YouTube under heavy attack
p2pnet.net news:- England’s Football Association Premier League has joined the fast-growing crowd suing Google’s YouTube. This happened at the end of last week, and at the same time, NBC Universal and Viacom filed an amicus brief backing journalist Robert Tur, a Los Angeles News Service and owner operator.
Tur claims a version of the beating of trucker Reginald Denny during the 1992 riots, uploaded by a YouTube user, was viewed and downloaded 1,000 times. And that, says Tur, is copyright infringement.
However, “while the number of lawsuits against YouTube is rising, it hasn’t yet been firmly established whether the video-sharing site is liable when users post pirated videos,” says CNET News, quoting Google general counsel Kent Walker as saying:
“These suits simply misunderstand the (DMCA), which balances the rights of copyright holders against the need to protect Internet communications. As a result, they threaten the way people legitimately exchange information.”
But YouTube’s copyright troubles don’t appear to be going away anytime soon, says the story, going on
“In their court filing, NBC Universal and Viacom claim YouTube is not covered by the DMCA’s safe harbor provision and that copyright holders would suffer if YouTube prevails.’YouTube cannot qualify for safe harbor because it is not the type of Internet service provider contemplated by Congress,’ attorneys with Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp wrote on behalf of clients Viacom and NBC Universal.
“YouTube also doesn’t fulfill the requirements for protection, according to Viacom and NBC Universal, because the video-sharing site ‘has a direct financial interest and the ability to control infringement that takes place on its own Website and through its own server’.”
Google is also named in a little-publicised lawsuit launched by Canadian businessman Wayne Crookes.
But this time, alleged copyright infringement isn’t the issue. Instead, Google, along with Yahoo, Wikimedia and other sites, companies and people – including p2pnet – are being accused by Crookes of online libel.
Also See:
beating of trucker – YouTube sued over Denny flic, July 18, 2006
CNET News – Legal troubles mount for YouTube, May 6, 2007
little-publicised lawsuit – Wayne Crookes sues the Net: III, May 5, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by governBryan Adams slams Net radio hikement restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
May 7th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
YouTube and Google are being criticized for not doing more to prevent copyrighted material from being posted online.
YouTube says it cooperates with all copyright holders and removes programming as soon as it is notified.
So how does a similar site PREVENT the upload of copyrighted content?
What more can be done?
Any ideas anybody?