Copyright and the new explosion of free video upload services

[teisco]

Take a look at YouTube or Veoh or PutFile and you will see no one is paying any attention to any copyright laws, not even the host.

I have also read that it is now impossible to police copyright violations because of all the new upload services. You can see the latest Saturday Night Live sketch or view just about any music video or live performance you want.

And this is just the beggining. There will be hundreds of such free video upload services within the year.

Uploading videos is going to be the biggest thing to ever hit the net and I am wondering what will happen to copyright laws and any attempts to enforce them with thousands and thousands of these videos now online.

Your thoughs?

[jagabo]

Copyright is already dead as far as individuals are concerned. In the future copyrights will only exist as a way for corporations to prevent other corporations from directly profiting off their material. The sooner the MPAA and RIAA realize this the sooner they might come up with business models to survive and flourish in the new world.

[common-sense]

when i hear of prisons being too full to house criminals of different sorts...even violent ones...and they are let out early on parole to make room....i don't think the cops or the state for that matter needs to be focusing their money on copyright violators...

[SingSing]

Worse than prison = Take away your driver license

[adam]

YouTube just recently got sued for copyright infringement for the files it hosts. It is not hard to get a site shutdown if they don't take at least some steps to remove infringing material. And this has little to do with the FBI or with criminal copyright infringement. This is a private civil matter but really I think the MPAA and RIAA have bigger fish to fry. They concentrate more on commercial bootleggers and for some reason filesharers, but that at least makes sense compared to things on youtube since its always going to be impossible or impractical to host large files this way.

But when the sites become popular enough you can probably expect more lawsuits.

[hech54]

I've been uploading rare footage to Youtube for about two weeks now. My(?) vids are up to over 3000 views now. It is so insane that the guitarist who appears in some of the footage contacted me to ask if he can have a copy of this stuff since even HE does not have it.
I'm not saying this to brag.....quite a few other people have this footage also but it does add a new wrinkle to the copyright scenario...at least in my opinion anyway. When band members do not know who owns the footage......or know where to find the footage....who gives a damn about copyright stuff. 95% of the stuff I have on YouTube originally came from TV broadcasts....much of it is over 20 years old....if not more.

[teisco]

I really doubt that YouTube will get shut down. Just take a look at their content and tell me that a lawsuite made any difference.

hech54 I really would like to know your YouTube nickname. I am very interested in older live broadcast music and have a bunch myself. I used to tape everything live I could find.

[oldandinthe way]

Just had a look at Youtube for the first time. Unless I am missing something - although the content is interesting, I find the quallity of the video and music to be dreadful. I understand that much is sourced from off the air VHS tapes, but the flash videos are unacceptable.

The quality is probably too low to trigger action by copyright owners.

[teisco]

Those are just previews, you can download the original file full length and better quality.

Veoh has better quality and there is one in Canada that shows original uploads with no compression.

YouTube is the leader and has caught the public eye. It is a steamroller smoothing the way for copy sites to come. The net video is just starting to catch fire and will be the thing to do. It is a bit addictive and one could sit for hours looking at everything from a walk in the park to a man being chewed by a lion. The real addiction comes when you start to upload your own videos and you find people are actually watching them. This is the hook, you can make a simple video that will be watched by millions.

Quote from online article "The San Mateo, California company was founded in February 2005, and a year later it is serving more than 3 million video views a day, receiving about 8,000 video uploads a day from users and transferring 16 terabytes of data a day."

I have uploaded some rare videos of air shows past and this is the only place in the world that you can see them. Indeed, you can see things on YouTube that you will never see anywhere else.

[kschang]

I've found so much stuff on Youtube that infringes on copyright it ain't funny, nor is it worht mentioning. Copies of local news, clips of almost anything, esp. Fox's "Police Chase" videos (and a couple parodies, those are funny). Then there's those BMW "The Hire" short movies that BMW won't host any more, but you can find bazillion copies on Youtube. You can keep asking them to be deleted, and someone else will just upload it again later. A lot of the copyright stuff on the clips is extremely hazy, esp. when it's a big audience or of a specific event, since it's clear the organizers didn't intend to share with the whole wide world.

[lordsmurf]

the guitarist who appears in some of the footage contacted me to ask if he can have a copy of this stuff since even HE does not have it.

This is so common, it makes me want to vomit.

Too many artists out there do not even have samples to share with the children and grandchildren. I've seen retired seniors, former tv actors, desperately looking for bootleg copies of the shows they starred or guest starred in during their younger years.

I mean, really. That's sad. I feel sorry for them.

[adam]

I really doubt that YouTube will get shut down. Just take a look at their content and tell me that a lawsuite made any difference.

I said they just recently got sued. Obviously the suit is still pending. I'm sure they won't get shutdown, but it is very plausible that they will be forced to start taking down the more obviously infringing stuff.