Can't help but chuckle over the revelations of emails...

Google knew. YouTube knew. Viacomm knew. Few have clean hands in this. That said, I believe in copyright and want the old ways to hold true... even though we now have the Berne Convention in the mix, too.

Creators should control their intellectual property for the time span allotted under law. Where we have the enormous problem is how can the holder accomplish their protection in these days and times of too many places to look and no fixed addresses to send service?

I have no answers. A few my suggestions might be deemed anti-social (grins), but something needs to be worked out for the new technology...and I believe we need to look back to earlier resolutions and distributions (ala print and music industries for license, permits, royalties, etc.) to get some guidance. But that only works if those industries are willing to do that. And I don't see that happening anytime soon.

[edited by: tedster at 5:14 pm (utc) on Mar 22, 2010]

You know if there was an upload fee or account creation fee there would be quite a bit more accountability for the uploader too, because if the CC is not traceable it's probably not being used by an authorized user, which means there could be a 'double whammy' if they upload copyrighted material without permission.

Yeah there might be some legal ways around it, but if a site like YouTube charged a nominal fee ($1 or 50 cents even) to create an 'uploading account' or an account with 'uploading privileges' IMO it would be a deterrent to quite a bit of the infringement, because there would at least be some cost associated with creating an account and way more accountability for the account holder.

People couldn't just use and then dump a free account with a free e-mail address any time they felt like it. There would be an actual name, address, possibly bank account, etc. associated with the account.

Of course, then YouTube traffic would drop and Google would lose more money on it, because banning a user could be associated with the name on the card (or name, address, phone number, e-mail address or some combination or other way to prevent those with the same name as others from being banned) and people could be held accountable for the pirated videos they uploaded, so they would probably stop doing it.

Unfortunately, if the reports are true and Google implemented some type of user accountability they wouldn't have 80% of the YouTube traffic they do.

IMO it's actually not a complicated problem to solve, but the cost of user accountability on YouTube is probably too much traffic for Google to be concerned about the copyright of the rightful owner of the material presented being enforced.

Go figure on why they don't do it...

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 6:44 am (utc) on Mar 22, 2010]

Of course, then YouTube traffic would drop and Google would lose more money

Should that not be...
Of course, then YouTube traffic would drop and Google would lose less money :)

Its the bandwidth thats Youtube's biggest downfall financial

Mack.

Ahhhh, IMO you are sooooo correct.
Good point Mack!

Of course, now I've got to really scratch my head...

Why would they put themselves in this spot rather than finding a way to hold the person actually making the upload accountable?

How About: When you upload a video to YouTube you will be given a 'Smaller than AdSense' portion of the revenue generated from the advertising on the page of your upload, and by creating an account with uploading privileges you agree to our TOS, which includes: (In better legalese of course.)

CHECK BOX: You understand and have been made aware since you stand financial gain (even though is only .02 a click) from your video uploads it is a crime for you to upload copyrighted work(s) without permission and assume full responsibility for your uploads...

Make people pay for uploading privileges.
Pay people a portion of the proceeds from the videos they upload.
Hold the uploader accountable for the content they upload...

Simple, easy, cost effective...
Unfortunately, they might lose the traffic bragging rights, so it's probably not likely.

@micklearn Just noticed your post...
Uh, good point, I think so too, only I would structure it a bit different.

I think owning Youtube it a little bit like owning a Bugatti Veyron its going to draw lots of attention and make you seam very cool, yet At the same time its going to be totally uneconomical, costly to maintain and get you into way to much trouble with the law.

If I was Google I would pull the plug on Youtube as we know it, and set it up as a pay per view only service. Even if a tiny fraction of users stayed with it, it would be profitable pretty much from the word go.

Why a company with so many bright people involved got them selves into this situation is quite beyond me.

Mack.

I think the method I outlined would work too, because it clearly discourages the uploading of copyrighted material and puts them back in the position of not knowingly profiting from the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of copyrighted works...

