Posting YouTube Google video etc on website

what is the legal issues and laws regarding posting videos from sites like youtube etc on your website?
is youtube etc responsible for the content that is played in the youtube flash player!
or is the site owner fully responsible!

just wondering cuz I know there is lots of stuff on youtube that has copyrights etc and legaly shouldn't even be on youtube!

if they get posted on my site by a member/visitor or me am i at risk?
should i worry about this!

I don't have any on my sites yet just wondering !

Thanks

 

I would like to know this as well as I have one site that uses YouTube videos.

 

i doubt you will get an exact answer as no one is 100% sure, so that should warn you to stay away. Yes your only placing links to you tube but it is possible that the copyright holders will come after you, after all you tube will pass the blame on to anyone it can including you and you wuold be up against some highly paid lawyers, so personal its not worth the risk.

 

how can i find out who the copyright owner/holder is?
for music and videos?

 

If the youtube content you're linking to is copyrighted material then you could potentially face a lawsuit. I directed the same concerns to a lawyer.

 

Very dodgy ground this, but YouTube and Google Video etc actually facilitate you being able to embed the videos in your website by making the code available. I heard a whisper that Google (so that's YouTube as well now) were negotiating with all the big music, film and TV production companies to reach an agreement on this.

 

Both you, YouTube, Google Video and the person who uploaded the copyrighted videos can be held liable. As the webmaster of your site you are responsible for all content on the site (some limitations are in place, but just to simplify). If you have an embedded video of copyrighted work on your site, or even if you link to it, it can be seen that you are facilitating the copyright infringement of the work and can face legal issues.
(Search the legal forums, this has been discussed before)

You should definitely be worried about this. Either put some kind of approval system into place, so you can approve which videos get embedded, or better yet, stay away from it altogether.

 

Since the one that uploads videos to YouTube can choose to share the link (by share the link I mean giving out the links to an embeded player to the right of the video) to the movie with others or not, you should be able to have the link on your site if he/she have shared it. And if it isn't his content, but someone elses, he should be the one guilty. This is my logical thinking, not something from a law book.

 

You might find this discussion of use. While not related 100% to YouTube video it is related to linking to (even via YouTube) copyrighted content which is illegal. (Legal cases have been done).

Basically if you embed copyrighted videos you will be committing contributory infringement which is "illegal". I blogged about it earlier: Linking to copyrighted material illegal - it has quite a few links on the topic which should be interesting.

 

if you link to anything questionalble at the least provide a "take down" button or "complain about infringing material" button!

You need to provide the ability to respond to copyright take down requests in a timely manner!

 

Are you concerned with the bird flu as well? Everyone is so worried about these things but there is a proper chanel one must go through (US) to do anything even if you are "liable". It's called a DMCA notice and unless you got one and ignored it nobody is taking you to court and winning.

 

While that might be true I prefer to take a proactive approach to copyright issues. I make sure that I don't use any copyrighted material from the start. That way the copyright holder wouldn't have to constantly police their works and don't have to spend time and effort in filing DMCA notices and the like.

The fact that a DMCA offers you some protection and needs to be filed doesn't give you carte blanche to use copyrighted material, or allow your members to post copyrighted material just because you are "protected" and that it's unlikely that it will ever get to court.

To me it's both an ethical and legal issue. I'm not saying everyone should follow my example, I'm just pointing out possible pitfalls. I'd much rather allow the copyright holders to spend their time creating something new, rather than trying to protect their works, which shouldn't have been used in the first place.

 

Did you skip what this thread is about? It is impossible for anyone to know if a video on YouTube or Google is there from the copyright owner. Using your logic nobody would post any videos from either and YouTube wouldn't be the #1 video site on the internet nor would it have sold for 1.6 billion. You don't have YouTube without the sharing and you don't share without possibly linking to a video someone stole and uploaded. If you get a DMCA take it down, there is zip else you can do but make your own videos for every niche you want to cover.

 

Actually I didn't skip what the thread was about. I answered it exactly. If you go back to the original question you'll see that the person asked with relation to videos that they know are copyrighted:

Now, from that I gathered the person was referring to things like music videos, TV episodes etc. If you use common sense then you would know that you won't be allowed to share copyrighted material like those. Even the DMCA might not be able to protect you there if you are linking to say a Fox TV episode. I think you will have a hard time proving that you didn't know that it was copyrighted.

Also to clarify. The safe harbor provisions stipulate:

Now, according to those it could be argued that a site might not be protected if they show ads (...derive financial benefit from) or if the owner links/adds the copyrighted content themselves (...have no knowledge of infringing activity) or if they don't have methods in place to deal with copyright complaints.

With user submitted videos (homemade videos) it's a whole different story. Chances are that the user who submitted them owns the copyright and you wouldn't have any issues linking/embedding them.

 

are you serious, man they would have to chuck a shit load of money around to silence all them record companies.

 

Note that Universal Music Group filed a lawsuit against MySpace, claiming MySpace is a "willing partner" in intellectual property theft because of what they allow the members to upload. The outcome of that lawsuit could affect the interpretation of the safe harbor provision for site owners.

http://www.out-law.com/page-7498
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/ip/umgmyspace111706cmp.html

 

Google has a lot of money and other services to offer the big record labels - they could reach an agreement that benefits both parties. Here's a quick thought on this - I normally write a few comments about any video I embed - a kind of review if you like. Reviews are normally regarded as 'fair usage' of copyrighted material meaning you don't require the copyright holder's permission. Is this a handy get out clause?