Periscope
Video-sharing: copyright violations unchecked
In the past, video-sharing websites were free from high profile lawsuits largely because of the DCMA. Big companies are starting to take legal actions against copyright infringement. For example, Universal Music Group filed a lawsuit in November against MySpace, one of the popular video-sharing websites, for infringing copyrights of its artistes¡¦ works.
Google, the search engine giant which has acquired YouTube, has put aside about US$200 million in case of any copyright lawsuits filed against the world¡¦s leading video-sharing site.
YouTube¡¦s safeguards
To protect its own interest, the California-based YouTube has stated as its terms of use that its users ¡§must own the copyright to the videos that they post or have permission from the copyright holder¡¨ when they upload the clips.
The video-sharing website also gives guidelines to its users on what makes a video clip copyright infringing. It has listed examples of copyrighted contents which web users may not be aware of, including programmes from network and cable TV, pay-per-view TV, on-demand TV, videos of live concerts captured by the users themselves, trailers and commercials.
What is legally safe for uploading, YouTube suggests, is a video that ¡§could be as simple as taping some of your friends goofing around, and as complicated as filming your own short movie with a script, actors, and the whole works¡¨. ¡§If it's all yours, you never have to worry about the copyright,¡¨ the site said.
YouTube also has promised to remove copyright infringement contents once it finds them. However, the policy is difficult to implement with the enormous amount of data transfer. On a typical day, the site serves more than three million videos, has an additional 65,000 videos uploaded and transfers 16 terabytes of data. It relies on copyright owners to notify it for cases of copyright violation.
New solutions
To add difficulty for users to upload long, copyrighted videos such as films and TV dramas, some video-sharing websites now have set time limits, such as at 10 minutes, for every video uploaded. Still, shorter copyrighted videos such as cartoons and music videos are commonly found on those sites.
The situation may improve as both YouTube and MySpace have announced that they will implement an audio footprint system, which can automatically detect copyright infringing contents in the future.
Uploaders of popular shows such as Beauty Kitchen may be required to pay more damages.
