YouTube’s Legal Woes
March 14th, 2007
CNET News: YouTube’s fate rests on decade-old copyright law
YouTube and Google’s strategy to force notification of each infringing content “has been a huge source of frustration to copyright owners because what that does is it puts the onus of policing infringement on the copyright owner,” said Carole Handler, vice chair of intellectual property litigation at the Los Angeles firm Foley & Lardner. “It’s a very inadequate kind of a case by case, specific by specific remedy, which is not tailored to the seriousness of the infringement.”
Umm.. hello, just like with trademark infringement, it is up to the holder to make sure their image isn’t being misused. You have to defend your trademark, so you have to defend your copyright. It goes back to the defendable exsistance of ignorance (or lack there of) of the facilitating unit (in this case, YouTube)… are they aware that this is a violation of someones copyright? If it’s not something famous, or from a major “studio” how are they to know even if they do view each and every video? What if i get a copyright for something of mine, and someone uploads it to YouTube without my permission… how is YouTube supposed to know? Shoot, anyone can add a little “Copyright 2007 - Me” text at the bottom of their video, it doesn’t mean you actually hold anything.
As long as YouTube honors their “notify and take-down” policy i don’t see any problem in what they have been doing all this time. So yes, Carole Handler, the onus IS on the copyright owner.
…In MY opinion
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