They are making the account holder aware each 'upload account holder' will be accountable for the uploading of copyrighted material without permission and thereby discouraging the practice of uploading copyrighted works without permission, so IMO the account holder is the one intending to gain financially from a 'pirated' upload, not YouTube or Google.

IMO It would also encourage the rightful owner to upload their videos to YouTube because they could actually make money from their uploads on YouTube while they probably wouldn't elsewhere...

YouTube would lose all kinds of traffic on a PPV model, but if people could still watch for free and it cost $5.00 a year (or something nominal) to upload but people uploading had the chance to make money from their upload I think they could have a solution.

Why a company with so many bright people involved got them selves into this situation is quite beyond me.

Even more 'beyond me' is why they stayed in the situation without making a change to the philosophy at YouTube to be more reflective of their motto 'Don't Be Evil' ... You're right, in the number of bright people they have and whatever reason they got involved, it is what it is, but they could definitely have said, 'Okay, this is what you're used to, but this is how we do things, so we're cleaning things up. Here's what's going to change...'

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 7:49 am (utc) on Mar 22, 2010]

To anyone reading this thread - please go read the original materials provided by both sides (and not just the article summaries), especially the undisputed facts provided by Viacom. A real eye-opener. Youtube knew what was going on, Google knew what was going on, confirming the opinion by many here (back then) who also knew what was going on.

To make it very clear: Youtube has NOT been a network provider running some odd router used for transmitting IP packets consisting of copyright infringing video clips, or a web host that offered you some webspace where you could run your own domain and host your own content at your own responsibility. No - Youtube has always been a media service profiting both directly and indirectly from the infringing activity. They transcided the content, put it on their own servers and even sub-licenced it to others. A media company. THAT alone disqualifies them from the DMCA safe harbour.

In addition, they KNEW that infringements were going on and delayed solutions that would have ensured to substantially reduce the number of infringements. Heck, they even reviewed the site and opted to remove adult content and violent content, but turned a blind eye when it came to potential copyright infringements. Again, this disqualifies them from the DMCA safe harbour. Finally, they apparently participated in the infringing activity by uploading infringing videos themselves.

Go read the documents!

As to why they are not implementing a smarter way of handling this. We should note that Google Video HAD this manual review process, and the product teams complained bitterly about the wrong-doings of Youtube. So they know that punters go elsewhere when they are not serving them on-the-spot. That's one aspect. The other aspect is that Google WANTS to be THE place where you can find EVERYTHING. Everything as in "everything", and not "everything where we have a licence for" or "everything where we get permission". Remember their corporate mission? "To organize the world's information". And this certainly includes TV shows, movies, and so on.

Believe me, this court ruling will affect their business (and basically, the web as such) in more ways than we can think of.

If the court rules in favor of Youtube/Google, expect 1000s of video, music, book, photo sharing services launched, all of them basically focusing on copyright protected media. Users will share freely any movie, TV show, song, or photo as they see fit, and the site owners will not be held responsible for any of this.

If, however, the court decides in favor of Viacom, many services will need to clean up their content in panic and improve their processes to ensure they are in line with the ruling.

That's why I can not see how the court can possibly rule in favor of Youtube/Google.

its going to be totally uneconomical, costly to maintain

Turning a profit doesn't matter to Google because Google subsidizes their industry industry-killing ventures with AdWords profits. In this case they are supressing competition in Video, competing unfairly, by using the profits from AdWords to subsidize the losses in YouTube. It's like what the Japanese did when they dumped autos in the United States at prices that were subsidized by sales in Japan. The term is called Dumping.

In addition to killing competition by leveraging their unfair advantage of AdWords profits to subsidize YouTube, YouTube is important to Google as a source of query data. Because of the amount of content uploaded to YouTube, YouTube is a video search service. If you want to find a video, you will find it on YouTube. YouTube has never been about creating and watching viral videos and those who thought were wrong, as these articles make clear. YouTube's founders were uploading stolen content in order to pump up visitors to the site.

