So my understanding is that the DMCA introduced safe harbor, which lets platforms like Youtube exist.
You can now run a social network and not get sued into oblivion for users putting up copywrighted content, so long as you're not too complicit in the behaviour. Safe harbor is a win for the internet in my book.
Without safe harbor, Google would be liable for re-distributing movies that people keep on uploading to the site. Takedown requests get a bad rap, but it's not the worst possible scenario IMO.
In reality this is only a win if you have the deep pockets of google and are able to implement all the things that Safe Harbor Requires, respond to all of the Automated and primary bogus requests in a timely fashion, and are willing to have to your platform censored to the extreme. YouTube can withstand it because of its inertia, many new platforms have tried and failed.
Safe Habor, as written, ensures YouTube's dominance in online self uploaded video.
Further Safe Habor does not protect you from being sued, it simply gives you a defense should you be sued. See the YouTube vs Viacom case.
AS such one will still have to pay lawyers to defend them, this results in many content platforms being shutdown, or never being created in the first place
No in reality Safe Habor only seems like a good thing on paper, and then only if you are a Copyright Maximalist that believe the current copyright law is acceptable or does not provide enough protection.
> Safe Habor, as written, ensures YouTube's dominance in online self uploaded video.
If I remember correctly, YouTube originally gained popularity because practically anything could be uploaded on the service. A huge percentage of it was blatantly copyrighted material.
You remember what the Major Media companies want you to remember.
It is revisionist history at best.
Yes there was copyrighted content on YouTube, as there is today, but no that is not why is gained popularity.
It gained popularity because it made video accessible to everyone. Before youtube attempting to host your own videos, be it a cat video, or a major movie was EXPENSIVE.
Back then, as today, most of the "violations" are actually fair use.. Copyright Maximalist however believe copyright gives them total control over their work, meaning if a person using a 1 second clip for commentary, or happens to have a song playing in the background while their baby does something cute on video and uploads it to Youtube that is a violation of copyright.
> You remember what the Major Media companies want you to remember.
No, I remember watching full movies, episodes and seasons of shows on YouTube. I remember music videos, full albums and re-uploads of content from other websites.
I remember reading from multiple sources that in the early days, YouTube willfully ignored DCMA takedowns and allowed infringing content to be shared for the views.
>It gained popularity because it made video accessible to everyone. Before youtube attempting to host your own videos, be it a cat video, or a major movie was EXPENSIVE.
There were a handful of free video hosts around at the time.
YouTube gained popularity because of the copyrighted content not because of the random crap like a dancing baby.
Popularity, is about views, not submissions.
It's weird that you've started this paranoid rant about history being re-written, when you're the one who is totally off mark. (and seem to have eluded common sense)
Yes, that's right. At the time, Netflix streaming was a magical future dream, and Hulu was some weird Hawaiian word, or something. If you wanted to stream video, illegal or no, Youtube was your best bet, being the most convenient way to do it. Past Youtube, there was Bittorrent, but it was less popular by far.
To this day, if you want to watch a weird, obscure series that nobody remembers, and thus was never put on the big streaming sites, Youtube is your best bet.
I don't understand - Google would be liable ONLY because there's another law saying they would be liable. Why not change that law instead of enact another set of crazy laws which demands that you keep proving you've done nothing wrong when some corporation sends a form?
If you have the most basic copyright law, then Google is liable, because they are distributing content they don't have permission to.
So tech companies want Safe Harbor. Media companies understand that safe harbor will enable some shadier businesses like megaupload (where the site owners are complicit in the content and hide behind safe harbor). So they say " OK for safe harbor, but we want a bit more protection for us, the content producers, as well." Thus a compromise is formed.
Most laws are comprises to get most people at the table, this seems like one of them.
You can now run a social network and not get sued into oblivion for users putting up copywrighted content, so long as you're not too complicit in the behaviour. Safe harbor is a win for the internet in my book.
Without safe harbor, Google would be liable for re-distributing movies that people keep on uploading to the site. Takedown requests get a bad rap, but it's not the worst possible scenario IMO.