Youtube / Vimeo Use Limitations

[Daddyo]

Anyone know why people are permitted to upload video's with copyrighted tunes at times to sites like these, and other times they're blocked? What's the worst that a copyright owner has ever done to someone for doing so?

[win3k]

<Usual caveat>I am not a lawer</Usual caveat>

I recollect reading that for highly contested works, the main hosting services calculate a hash for any upload, and then compare that to a "banned" list - that might just be FUD (the references were sketchy, to say the least), but from a technical point of view that mechanism would work quite well.

As far as copyright holders are concerned, your mileage may vary. The usual approach taken is that a DMCA takedown notice is issued to the host (say, YouTube), who are legally obliged to remove the allegedly infringing content and inform the uploader. If the uploader wants to counter-claim (say, for example, citing fair use; Google Lenz v. Universal for an all-too-rare example of this actually being upheld), they can do so, which then puts the onus on the complainant (the IP holder) to take further action through the courts if they so desire.

However: some IP rights holders allege that uploading copyright works to YouTube etc. is tantamount to unauthorized distribution (a la P2P sharing) and press immediately for punitive damages through the court (Google "Capitol v. Thomas" for an insight into the meaning of the word "punitive").

In sum: don't violate other folks copyright. Whether you like it or not, the penalites (particularly, I have to say for you chaps under the stars and stripes) can seriously screw up your life; the deck is firmly stacked against you, and you can't afford the legal team that you'd need to even stand a chance of leaving court with your skin intact.

win3k

[data_ghost]

I think on youtube the case is simply that it is difficult for a record company to keep up with all of the videos that are put on there. Sometimes they will catch you, if your lucky it will take them a while. On vimeo however i do not recommend doing it at all. Not only is it smaller than youtube (meaning it is easier to find your videos with a copyrighted song on) but it is ONLY for user created videos, thus the name: viMEo.
Instead capture all of the stupid stuff you and your friends do on camera: http://www.vimeo.com/80638

[Daddyo]

Thanks for both of your inputs. I read on wikipedia how the audio fingerprints work, which is really an efficient way to find infringements. There's still a huge number of long time playing videos on at least youtube that aren't sponsored by the copyright owners.

My guess is if it's felt that the quality of the audio is sufficiently poor, and the effort placed into making the video was 'artistically' high enough, that they leave them playing. But like win3k said, it's not worth finding out. And you could always TRY to seek permission from the copyright owners.

[data_ghost]

Oh, this just came to my mind. Some videos I've seen on youtube have (I think) gotten away with putting copyrighted material by placing something like "I do not own this song, it is the property of etc etc" in the description box.

[Daddyo]

I think that might get you through some of the battles, but not the ones you'd wish you didn't come up against. Giving credit on something that might be 'fair use' = 'incidental and fortuitous reproduction' is one thing, distributing to all is probably something else I'd think. And now matter how things should be interpreted, a lawer (or bank of them) can convince a jury otherwise. The only way is permission imo.

[TRON.dll]

There was some situation that happened a while back, and it involved some woman putting a video of her children dancing on Youtube.

Apparently, in the background (and I mean WAAAAAAAAY in the background, like, barely audible), there was Prince music playing from a stereo.

Prince's lawyers saw the video, and had the video taken off of Youtube.

The woman went ape, and sued the crap outta Prince's lawyers. Huge mess, I dunno how it ended.

More recently, there was some situation with Viacom, where they wanted to charge people a fine for watching illegally uploaded content on Youtube.

So far, I've been safe with my vids. Generally, it's the really popular songs that get their audio muted on Youtube. Seems like some record companies are targeting Rock Band gameplay vids now.

[win3k]

Morning chaps

Prince's lawyers saw the video, and had the video taken off of Youtube. The woman went ape, and sued the crap outta Prince's lawyers. Huge mess, I dunno how it ended.

See 5 posts above:

say, for example, citing fair use; Google Lenz v. Universal for an all-too-rare example of this actually being upheld

She won.

Some videos I've seen on youtube have (I think) gotten away with putting copyrighted material by placing something like "I do not own this song, it is the property of etc etc" in the description box.

That right there is absolute cobblers. Stating that you know that you are not authorized to do what you've done is no defence at all; you've just saved their lawers the effort of proving that you are a knowing infringer. That's the same mentality that says "if I don't charge for it/it's a fan project/it's a tribute etc etc it isn't copyright infringement".

<protip>Legal advice from some random vlogger on teh interwebs is likely to be crap.</protip>

Read http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for a pretty good debunking of the usual myths relating to copyright: knowledge is power.

win3k