I don't think Google is evil, I think the founders have good intentions. I think they allowed others to bypass their gut feelings on this to rationalize multiple bad situations. It always ends badly when organizations depart from objective reasoning to base decisions on expedient rationalizations.

The other aspect is that Google WANTS to be THE place where you can find EVERYTHING. Everything as in "everything", and not "everything where we have a licence for" or "everything where we get permission". Remember their corporate mission? "To organize the world's information". And this certainly includes TV shows, movies, and so on.

You left out: FOR FREE

IMO It's not that they want to organize it or want access to whatever that gets in their way it's that they want to have it all given to them for free and don't have any regard whatsoever for the owner's right to decline their organizational offer or wanting a fair price for their work prior to releasing it.

One of the things they seem to overlook with YouTube (and even search) is if they would clean things up they wouldn't have to organize everything in quadruplicate¹⁰. And, IMO more people and businesses would probably be willing to share videos on YouTube if their information was being taken care of and their rights as the owner were being protected rather than feeling (and being) exploited...

Every once in a while I visit YouTube and watch a music video and usually there's an official account with the video present, then there's a bunch of others with the same stinking video.

If they could get over needing to be able to organize all 20 duplicate versions of it stuff would be easier to find, organize, attribute, etc... It's like they're so afraid they are going to miss one iota of information somewhere they encourage duplication and reproduction by not discouraging it nearly enough.

Do they really need the same video on YouTube 20 times to continue losing they money they do or something? If they need it there 20 times to ensure people can find it, then they sure aren't very good at organizing and IMO should find a new mission...

Why do they need more than the original version and why shouldn't the copyright holder expect to share in the revenue their video generates for the site, or at least have the option to decide for themselves if they want to release it for free if they are not included in making a portion of the revenue?

Ultimately I see the "license/cost" imposed on the hardware manufacturers with back side revenue streams from the broadcasters (google, bing, etc) as an upfront collected fee from THE CONSUMER. The web would still appear to be "free" just as broadcast TV and Radio appears to be FREE (but every man jack out there is paying for it when they buy their bit of hardware to get that "free" content.

This makes sense. Charging to upload does not. Subscription to premium content makes sense. If google wants to do no evil, they will find a way to collect micropayments, or subscriptions, to premium content. THAT would be an advance and improvement of the web.

But that's not going to happen anytime soon, not as long as the freetards google (indexing content and cacheing it) and consumer sucking it for free have no incentive to change their ways.

When is this ruling due, It looks like Youtube is as guilty as "a puppy sitting next to a steaming pile of pooh" to me

to quote Blackadder.

This makes sense. Charging to upload does not.

Well, well.

Some Youtube accounts have 400+ clips, most of them (potentially) infringing someone's copyright.

If Youtube charged $1 per upload, all these accounts would disappear. Why would anyone spend $400 to distribute clips where he not only has no rights, but also no genuine interest in? $400 for a bit of fun is quite expensive.

Re-uploading would also disappear by charging for uploads. Upload clip. $1 gone. But it's copyright protected and gets deleted. user gets annoyed and re-uploads for another $1. Again, it gets deleted. How often do you think the clip will be re-uploaded? My guess: not very often.

Of course, the illegal traffic would go elsewhere, and Youtube would quickly lose its # 1 position in the market. Which is what they are afraid of. Which is why they don't want any kind of hurdles for uploaders (no ID verification, no charges).

why is google fighting to keep a failing business model running?

I had similar views. But then Google went ahead and did an online deal with Indian Premier League (which is a cricket league). Its the Super Bowl of Cricket. Youtube hit a record viewership (7.1 million) within first few days. It also got 6 sponsors. The deal is for two years and Google is now looking to broadcast more live sporting events.

And few days back I read Google is working with Sony to bring Google TV into your living room [webmasterworld.com...] .

I see a lot of business sense in what they are doing at Google. In fact, the other day, we even got an email from youtube for a video which we had uploaded (it said we had violated copyrighted music - we took it up with people from where we got music and the matter was resolved). I think they are cleaning up a lot of mess in youtube.

