YouTube's fate rests on decade-old copyright law

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True, but not the same

It is true that Napster and Kazza were hammered, but for a different reason. Their services were designed, from the ground up, to allow the sharing of songs/videos, in spite of the copyright. There was no effort to remove offending materials, as they never actually stored any of the items (their argument), they only allowed the transfer between systems. They felt that they should be immune. Their business model was designed to circumvent the rights of the legit owner of the property. They got busted for aiding and abetting the violators, not for the violations. YouTube's business model is not the same and therefore you cannot apply the same ruling.

YouTube will remove any materials that they are notified that is stored on their equipment. Viacom's contention is that YouTube should police the material, not the copyright holder. That would be tantamount to asking Kinko's(tm) to police every item that is copied to make sure that the person is not infringing on copyright holder's rights. The law (in the past) has always sided with the copyright holder, when the copyright holder found an instance of violation of their rights. The person, or persons, that infringed on the rights of the work's originator are held responsible, not the publisher of the infringed work.

Now, in an electronic age, should the person posting the infringing material be held liable for the infringement or the publisher (e.g. YouTube)? Viacom's contention is that YouTube should be liable, not the infringer, not because of anything other than the number of potential infringers (they don?t want to spend the time and effort to protect their rights, they want someone else to do it on their own dime).

Answer? Track who uploads an item and who downloads an item. Then, if there appears to be an issue, then the owner of the material can get a list to send cease and desist orders to.

IMHO!

Posted by: jc williams   Posted on: 03/14/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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