Why is YouTube kosher?
February 4, 2016 3:30 PM Subscribe
I lived through the Napster thing real-time. The outcome was, tech-that-encourages-slash-facilitates-copyright-violation-is-illegal. So why doesn't the YouTube server farm disturb the powers that be?
How is YouTube's specific technological implementation 'legal' and consistent? To my mind, there is no substantive difference between file-sharing and stream-of-bytes-sharing. This could easily turn to 'chat', but I'm curious about the legal bits if anyone has insights.
How is YouTube's specific technological implementation 'legal' and consistent? To my mind, there is no substantive difference between file-sharing and stream-of-bytes-sharing. This could easily turn to 'chat', but I'm curious about the legal bits if anyone has insights.
Not only does YT have a fairly robust system to handle copyright claims, I would imagine the copyright owners are also satisfied with YT having systems in place to scan videos for infringing content, like Content ID.
posted by un petit cadeau at 3:39 PM on February 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by un petit cadeau at 3:39 PM on February 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
(1) At its beginning (and continuing today), YouTube successfully used the DMCA as a shield, only taking down copyrighted content when they were directly notified of infringing content. This was possible even though there was evidence that the YouTube founders knew they needed to leverage copyright infringement. Napster and its like were essentially only used for copyright infringement and openly courted it.
(2) YouTube later got buy-in from many of the content producers, using ContentID to identify the owner of content, no matter who uploads it, and for the owner to profit from ads sold on the content. So that moots many potential infringements.
(3) YouTube doesn't permit you to download music or videos, and even though there are easy hacks to do so, it's not used enough for content owners to make a stink. YouTube also doesn't position itself (yet) as a Spotify or Apple Music-type service.
posted by benbenson at 3:41 PM on February 4, 2016 [9 favorites]
(2) YouTube later got buy-in from many of the content producers, using ContentID to identify the owner of content, no matter who uploads it, and for the owner to profit from ads sold on the content. So that moots many potential infringements.
(3) YouTube doesn't permit you to download music or videos, and even though there are easy hacks to do so, it's not used enough for content owners to make a stink. YouTube also doesn't position itself (yet) as a Spotify or Apple Music-type service.
posted by benbenson at 3:41 PM on February 4, 2016 [9 favorites]
spacewrench said basically what I came here to say. Despite the fact that YT is full of copyvio stuff, they have a procedure for tracking it down (sometimes overfriendly to rights holders) and taking it down which is all you need to do. This is basically what keeps sites like MegaUpload and that sort of thing going. No one denies they are used for violating copyrights a lot of the time, but that's on their users, not them. Lots of tech (VCRs, copy machines, thumb drives) could all be seen as "tech that encourages or facilitates copyvio" but there are a lot of legitimate uses for the technology as well.
posted by jessamyn at 3:41 PM on February 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 3:41 PM on February 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
The main answer is the “Safe Harbor” provision of the DMCA, which protects service providers from liability for user-uploaded content as long as they follow certain processes for responding to infringement claims. In Viacom v. YouTube, the court largely agreed with Google that YouTube was shielded by this clause.
YouTube has also been taken to court many other times in various countries, and in addition to defending themselves in court YouTube’s strategy has also involved settling out-of-court, and voluntarily doing things like providing copyright holders with ways to share revenue from advertising on user-uploaded videos.
posted by mbrubeck at 3:46 PM on February 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
YouTube has also been taken to court many other times in various countries, and in addition to defending themselves in court YouTube’s strategy has also involved settling out-of-court, and voluntarily doing things like providing copyright holders with ways to share revenue from advertising on user-uploaded videos.
posted by mbrubeck at 3:46 PM on February 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
voluntarily doing things like providing copyright holders with ways to share revenue from advertising on user-uploaded videos
I learned about this recently. My kid was in a preschool presentation where he and his class danced to "Rock Around the Clock." The song was hard to hear with audience noise, so I bought the mp3 and used it for most of the audio, then uploaded it to YouTube for family to see. Pretty obvious copyright infringement I guess, but I wasn't even thinking in those terms. I was just trying to improve the audio on a home video.
Almost two years later, I got this email from YouTube:
A copyright owner using Content ID claimed some material in your video.
This is just a heads up
Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble and your account standing is not affected by this.
There are either ads running on your video, with the revenue going to the copyright owner, or the copyright owner is receiving stats about your video’s views.
Video title: [redacted]
Copyrighted song: Come Back Darling
Claimed by: SME
What's next?
If there are no problems, you don’t need to take any action. You don't need to delete your video.
If something went wrong and the copyright owner or our system made a mistake, we have a dispute process. Only use it if you’re confident you have the rights to use all the content in your video.
- The YouTube Team
Hmm. I just now noticed the claim was for "Come Back Darling," which is weird, but you can see how YouTube is dealing with this stuff.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 4:20 PM on February 4, 2016 [7 favorites]
I learned about this recently. My kid was in a preschool presentation where he and his class danced to "Rock Around the Clock." The song was hard to hear with audience noise, so I bought the mp3 and used it for most of the audio, then uploaded it to YouTube for family to see. Pretty obvious copyright infringement I guess, but I wasn't even thinking in those terms. I was just trying to improve the audio on a home video.
Almost two years later, I got this email from YouTube:
A copyright owner using Content ID claimed some material in your video.
This is just a heads up
Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble and your account standing is not affected by this.
There are either ads running on your video, with the revenue going to the copyright owner, or the copyright owner is receiving stats about your video’s views.