But will Youtube's past come back to haunt them? The email content looks bad for google.

I doubt either party come out of this unscathed, and some will be hit more than others.

This is going to be a test case, and as webmasters, we should all be watching this outcome very closely.

I am aware of a huge number of videos on YT that are removed pretty swiftly. I really don't know of it's a rapid DMCA or whether that type of video raises certain flags and is automatically removed. In addition, I've seen less adult content appear in the search for completely innocent topics, so something is going on there.

It's worth looking at this story, too.
Google execs convicted in Italy [webmasterworld.com]
In this instance, it's not about the clip being copyrighted material, it's about the responsibility placed upon Google and its executives.

why is google fighting to keep a failing business model running?

Google sees the future of web-based media. When the day comes where people will be ok with paying for subscriptions, Google wants to have YouTube right there at #1. They're ok with losing money now because the big payoff will be sometime down the road.

Well, at least it WAS anyway...

I am aware of a huge number of videos on YT that are removed pretty swiftly. I really don't know of it's a rapid DMCA or whether that type of video raises certain flags and is automatically removed.

Funny, I have been looking for movie content on Youtube that belongs to one of the Viacom companies. Popular stuff. I entered the movie name, and up came 5000+ search results. One of the top positions was a clip with the official movie song in superb audio quality.

About two million hits so far; close to 5000 ratings.

Surely, this could have been authorized by Viacom, but I doubt it; at least the user name and the other clips in that account do not suggest this. Yeah, it would be interesting to see them performing a search for copyright protected material right in front of the judge, in real-time. Like, "Judge Stanton, please tell us what you wanna see (from this list), and we'll check whether it's on Youtube. Yes, right now."

why is google fighting to keep a failing business model running?

Well it promotes the brand. It collects data which is more important, SRATISTICS. It keeps the user who uploads the content glued(for free) to the brand(where its uploaded to), legal or not. NOT. The brand drives traffic from uploaded video to the, if mentioned in the video or comments, uploalder's URL/brand. Gives the gorg the ability to gather data at the same time on who viewed it.

Interest Based. "Are you interested?" = More targeted ads on other sites? = better performance for the money machine. We know what that one is, right?

> why is google fighting to keep a failing business model running?

because it takes it away from a competitor. Imagine how big Hulu and AppleTV would be without a Google backed YouTube. Look how fast Napster died without a "big brother" to protect it.

there seems to be some misconceptions of how ad revenue sharing works on YT.

why shouldn't the copyright holder expect to share in the revenue their video generates for the site?

they do. If a video gets popular and those embedded ads at the bottom of the video player get inserted, there's basically an adsense-type relationship, whereby the uploader gets a cut.

let me tell you a story about someone I know who put a video up that went viral. It wasn't exactly a cat falling into a bathtub, but it was a funny home movie and it was featured in several international TV shows, magazines, many other websites and newspapers. He got about 3 million views in a few weeks.

The first battle he had was with YT themselves. Within two days, there were thirty copies of his clip on YT. He had to go what he called "an enormous hassle" to get each and every one removed and of course it turned into a game of whack-a-mole. Every one that he hit, another one turned up.

On one infamous occasion, YT accidentally took HIS clip down instead of the guy who had copied him. So his original clip was off the site (and missing out on ad clicks) for two days at its peak popularity. To say he was not impressed is understatement of the year.

He was spending perhaps an hour a day just filling out YT's copyright infringement forms. And, as someone else recently mentioned in this thread, he had to do a new form submission for each URL. Sometimes, copies wouldn't be removed for 24-36 hours and then the same user would just put up another copy, knowing that this was a zero punishment, zero incentive game.

He also had to contact many other websites and media organisations to get payments for his clip having been used. 98% of them paid, most of them apologising too for using the video without permission. His biggest issue was with YT itself and in the end, he gave up getting rid of the copies because, well basically because he had a life and it simply wasn't worth his time.

