Its a trick.

Because once YouTube has licensed other to make derivative works or has made its own derivative work they have full ownership rights over the derivative work from which they can even make more derivatives.

This is similar to the limited time contracts which publishers get songwriters to sign. While the contact says it is for a limited time (this is the part pointed to before the contract is signed), somewhere in the contract it says that the assignment of rights are for the life of the rights. Clearly the intention is to deceive the songwriter.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

The problem is… very complicated.

1. Money. Someday, YouTune will sublicense some of the video or a derivative (which surely will belong exclusively to YouTube – more on derivatives below) to others, for money, and nothing will be shared with the producer and the actors in the video. This is not fair.

2. Legal. A point that need making is that to license something you have to be the owner or the owner authorized you to issue licenses in a written and signed document. We have none of that at YouTube, which has no way of knowing if it was licensed by the owners and was not authorized to license others in writing.

3. Derivatives. Within the YouTube scheme, a video can somehow modified, becoming a derivative work of the original video and the derivative work will have a copyright owner. Surely YouTube will become the exclusive rights owner of the derivative work. Of course if the derivative is an improved version of the original, the derivative may compete and beat in market value the original, particularly if the owner of the original is impossible to find,

4. Moral rights. Derivatives have a knack of defeated the moral rights as well as the name/reputation of the original author, as the derivative work could actually be a gruesome distortion of the original work.

5. Legal liability. When an original producer of a video authorizes other to make a “do as you please and don’t show it to me” derivative work or use the work in anyway, he/she is a sitting duck for a lawsuit based on privacy or defamation issues. It is unfair to expose people without legal sophistication by inducing them to give their work and name for others to use indiscriminately.

Surely until a needed huge copyright reform (modernized to the digital and Internet age) is made, copyright issues (including copyright ownership, transfers, licenses) are not for the faint hearted and the ocasional movie maker (or songwriter, etc).

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

they don’t say that you must give them the exclusive right to use your content.
so YOU are not forbidden to also make a bug or 2 out of your creative work. Al you grant them is the NON-exclusive right that they can try to make a bug out of it!
in contrary A musician that gives away his copyrights to the cartel gives his rights exclusively away to this company and can not make a bug of it on his own by selling it to someone else!

so whats the fuzz about this TOS change now?

this swedish blogger is asking this question also and explaining it quite well i think.
http://piracy-unlimited.blogspot.com/2006/07/why-is-youtube-so-bad-o.html

If on the other hand YouTube wants to make a killimg by selling the rights to a third party, the third party will likely not be willing to pay without the evidence of a signed, legal document transferring the rights to YouTube, as is required by the Copyright Act, which says:

Sec. 204. Execution of transfers of copyright ownership
(a) A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner’s duly authorized agent.

Others may not be willing to acquire rights or licenses from YuoTube because they know how YouTube obtained the alleged rights, through unsigned, non public documents and changeable electronic documents.

Basically the YouTube rights are worthless, in my opinion.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

The law is absolutely useless to ordinary people.

Ordinary people WILL get tired of it.

Of course this agreement may not be valid in many jurisdictions, where rights to property can only be sold though a notarized public document. While this “public document” rule is simple, ot prevents many problems such as:

- Transfer of property not owned.
- Transfer by underaged or incapacitated owners.
- Lack of explanation of terms and consequences to signers of the document.
- The legal ownership of properties can be checked in the courts through searches of court records.

The agreement may also not be valid because the parties do not get a copy of the agreement signed by both parties involved. Onviously an unsigned copy of a changeable electronic document file is worthless to prove an agreement was made.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com