I understand your point and appreciate it.

In some ways, what you raise is something of a red herring, but I really don’t have a legal perspective on it. Frankly, it’s something I hadn’t even considered, but probably should.

Eric

This is my revised attempt to address this issue. In all seriousness, I am curious how you distinguish between the kinds of things Google is proposing to do, and reproducing newspaper or magazine articles in full — something that has become commonplace on web-based blogs, newsletters, etc.

In the last several days, for example, you have reprinted copyrighted material in full (the Mercury News article, and the CNET and Tennessean pieces). Each of those sites has explicit prohibitions on reproducing their property without permission (and pardon me if, in fact, you did get permissions on those).

I only raise the issue because it’s a peculiar phenomenon that seems most commonly to do with journalism. It’s ironic that reprinting the article about Google’s potential copyright infringement was itself an infringement of the copyright held by the Mercury News, or the author of the piece.

It’s as if people (not just you) assume a printed newspaper article is somehow in the public domain, or that naming the source is the same thing as permission.

I don’t know why that is, but am curious if you have a legal perspective on it. Obviously, newspapers rarely go to the trouble of defending their rights in that arena — a newsletter author, for example, is not necessarily making money off reprinting copyrighted articles, though it does potentially keep people from visiting the newspaper’s web site, seeing their advertiser’s ads, and so on.

David

Unlike Napster, where you could anonymously post files, videos posted on Youtube identify the poster. The poster is therefore violating copyright if they are posting videos of which they own no rights. This is similar to if I went to a library and copied an entire book. In that case I would be violating copyright, not the library even though they are supplying the technology (the copy machine) that allows it. Liability for Youtube (as it did with Napster) really comes with turning a blind eye to the situation, which Youtube appears to be solving with contracts.

Also, unlike much of Napster, there are legitimate uses for Youtube. People can post (and are posting in droves, far more than copyright works), videos they create. Thus the technology can be shown to be used in a predominently legal way.

It should also be pointed out that the quality of the video is not as good as the original (at least not yet). Therefore, unlike music files, you would not be getting a good clean copy of the original. Fans of a show or band would still want to purchase the original for a good copy.

Because of the quality issue, I’m not sure the music companies are too upset about posting music videos derived from VHS recorded off MTV in 1986. These videos were specifically created for promotion. Lots of people recorded them onto VHS back then (technically illegal, as is any VHS recording). Posting that kind of quality video does more good than harm for the music companies. A whole new generation are rediscovering the music of the 80s!! Now if the quality gets to be DVD quality……

I think it would be an incredilby foolish thing for them to do–it would be buying a pig in a poke, a they would acquire the liability with it.

But, your point about Google is well-taken. They’ve been running roughshod over copyright rights for too long, which is part of the reason why I’ve been so vehement in my opposition to the Google book scanning program. If the truth be told, I don’t see a whole lot of difference between the copyright infringement involved in the book scanning program and the sort of copyright infringement that goes on on YouTube all the time.

Eric

Been watching this with much interest. The latest internet speculation is that Google wants to buy YouTube. Of course we know Google has little regard for intellectual property rights, as shown by their “books-online” program (or whatever they’re calling it now). So I’d be interested in your opinion as a lawyer on this possible buyout. Will Google be willing to buy a company which obviously has much litigation headed its way? And is there a better chance that they’ll get away with it if they’re owned by Google than not? After all, Google seems to be getting away with their blatant violation of author’s rights. A lawyer’s opinion?