Friday, December 22, 2006

Will Copyright Kill the Video Star?

Just finished with finals today, which is why I've been skimping on new posts.  To fill your need for information, here's a video report on Tur v. YouTube by Ron, a lawyer from DC.  It's a pretty good run down of the case and relevant law.  To boot, it offers a novel way for everyone to try and influence the court that will eventually decide the case.  Anyone who will be directly affected by a decision can file what is known as an amicus curiae brief, Latin for "friend of the court."  Though it's doubtful that people who upload videos to YouTube will actually write such a brief for the court to consider, the solution to this would be to create Friend of the Court Videos.  By labeling self-produced, non-infringing videos FOTCV, users could help a judge quickly see how many videos are legitimate.  This legitimacy issue failed in both Napster and Grokster (c'mon, how many people used those to trade non-copyrighted material?).  The other option is to create a new video, in response to Ron's video, also labeled FOTCV, and containing language that "I am not induced, I am self-produced," as a way to counter the accusation that YouTube induces copyright infringement.  The inducement test is from Grokster, and says that a party will "be liable for purposeful, culpable expression and conduct aimed at inducing users to engage in infringement."  Finally, Ron also suggests that users themselves pull their own videos down if they infringe copyright and go out and flag other videos that infringe, so that YouTube can pull them down.  If all infringing videos were to magically come down before evidence is submitted in the Tur case, then how could YouTube be shut down for infringement like Napster and Grokster were?  Great video, better ideas.

Other videos on YouTube and copyright:
The Great YouTube Copyright Debate.  A bit schizo, but a solid summary of the copyright debate.  Great quote: "I'm not an entertainment lawyer, but I play one on YouTube."
Re: Re: The Great YouTube Copyright Debate:  Don't let his face deter you, he knows what he's talking about.  Interesting analogy:  Violating copyright is like smoking pot... it may be harmless if done in the home, but it's still against the law.
YouTube Does Not Violate Copyrights:  On YouTube and its compliance with the DMCA.
Copyright Owners - Don't Be Dinosaurs: A plea for sanity from a technology analyst.

There are tons of videos on the topic, just not worth linking to.  Alas, the nature of the beast.  Hope this tides everyone over until after Christmas, at which point I will return with more.
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