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2 months ago
in Media Copyright: Embedding YouTube Clips On A Blog Or Website, Is It Legal? on MusTech.Net Music, Technology, & Education
The legality of any copyright infringement is directly related to the ability of the copyright holder to attain representation in a court of law. While it may be "illegal" in a sense, it is not as enforceable based on the simple fact that you are not personally hosting the material. The old adage "Sh*t rolls downhill" would apply. First the owner must sue YouTube for allowing it, thereby setting precidence. Otherwise the copyright holder is literally spinning their wheels. This analogy has been proven by the ill-fated attempts by the RIAA to sue individual P2P downloaders. The Pirate Bay trial recently set the stage for a much greater assault by this organization than any other method previously attempted.
The other thing to consider is that once a copyright holder complains the video is deleted and you have a unusable post on your blog with no video to see. That is an annoyance worth considereing.
The other thing to consider is that once a copyright holder complains the video is deleted and you have a unusable post on your blog with no video to see. That is an annoyance worth considereing.
1 reply
Thanks for well thought reply... Illegal, legal and unethical, ethical become a fine-line sometimes. I am however an ardent supporter of musicians being able to make money from their works. Copyright observence becomes very important with regard to educators. I am an advocate of being "above board" and stay away from the -the copyright police can't catch you so go ahead and do it. It kinds of reminds me of the "I blew through the stop sign -but there wasn't a copy -so it was legal argument". Not legal, just not caught... This is the one of the same arguments that people make with regard to the ever-increasing video cameras at intersections...they feel it's not fair. I am a vocal advocate for copyright re-form on a number of issues though, in particular with regard to fair-use.
It will be very interesting to see what c-omes from the Pirate Bay scenario. There will be appeals, but I don't think they are going to come out on top... I also think RIAA has been too aggressive with regard to a number of their cases and the fines that the courts are levying are many times not in proportion to the infringements. I hate to say it but most people would be better off (financially) caught actually stealing a tangible CD(s) from a store than by some of the P2P fines... Not that I advocate either.
The Internet is in a constant state of flux... it's even hard to footnote legitamte web sources when you are writing scholarly articles because of the URL changes, site moves, etc. This is why you have to quote a date retrieved when quoting. The same thing with youtube... Here today, gone tomorrow, but it's not much different than the risk of linking to anything. I would like to see a Wordpress plugin, not unlike the broken-link checker plugin, that verifies youtube videos though...it would be helpful. Also, it would be good of YouTube to insert a "placeholder" video in it's place stating the reason it was taken down and the date...
Interestingly enough, DVDs are finally allowing a digital copy built-in to the media to be saved/stored on a computer, etc. I'm sure the rental folks are going to have their own special "non-duplicating versions".
I haven't found out yet, but I wonder how many people have to "flag" a video and how fast a video becomes taken down from that point for investigation... any ideas?