From what I read yesterday, You Tube has been sued and part of cleaning up their act, they are going to install software that "detects copyrighted material" and pull the video down.
I'm thinking: Imagine how many videos (and votes!) we have that are going to be removed because they have TV shows, openings, clips (i.e. Mythbusters), and music videos!
The voting ranking will be thrown out of whack! The end is near?!? (Queue - Dramatic Music!) (Actually it's going to be towards the end of the year before we see anything.)
What do you think?
I'm thinking: Imagine how many videos (and votes!) we have that are going to be removed because they have TV shows, openings, clips (i.e. Mythbusters), and music videos!
The voting ranking will be thrown out of whack! The end is near?!? (Queue - Dramatic Music!) (Actually it's going to be towards the end of the year before we see anything.)
What do you think?
I think they will pull some of it, but my guess is that they will concentrate on Universal. They have signed an agreement with Time Warner to promote Time Warner's artists. They are going to be sharing advertising revenue with Time Warner. I think Time Warner owns like 60% of the media market in the world. So at the very least that should help mitigate some of the impact. I see this as a REALLY stupid move by Universal, but who knows maybe they are in talks with Google or Yahoo video.
The argument is this: If you are at a party in my house and I play you a video that you did not purchase, is Sony - who made the DVD player that I am showing you the video on - in violation of copyright laws? Many people are viewing it, but they did not purchase the video. I am sharing it with everyone at the party through a piece of equipment.
This is the argument for video share sites. Or for anyone who streams a video onto their web site. In the past, clips or portions were not considered in violation, but the big studios are trying to change that.
I rather think YouTube will try and keep good relations with anyone (ie Big Studios) who complains of copyright violations.
If one is pedantic Daphne, seeing a video at someones party is considered violation of copyright because they always have that rule about not broadcasting publically.
I think some studios will remove material, others would just let it be there as a form for advertisting, though making sure that no full length clips exist.
Though I think there will be a battle between how such material gets distributed, am sure all the major studios are looking at ways they could charge us miniscule transaction ammount for viewing clips. That would seriouly be messed up.
It used to be a prove this is copyright infringement, but now it is 'we will remove anything that anyone complains about, and maybe if you can prove there is NO violations, we may consider putting this back up'.
But like all things on the internets you just can't moderate things and have open user submissions.
The DMCA has very little about digital streaming, and section 405 is the only amendment that attempts to deal with this. It's so poorly constructed with this respect that video share sites would probably win in a battle. But no one wants to battle over some 15-year-old's right to upload and stream Family Guy clips from their storage site.
So, they placate. Most people know what happened with the IDSA and abandonware games, so this tightrope is being walked veeery carefully.