http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080526/ap_on_...BDYJFEuZYas0NUE


YouTube suit called threat to online communication
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer
Mon May 26, 7:12 PM ET



NEW YORK - A $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit challenging YouTube's ability to keep copyrighted material off its popular video-sharing site threatens how hundreds of millions of people exchange all kinds of information on the Internet, YouTube owner Google Inc. said.

Google's lawyers made the claim in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan as the company responded to Viacom Inc.'s latest lawsuit alleging that the Internet has led to "an explosion of copyright infringement" by YouTube and others.

The back-and-forth between the companies has intensified since Viacom brought its lawsuit last year, saying it was owed damages for the unauthorized viewing of its programming from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks, including such hits as "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

In papers submitted to a judge late Friday, Google said YouTube "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works."

It said that by seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications, Viacom "threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression."

Google said YouTube was faithful to the requirements of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, saying the federal law was intended to protect companies like YouTube as long as they responded properly to content owners' claims of infringement.

On that score, Viacom says Google has set a terrible example.

In a rewritten lawsuit filed last month, Viacom said YouTube consistently allows unauthorized copies of popular television programming and movies to be posted on its Web site and viewed tens of thousands of times.

Viacom said it had identified more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of copyrighted programming — including "SpongeBob SquarePants," "South Park" and "MTV Unplugged" episodes and the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" — that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times."

The company said its count of unauthorized clips represents only a fraction of the content on YouTube that violates its copyrights.

It said Google and YouTube had done "little or nothing" to stop infringement.

"To the contrary, the availability on the YouTube site of a vast library of the copyrighted works of plaintiffs and others is the cornerstone of defendants' business plan," Viacom said.

Viacom could easily take a different tack on this issue:
Free advertising of their programming with the added bonus of reader commentary!
No?

I suppose Viacom could combat this by starting their own "youtube" for their copyrighted material... If they don't, people will find a place to do it again. They can bitch and moan, they can secure a settlement from google, but it isn't going to change people's desire to find a way to share these things. Napster went down, but that just gave birth to bittorrent, which makes copyright infringement harder to trace, and faster and easier to accomplish.

However, this seems like a push to avoid future writer's and actor's strikes.

as I said, I thnk it';s time to rewrite copywrite laws.
Even if Viacom wins, millions of people will just find another way.
The Tubes must remain unrestricted.

Wasn't DMCA basically that -- a rewrite of copyright laws "for the digital millennium"?

I haven't seen the evidence in the case, but I have seen a lot of videos on youtube that were probably unauthorized releases of copyrighted work. The Daily Show is a biggie. Youtube is basically the only way I can watch that now that I've canceled my $730/year pay-TV service. The videos on the comedycentral website don't work like they used to, I think they're deliberately screwing it up to increase video sales on iTunes. I respect their right to deny me the programming they created in the first place.

Really, youtube should have a team of copyright investigators who respond to this crap. If somebody reports a violation, it should be investigated and removed within an hour. There are plenty of original-content videos on youtube, and it would be a real shame to lose those because of this sh*t.

Whyb not simply watermark everything that is copyrighted?
This way it could be shared, but that watermark would be on top of it.

Share it all you want, as long as the irritating watermark remains in place.

Some products would be less affected by watermarks. What we're talking about is intellectual property, and for it to remain property, the decision about who can use it must fall to the property owner. The owner could certainly choose to adopt your idea, but I don't think it will happen for the Daily Show (for example).

Yes, but if you put a watermark over the top of images and video, then the user is more inclined to buy the NOT watermarked version. No?

Non-watermarked versions would then be subject to copywright litigation.

In some cases. Going back to TDS as an example -- I would happily watch a version that was visually watermarked because most of the content I desire is in audio, what Jon Stewart says.

But don't you agree that the copyright owner should decide if or when releasing a free watermarked version is appropriate? Sort of like demo software. You can't buy a copy of MS Office, modify it so it's a "demo version", then give it away to all your friends. MSFT alone has the right to decide whether to release a demo version. People who record shows from pay-TV and upload them to youtube are doing a very similar thing.

(Just so nobody thinks I'm some kind of friend of MSFT I should mention I'm a proud OpenOffice user. I despise the near-monopoly Bill Gates has created.)

The only way the entertainment industry can compete and win against these issues is if they can offer something better than can be downloaded for free!


Music CD's for instance, with content that will play on your computer or iPod.



Also, the industry outta focus on the main issue, and leave those who make back up copies of their stuff alone!

Agreed. I pay up to $20 for a DVD of a kids movie, do you think I'm going to let my youngsters (3 and 5) take the original up to their room, where the floor is already scattered with VHS tapes they haven't put away? Hell no. I found a little Linux program called csscat that lets me copy the encrypted data.

The Companies will never know, as I don't upload or give them away.

until now...

That falls under fair use. You can make copies for friends, family, neighbors, etc., and if you're giving them free copies, recieving no compensation, it's considered fair use. You're not making money on it. You're not claiming it as your own creation. You're sharing it with friends. The reason Napster got nailed is because so many people had literally thousands of copyright protected songs available to millions of people they never met. The court determined that reached beyond fair use. Napster, as the enabler, took the fall.

Sharing with your circle of friends is okay.
Sharing with the general public is not.

Sky and I were actually complaining about industry as opposed to the law itself.

I don't always adhere to the law, but I have my own set of ethical standards, which are slightly higher than what you describe. If I have a friend who likes the video/music and has money, I won't make him a free copy. Basically I don't want to kill sales for artists I like. One time a friend asked to borrow a CD so he could copy it, instead I paid for a new one online and had it delivered to him. When he asked why, I said "That artist made a great CD; he deserves the money". On the flipside, I might copy a Dixie Chicks CD and send it to a Republican for free, just to annoy him.

But back to industry. How do you go about copying a DVD? I tried connecting my DVD player to a VHS VCR but the result was unwatchable. It seems there is software in modern VCRs (since the 90s or so) that recognizes when it's playing a copy of a "protected" DVD and screws up the playback. And the DVD drives sold for computers can't automatically read a store-bought DVD because it's encrypted using CSS. DVD-ROM drives are built to recognize the encryption and not allow the computer to read it unless they have the key. You can't buy software which will make perfect copies of these DVDs, or easily write it; what I use is "underground", and the man who wrote it, cracking the DVD industry encryption code, escaped jail in part because he was only 17 at the time.

These copy protection schemes are not required by law but have been agreed to by industry to reduce piracy. The problem is they also cut into fair use. Does that make it a conspiracy?

The recording has actually gone after people, mostly collage kids, legally in court and won, for making and having back up copies of their own stuff.

The recording industry claims it's just like software in which you do not own the software you buy. You own the disk, and a LICENSE for ONE copy. (Unless expressly permitted otherwise) Apparently the courts interpret the laws and agree.

I read follow ups to some of the articles you posted about this a few months ago sky, and after more investigation, instead of reading press releases from the industry, it turned out that at least one of those suits traced back to file sharing online, and the damages they asked for simply included other, copied, material - I don't have the link... that was a while ago.

That may be true. However, at the minimum the back up copies were part of the issue and passed through the court.