YouTube and Copyright
YouTube has always had a complex relationship with copyright laws. While the quality of user-generated content for the video-sharing website has always been inconsistent, it was catapulted to popularity largely by virtue of widespread copyright violation on the part of its users. As YouTube weathers lawsuits over this fact, it has also been developing a solution that, to some extent, will allow it to have its cake and eat it too. Google (which acquired YouTube in 2006) has been rolling out a “fingerprint” technology that allows it to automatically find infringing material. What’s interesting about this technology is what YouTube does when it finds the copyright violators.
Recently a friend of mine was unable to post a video because YouTube had determined, automatically, that it used a copyrighted song for the soundtrack. But this is just one possible course of action. A few days ago I received an email letting me know that a video I had posted back in July contains copyrighted material (Donna Summer’s “If You Got It Flaunt It”). But rather than deleting the video, YouTube informed me that the copyright holder (UMG) had opted to leave the content on the site, but will apparently be collecting royalties from advertising shown on the video’s page (read more about the system here).
This policy strikes me as a sensible solution to the problem YouTube faces, and an encouraging sign that we can enforce copyright while also allowing for creative reuse of existing art. Of course this strategy depends on a distribution system that has an incentive to encourage this kind of reuse and an incentive to protect copyright holder’s rights. In many situations, these incentives won’t exist. But the more prevalent they become, the more comfortable people will be with the “free” exchange of culture.
2 Comments to YouTube and Copyright
Leave a comment
Search
Categories
- Art (4)
- Cities (3)
- Drugs (1)
- Free Jazz Hour (46)
- General (2)
- Intellectual Property (4)
- Photography (1)
- Poetry (6)
- Politics (18)
- Spirituality (3)
- Technology (2)
- TV (1)
- Video & Film (1)
Sites of Interest
Books (via Goodreads)
Photos (via Flickr)
|
[...] was deleted by YouTube and his account closed. I’ve written about what I see as some helpful innovations on YouTube’s part in dealing with copyright, but this “three strikes” rule is [...]
Its a complicated matter,
The Raven King explains the new Copyright t.o.s. here…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAyQf8uykEw