Need your opinion on this. I know that movie trailers are copyrighted material, and it would be illegal to play/host this material on my website/server without permission from the copyright holders. Here is the questions: How high do you think are the risks to being sued or whatever, if I would do it anyways? I mean, there are many sites out there with real illegal stuff, like playing full movies, warez forums ect... Would they really focus on a site which just plays the trailers (which is kind of promotionial for the movies, because thery were made for it)? ps.: I don't want to hear about paragraphs or lawyer-stuff! Just your opinion about how high the risks are in reallity. thnx, for your opinion and sorry for my terrible English!
I think the risks get higher everyday, but for the most part I think studios would be much more likely to request that you remove them rather than sart by suing you. Paramount recently requested that YouTube remove copies of the Cloverfield trailer. Whether this is signaling a new direction in lawsuits for studios or they were just trying to get more space in the newspapers I don't know. So I would say low risk for a lawsuit at this point. Why not just link to the trailers on the studios' sites?
hmmm, i think i will just go through with it. Linking to studio's sites would destroy my whole layout and concept. I think the risk is very low, due my site is not very big, and i think they would rather go to the big-guys. But I would like to hear some more opinions!
I agree that at this point and time the risk is low that they would come after you. I also think the risk is low that if they did come after you they would start with a method that would cost you a lot of legal fees. I think they would start with a simple request to remove the material and as long as you did so they would be fine. Just remember, even if the risk is low the potential cost is huge.
Movie trailers are promotional. One way to avoid heat from the Studios is to truly use them to promote the film.. so you can have some sort of buy options, perhaps a link to a related product page on Amazon? Or a link to buy tickets if you are displaying a Theatrical Trailer?... there are many loop holes. The thing to watch out for is unlicensed music that maybe contained within the trailer but this is a rare thing.