Video title: [redacted]
Copyrighted song: Come Back Darling
Claimed by: SME
What's next?
If there are no problems, you don’t need to take any action. You don't need to delete your video.
If something went wrong and the copyright owner or our system made a mistake, we have a dispute process. Only use it if you’re confident you have the rights to use all the content in your video.
- The YouTube Team
Hmm. I just now noticed the claim was for "Come Back Darling," which is weird, but you can see how YouTube is dealing with this stuff.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 4:20 PM on February 4, 2016 [7 favorites]
Yeah, the key is that copyright owners can get ad revenue from fan videos. Which must be a giant nightmare to keep track of, but probably makes those companies happy.
posted by miyabo at 5:59 PM on February 4, 2016
posted by miyabo at 5:59 PM on February 4, 2016
YouTube also doesn't position itself (yet) as a Spotify or Apple Music-type service.
FWIW Google already has its own, separate Spotify-like streaming music service, Google Play Music, for which the licenses are presumably negotiated with the rights holders just like any other streaming music service.
posted by Itaxpica at 6:28 PM on February 4, 2016
FWIW Google already has its own, separate Spotify-like streaming music service, Google Play Music, for which the licenses are presumably negotiated with the rights holders just like any other streaming music service.
posted by Itaxpica at 6:28 PM on February 4, 2016
YouTube competes with music streaming services directly, too.
posted by town of cats at 7:00 PM on February 4, 2016
posted by town of cats at 7:00 PM on February 4, 2016
I learned about this recently. My kid was in a preschool presentation where he and his class danced to "Rock Around the Clock." The song was hard to hear with audience noise, so I bought the mp3 and used it for most of the audio, then uploaded it to YouTube for family to see. Pretty obvious copyright infringement I guess, but I wasn't even thinking in those terms. I was just trying to improve the audio on a home video.
You don't even have to necessarily do the improving. I recorded a cactus and succulent show and there was very faint background music playing over the PA and the copyright holder of one of the songs claimed the ad revenue for themselves.
posted by srboisvert at 7:00 PM on February 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
You don't even have to necessarily do the improving. I recorded a cactus and succulent show and there was very faint background music playing over the PA and the copyright holder of one of the songs claimed the ad revenue for themselves.
posted by srboisvert at 7:00 PM on February 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
Something else that hasn't been mentioned yet is that YouTube has royalty agreements with big-time labels in which YouTube pays lots of money in royalties so that YT's users can post cover songs, audio, video, etc. In other words, YT is covering everyone's butt.
However, not everything is part of this agreement, and there is no master list of what is part of the agreement and what isn't. And YT's takedown isn't fool-proof, either. (I do lots of recording of public domain musical works--the music is public domain, and the creation of the recording is my own--100% legal, but someone else has recorded something similar and YT thinks I just re-posted their stuff based on their algorithms. I am arguing with YT all the time. It's pretty exhausting to have to go through the public domain process time and time again.)
Yes, most things on YT are illegal, and, yes, most everyone who says "this is Fair Use" really has no idea what Fair Use is, and they are still being illegal.
Source: You can Google this topic to your heart's content and read many more articles about it than I can post here.
posted by TinWhistle at 6:26 AM on February 5, 2016
However, not everything is part of this agreement, and there is no master list of what is part of the agreement and what isn't. And YT's takedown isn't fool-proof, either. (I do lots of recording of public domain musical works--the music is public domain, and the creation of the recording is my own--100% legal, but someone else has recorded something similar and YT thinks I just re-posted their stuff based on their algorithms. I am arguing with YT all the time. It's pretty exhausting to have to go through the public domain process time and time again.)
Yes, most things on YT are illegal, and, yes, most everyone who says "this is Fair Use" really has no idea what Fair Use is, and they are still being illegal.
Source: You can Google this topic to your heart's content and read many more articles about it than I can post here.
posted by TinWhistle at 6:26 AM on February 5, 2016
The answers above have covered the basics. Just a bit of extra nuance though.. YouTube's copyright story is way beyond fair use and the DMCA. Those provisions of copyright law do apply, and do help Google, but the amount of unlicensed copyright material on YouTube dwarfs what those legal systems can handle.
What makes YouTube work is Content ID, Google's proactive identification of copyrighted material and sharing of subsequent ad revenue with the copyright owner. That's the process of a long painful negotiation with major music, TV, and movie companies. If you look at news articles in the 2008–2012 period you can see a lot of back and forth on it that resulted in the detente we have today.
posted by Nelson at 8:34 AM on February 6, 2016
What makes YouTube work is Content ID, Google's proactive identification of copyrighted material and sharing of subsequent ad revenue with the copyright owner. That's the process of a long painful negotiation with major music, TV, and movie companies. If you look at news articles in the 2008–2012 period you can see a lot of back and forth on it that resulted in the detente we have today.
posted by Nelson at 8:34 AM on February 6, 2016
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YouTube escapes liability by having a robust anti-infringement program. If somebody claiming to be the owner of a video contacts them (via a well-defined process that must be followed carefully), then YouTube will take the video down and it's no skin off their back.
The copyright owner might go after the person who uploaded the video, or they might not (for various reasons). But YouTube is out of the loop because they did what the statute requires with respect to notice & takedown -- if they do that right, they have no liability for infringement.
(Source: IAAIPL. IANYIPL. TINLA. Don't steal movies -- make new ones!)
posted by spacewrench at 3:37 PM on February 4, 2016 [11 favorites]