The video became less popular and now gets just a thousand or so views a day. After all of that, he came out with about two hundred bucks. Google probably made around double that.

so, yes, there is revenue sharing, but if your video goes viral, prepare to put your life on hold for a week or so if you don't want all those views getting diluted between a hundred other copies of it.

Onus is on the copyright holder to protect their material, Viacom uploaded it themselves and deserves no protection.

I love Google and Youtube, I think the "anti-Google" spin being put on this is distasteful.

Onus is on the copyright holder to protect their material, Viacom uploaded it themselves and deserves no protection.

I love Google and Youtube, I think the "anti-Google" spin being put on this is distasteful.

Nope. If there is no written license then there is no license regardless of how it got there. The copyright statutes are pretty clear on this. YT and G are pirates profiting from infringement and deserve exactly what they are getting. All they would have to had done is have a little tiny checkbox there asking if it were okie-dokey, but their bleary-eyed greed got ahead of them.

Onus is on the copyright holder to protect their material, Viacom uploaded it themselves and deserves no protection.

I love Google and Youtube, I think the "anti-Google" spin being put on this is distasteful.

Nope. If there is no written license then there is no license regardless of how it got there.

So if it isn't up to the copyright holder to protect their material, then who's responsibility is it?

Another member put it best so I will quote him here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

first of all, it's NOT, and can't EVER be "obviously copyrighted" to anyone, except Viacom. And secondly, even if that copyright were "obvious", only Viacom knows what of its copyrighted content it is using YouTube to promote (today) -- and nobody disputes that ..(they).. has been selectively uploading content to YouTube for promotional purposes. And thirdly, only Viacom gains any advantage to taking the material down.

So, again, whose is the obvious responsibility to do what only Viacom CAN do, and what only Viacom has a RIGHT to do, and what only Viacom has any vested INTEREST in doing?

Onus is on the copyright holder to protect their material, Viacom uploaded it themselves and deserves no protection.

The material they uploaded is not part of the case...
It's the other 60,000+ uploads that are.

And, as someone else recently mentioned in this thread, he had to do a new form submission for each URL.

That was me too...
I didn't know they got a piece of the advertising $ though, interesting.

The material they uploaded is not part of the case...
It's the other 60,000+ uploads that are.

Did they submit a document to Youtube telling them which videos violated their copyright and which ones didn't? Yes they did, DMCA documents.

How else is Youtube to tell which videos were allowed and which 60,000 weren't?

Only Viacom can make that determination.

I think that my opinion differences from so many other because I believe that my right to have a site like Youtube is greater than the right for a company like Viacom to squeeze every possible penny from consumers who wish to digest this content.

If Viacom loses a couple percentage points off their total profits so that a women in Iran has a place she can show social injustices for the world to see uncensored minutes after it happening, then that is worth it to me for a site like YT to exist.

No one I see is complaining about legitimately uploaded content. Content uploaded with permission of the author which the type of videos you would like to have access to can be reasonable determined to be... What people are complaining about and thinking is wrong is the lack of accountability for sites like YouTube to allow infringing (obviously infringing to use the words of one of YouTube's co-founders, not mine) material to be presented and gaining financially from the infringement.

* IMO There's a very careful distinction in the wording, which states they have to gain financially from the infringement.

How else is Youtube to tell which videos were allowed and which 60,000 weren't?

Asked and answered previously in this thread.

so that a women in Iran has a place she can show social injustices for the world to see uncensored minutes after it happening, then that is worth it to me for a site like YT to exist.

Again already addressed earlier in this thread and made evident by the fact CNN allows iReports to be uploaded and available almost immediately (if not immediately) yet they are not part of this lawsuit or infringement in general. If they can do it, so can YouTube.

Only Viacom can make that determination.

They did, repeatedly.
See earlier posts in this thread and read the articles, e-mails.

No one I see is saying uploading of legitimate content should be stopped and there are more sites than YouTube which allow a 'voice to the world', but somehow they do it without allowing the posting of infringing content, and the heart of the matter goes far beyond Viacom, but to the ability of any of us to be able to reasonably expect sites to respect copyrighted material.

