Entries tagged with “youtube” from Tools of Change for Publishing
Film Criticism and YouTube Don't Play Nice
Mac Slocum
January 16, 2009
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In an essay catalyzed by YouTube's removal of a film criticism archive, which included ripped clips from copyrighted movies, Matt Zoller Seitz addresses the disconnect between takedown policies and the gray areas of digital culture:
There should be a way to distinguish between piracy-for-profit (or unauthorized, free redistribution) and creative, interpretive, critical or political work that happens to use copyrighted material. And there must be an alternative to unilateral takedowns. The issues aren't just legal, they're practical. History has demonstrated that there's no copyright protection that can't be defeated, no corporate edict that can't be subverted. And given the technological sophistication that permits digital watermarking, there ought to be a way to make sampling of any sort, authorized or not, scaled to suit the filmmakers' means, profitable for the rights holders, and as fully automated as the copyright-infringement-scouring that's currently happening all over the Internet.
Watch the YouTube Video, Buy the Product
Mac Slocum
October 8, 2008
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YouTube's Content ID service, something we've covered in the past, gives publishers two options for handling unauthorized videos: the material can be removed from YouTube or it can be turned into advertising/revenue opportunities.
An article in today's New York Times shows which option Google prefers -- Content ID can now be used to associate "click-to-buy" links with video clips:
Music labels could choose to place the e-commerce links next to their own videos or on videos uploaded by users, whose images or soundtrack they identified using YouTube's Content ID system, which allows content owners to find unauthorized material on the site.
Click-to-buy links are shown below the video player on YouTube pages. It's unclear if this functionality will be integrated into videos embedded on external sites since this would require some sort of revenue share between the content owner, YouTube, the retailer and Web sites that publish embedded clips.
Links are currently limited to iTunes and Amazon products and are only viewable by U.S. visitors. YouTube says expansion plans are in the works.
Piracy and Advertising: An Unlikely Union that Just Might Work
Mac Slocum
August 25, 2008
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In a surprisingly progressive move, a number of major publishers are using YouTube's Video ID tool to monetize pirated content. The tool flags questionable material and presents copyright owners with a choice:
Copyright holders can choose what they want done with their videos: whether to block, promote, or even--if a copyright holder chooses to partner with us--create revenue from them, with minimal friction. [Emphasis added.] -- (From YouTube's Video ID about page.)
YouTube's phrasing seems overly optimistic, but the New York Times says some publishers are choosing the partnership option:
David King, a product manager at YouTube, said in an interview that 90 percent of the copyright claims made using the identification tool remain on the site and are converted to advertising inventory. The other 10 percent are either removed from the site or tracked by the content owner.
The Times article notes that at this point advertising revenue from Web video is miniscule and publishers using the tool are still skeptical. Nonetheless, it's encouraging to see a piracy approach that doesn't default to heavy-handed tactics.
Ruling: Consider Fair Use Before Issuing Takedowns
Peter Brantley
August 22, 2008
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A fairly significant ruling came down Wednesday in Lenz v. Universal, a rather infamous case where Universal Music Publishing Group issued a takedown against a YouTube video of a young child dancing to a song in the background -- a song in which Universal maintained some rights. Universal later acknowledged that this was a fair use of the music, an incidental use, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) pursued the aggressive use of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns. The court ruled in the EFF's favor, and it should have significant outcomes. The EFF writes:
Universal moved to dismiss the case, claiming, among other things, that it had no obligation to consider whether [Stephanie] Lenz's use was fair before sending its notice. The judge firmly rejected Universal's theory:
" [A] fair use is a lawful use of a copyright. Accordingly, in order for a copyright owner to proceed under the DMCA with "a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law," the owner must evaluate whether the material makes fair use of the copyright."
Universal had insisted that copyright owners could not efficiently police copyright infringement if they had to consider whether a give use was fair. Not so, said the judge:
"[I]n the majority of cases, a consideration of fair use prior to issuing a takedown notice will not be so complicated as to jeopardize a copyright owner's ability to respond rapidly to potential infringements. The DMCA already requires copyright owners to make an initial review of the potentially infringing material prior to sending a takedown notice; indeed, it would be impossible to meet any of the requirements of Section 512(c) without doing so. A consideration of the applicability of the fair use doctrine simply is part of that initial review."
New "Libraries" Bring New Privacy Implications
Peter Brantley
July 9, 2008
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As Google, Amazon and others become de facto digital libraries -- and lawsuits emerge -- Jeff Jarvis wonders what this means for users' privacy. From BuzzMachine:
Any site with content -- Google, Amazon, a newspaper, a blog, an ISP -- is now the moral equivalent of a library or bookstore, two institutions that try hard not to hand over information on what content we seek and consume arguing that that would violate our First Amendment rights. The controversy in the telco immunity legislation is that those searches were made without warrants. In this case [Viacom/YouTube], there is a warrant. When I ran sites, we got subpoenas all the time and handed over IP addresses when ordered; that was company policy. I always found it troubling and as a result ordered that we would change our data retention policy and get rid of IP addresses as soon as possible. Should Google and other sites erase IPs and rely only on cookies without personally identifiable information?
Mark Cuban: Copyright Law Gives Hulu Advantage Over YouTube
Peter Brantley
June 17, 2008
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Mark Cuban says the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (PDF) gives Hulu a distinct advantage over YouTube:
Hulu has one HUGE advantage over YouTube, it has the right to sell advertising in and around every single video on its site. It can package and sell any way that might make its customers happy. YouTube on the other hand, has that right for only the small percentage of the videos on its site that it has a licensing deal with. For probably 99pct or more of the videos on the site, YouTube isn't supposed to know what they even are.
How can that be? Because YouTube hides behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Hulu is a media site that presents videos with advertising. It can do whatever it wants. YouTube is a hosting service. It's not allowed to know what videos are uploaded by users and its not allowed to generate revenue against those videos. It can only sell advertising around videos it has licenses to.
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