Video Sharing

Copyright Law and Video Sharing Sites

We all know about Youtube and Google video, of course, and we all know that you can go on those sites and find tons of copyright infringing copies of copyright protected content.

The people who own the copyrights to the protected content know it, too.

So how does all that illegal content stay up?

The truth is actually kind of mundane: There’s too much of it to track. In order to eliminate every single incident of copyright infringement on Youtube and Google video, there would have to be a team of literally hundreds of thousands of people browsing those sites constantly to find every single incident of copyright infringement, and then a legal team would have to be given the task of issuing hundreds of thousands of cease and desist emails every single day.

And even then, many videos would slip through the cracks, carrying either copyright infringing video, or just copyrighted songs used on the soundtracks without authorization.

The cost of such a massive program would wind up being several times the amount of any actual income loss suffered by copyright holders thanks to copyright infringement and piracy.

So why not just shut those sites down, like with Napster?

Nobody really wants that. Youtube and Google video both insist that their users should not post copyright infringing material. Certainly, many users do so, anyways, but those users are violating their terms of use in doing so.

Users who persist in using copyrighted material without authorization, despite several warnings, usually have their accounts deleted by the operators of the site.

Many copyright holders use the site for their own means, as well. Most major record labels have taken to posting official music videos through their own, corporate owned Youtube channels. Youtube is a great resource for pirates to find music and steal it, but it’s also a great resource for legitimate copyright holders to advertise new albums. Not to mention the fact that probably the vast majority of Youtube and Google video users actually are posting original content, as that really is the main allure of these sites: Showing your own stuff off to the world.

Recently, a few alternatives have popped up on the internet, with the most well known probably being Revver.com.

Revver uses an actual compensation system for their users. By allowing Revver to place advertisements at the end of every video, authors are rewarded with a share of the advertising fees on a per-click basis.

Because actual money is changing hands, Revver has to be much more careful about copyright issues so as to avoid liability. Every video that goes up on Revver has to first be approved by the site’s staff. The video has to meet the criteria of belonging, in its entirety, to the person who uploaded the video, before it can go through and be displayed on the website.

Needless to say, Revver is a little smaller in scale than Youtube or Google video. Reviewing every single video that goes up takes time, after all.

Many believe that websites like Revver really are the way of the future when it comes to video sharing. Where Youtube allows directors to upload their own work, there is no compensation system in place. Furthermore, the website is simply too massive to really control in terms of copyright issues.

Note that, even on Youtube, Revver, Google video and every other video sharing website based in the United States, the Fair Use Doctrine stands. The right to fair use for the purpose of parody, criticism, or education is non-negotiable.

Which is great news for many on Youtube; Parody, criticism and education are three of the most popular types of videos on the site. One of the most popular authors on Youtube, the Angry Nintendo Nerd, actually does all three in his humorous video game review/essay videos.

Even on the internet, fair use can extend to incidents wherein a work is directly derivative of the work it parodies.

Really, every copyright law that holds true in print and on television holds true on the internet, as well. This means that everything you can get in trouble for in print is equally illegal on the internet, but it also means that any non-negotiable rights you hold as an American citizen hold true on the internet, as well.