From the iReport Website:

iReport is the way people like you report the news. The stories in this section are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they post. Only ones marked 'CNN iReport' have been vetted by CNN.

[ireport.com...]

YouTube is not the only site allowing immediate uploading of user videos on the Internet, which is how you make it sound, yet they are the only site named in this lawsuit for some reason, quite possibly because they have built their traffic on and profited from pirated content... Again, a summary of the words of those involved, not my assumption or guess.

Again from the first article linked in this thread I think all should read carefully: (Emphasis Mine)

That's important because the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects service providers that engage in "storage at the direction of the user." It has been a huge boon to user-generated content sites, and it is YouTube's key defense. But the DMCA puts limits on the generous safe harbors it provides: operators cannot have actual knowledge of infringement, they must take down infringing materials when asked, and they cannot profit from the infringement.

Even if they did the second (removed the content when asked), they IMO have no (or very little) argument based on the article summary of the court documents for the 1st and 3rd points granting DMCA protection for the site owners.

The argument is not about legitimate content or content someone legitimately did not know was there. They knew it was there. They profited from it. They do not IMO have DMCA protection like most sites allowing free sharing of videos in real time would.

Please, read what the actual argument is about and where the distinction is in DMCA Protection and why it may not apply to YouTube before defending their position, because they are clearly (IMO) outside of DMCA protection while many sites are not, which means you may need to go somewhere else to find 'real time' reporting, but a decision against YouTube would be because they did not comply with the standards for DMCA protection while other sites do.

It does not put an end to free uploads. It puts an end to YouTube and Google knowing there is infringing content on their site and profiting from that content. It does not challenge you and whatever site you have if there is some infringing material uploaded without your knowledge and doesn't put legitimate sites allowing immediate uploading of content at risk... It stops YouTube and Google from attempting to profit by allowing pirated content on YouTube.

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 10:00 pm (utc) on Mar 22, 2010]

I disagree that Youtube allows it, they don't.

I disagree it is up to Youtube to stop it. It isn't.

People break rules and to insist that a place be built where they can't isn't realistic.

So you don't believe the founders of knew about infringement and allowed it, and even participated in it? Are you kidding?

The facts seem to totally disagree with you and if you choose to not read what the founders and Google reps said about the site (YouTube), then that's your prerogative, but IMO your position is extremely narrow and totally contradicted by the e-mails and facts of the situation.

The argument is not about what the users did...

It's about the what appears to be fact not only did the founders of YouTube know and participate in the infringement, they profited from it, and what appears to be fact not only did Google know about the infringement, they profited from it.

Your argument for them is based on what users did and them not knowing, which according to DMCA Law AFAIK is excusable.
In this case the facts seem to completely contradict the entire premise of your argument.

I find it stunning that a fellow webmaster doesn't consider it YT's responsibility to at least make stringent efforts to prevent pirated material appearing on their site. Not only do they not do that, they actually know it's there and are happy to leave it there because they gain huge wads of traffic from it.

That a faceless Google exec might try and excuse it, with an attorney over his shoulder prompting him, is one thing. For a webmaster, one whose likely been on the end of site scrapers and/or content thieves himself, is mind boggling.

I said it two pages back: if G wins this one, we might as well all pack up and go home. The lunatics will really be running the asylum.

I also find it a little amazing that many haven't fully realized these e-mails have revealed more than a civil case but an ongoing criminal conspiracy to violate US copyright law. I would also think the judge in the Google Books case has to take this into consideration. Me thinks Brin and Schmidt (the, if you don’t have anything to hide fellow) are talking to more than civil and corporate lawyers now. If I was in their shoes the first words out of mouth would be “You mean we own You What, nobody told me”. Googate is upon us.

To bottom line it how much is Google going to milk the Adwords advertisers for and deny the Adsense publishers to keep profits up. It’s probably been in the works for a while and could get worse to keep that bloated stock price up.