on behalf of songwriters and composers in Finland. They do not have any agreement with Youtube about paying royalties because the agreement is not easy to get when small organizations are concerned. However, I am not very convinced about their statements because in general they seem still living in the last century but perhaps they are right on this.

The users can basically upload anything they want without being anyhow responsible of it. The account can be closed but that is all. If the music or video do not pass the automatic checking filter, it is possible to change the content a little bit (increase pitch or something like that). When there are many users doing this, it is practically impossible to prevent the content from being Youtubed.

What I mean is that Youtube is very easy place for piracy. The thing that I was wondering is why this is more socially acceptable than peer-to-peer networks et cetera? They are basically the same thing. In this day, the sound and video quality on Youtube is so good that it makes the difference even smaller.

I very much like the current Youtube because I can find everything that I want. If thinking honestly, I think that this is too good to be true in the long run.

[bluemoon]

The users can basically upload anything they want without being anyhow responsible of it.

This is not true. Recently an artist upload cut of his/her own performance(note, only a short cut) and being sue by the copyright holder, and paid about a million.

The fact that most other "nobody" are fine uploading anything and not being sue does not imply they are legal, and that's how civil suit works.

[Antti]

Recently an artist upload cut of his/her own performance(note, only a short cut) and being sue by the copyright holder, and paid about a million.

This does not sound very fair. However, life is not.

The fact that most other "nobody" are fine uploading anything and not being sue does not imply they are legal, and that's how civil suit works.

Exactly. It is impossible to sue all the "nobodys". These users are important for Youtube because they "make" a vast amount of the quality contents.

[Congdm]

In Japan, the diet just approved a more strict anti-piracy law: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/06/j ... right-law/ that makes even watching copyrighted material in Youtube is a crime.

In reality, it will be hard to enforce this law, but it is a sign that the big corporations will not be easy at piracy as before.

[TylerH]

You should start a petition or something to get that overturned. They government wanted to make ISPs block copyright violators here in the US but there was a huge controversy about it and they ended up not passing the law. I think the EU tried something similar with the same result.

There's actually a really good argument for not allowing DNS blocking of any kind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg

[OSwhatever]

In Germany, GEMA which is the German musicians copyright organization have taken the censorship of youtube to the extreme. They not only block all artists videos but also if you for example create a clip of your kitten and add some music to it GEMA will force youtube to to block it. Also official artists channels on youtube are also often blocket by GEMA which is available elsewhere.

I personally think that this kind of blocking is preventing artists rather than helping. Youtube is an excellent tool for artist to market their creations, especially emerging artists. GEMA is just too powerful and only represent the old ways of the music business.