So why is this so important you might ask? Well, Google Video and YouTube have always maintained the stance that they are protected from being sued for copyright infringement based on Safe Harbors and the fact that they don’t have anything to do with uploaded content and that they do not alter, edit or review content unless they receive a DMCA take down notice from a verified content owner. Well, they lied!

Let me start out by saying that I love using Google Video and YouTube, but like anyone who uses either one there are tons of copyrighted uploads everywhere on each site. Everything from news broadcasts to music videos to TV shows to full length featured films.

While I like the idea of watching free videos of all the types of media I just mentioned, I do however agree with the networks, movie studios, music industry and more that this blatant form of stolen content is wrong. I also agree that Google and YouTube have basically turned a blind eye to it and have also tried to strong-arm the large media companies into doing business with them.

I know this is a touchy subject considering a lot of people think those companies already make enough money and that they should just shut up and take the free advertisements for their shows etc…, but that’s really not the point. Who am I or anyone else to tell someone or a corporation that they already have enough money so they lose all rights to their products? That’s just not the way the world works, nor should it be.

I for one hate when articles of mine are scraped or stolen and posted on other sites and would be extremely upset if I spent my hard earned money making a record or movie and then someone just posts it for free online for everyone to watch for free. What makes that any different than the guys in NYC who go to movies and film them with a camcorder and then sell bootleg copies of them on the street for $5? I can’t see any difference and actually think it’s even worse.

While Google Video and YouTube have maintained there let’s say “ignorance” and tried to hide behind safe harbors, I must question this stance as I just uploaded a video to YouTube which contained copyright infringement news material from a broadcast of CBS 2 TV in New York regarding video of the latest brawl at Madison Square Garden over the weekend.

I did this as a test as I mentioned in the post and so at the end of the video I added a small 6 second title with my sites name saying “See More Videos at BryanHauer.com”. I then uploaded the video and about 15 minutes later it appeared on YouTube, but without the last 6 seconds. The last 6 seconds are still there, but have been deleted (edited) by YouTube. The video still says its 1:19 long, but as you will see the video stops playing after 1:13.

Mark Cuban has been recently writing one might say religiously about GooTube’s potential legal problems behind their stance and one can only think now they will see even more legal problems as they can no longer hide behind safe harbors.

Here are a few of the posts Mark has recently made about GooTube’s stance…
A quick note on DMCA Safe Harbors, Youtube and VIacom
You Go Viacom !
Subpoenas and Gootube
Why I “Have it in for ” Gootube
“You just don’t get it ” and Social Networking
Oscars.com vs Youtube.com and the value of hosting on Gootube
Google Video Search vs Gootube - which will win ?
Gootube Terrorizes Copyright Owners by Withholding Filters

As far as the video I uploaded to YouTube… I can’t see any other way around this except for that they blatantly edited out my ending while still allowing copyrighted material even from Viacom to be uploaded. Tell me where I’m going wrong here or if I’m missing something cause I’ve uploaded my own videos before without a problem of any editing, yet this one was.

Here are both videos for you to see…

YouTube Video:

Same exact .mov quicktime video that I uploaded. I’ve only compressed it to fit in this blog post:
[qt:http://www.bryanhauer.com/wp-content/themes/fblue-10/movies/msg-high-school-brawl.mov 480 376]

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 6:50 pm and is filed under Business, Entertainment, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.