YouTube.. Whats Up With Them?

YouTube has tons of content, and the stuff on their site infringes numerous copyrights and trademarks. there are even some shows which you can watch in their entirty uploaded by YouTube directors (who really dont even own the show) I was wondering, Why don't they ever get in trouble? They are one of the most popular sites in the world. Having all the stuff they have should be bringing mega lawsuits

 

I would say they have a loophole in the fact that it is user submitted? I doubt a "director" of youtube could really get away with uploading whole TV shows?

 

Google is the same if you look for the right things but I wonder if Google removes content when they find it

Youtube is really bad for it though.

 

Because it is better to be friends with them then enemies and big companies know that.. legions of geeks and bloggers will attack the company that sues them! Just look at what happened to poor Mr.TubeS - Ted Stevens after his remarks that the internet is a series of tubes...

 

I presume its a similar loophole which means P2P programs such as LimeWire aren't closed down, all youtube is doing is providing a means for the people to view it.

 

No, I'm pretty sure they host the material.

 

yeah Youtube hosts all their files (think of the amount of bandwidth they use. there the 16th most popular site in the world)

files from the P2P programs are on the users computers.

youtube is not even a year old. is it possible the big companies are waiting for them to grow even more before they make their move? i mean youtube uses banner networks like us - from google, yahoo, tribalfusion, ect right now they dont have advertisers of their own... i.e. Verizon or Sony don't come to them, they go to google who than shows ads on youtube so youtube is not getting the full verizon or sony advertising dollars spent.

 

I would think the company would just send a message to them and require that they remove the infringing media and as long as they comply nothing would happen. I guess it comes down to if youtube is responsible for their users. And since youtube isnt set up explicitly for sharing copyrighted works like many torrent sites (I realize the torrents arent illegal but 99% of ppl use them to share copyrighted material) that they wont face any legal action. And Im sure they have the $$ to hire nice lawyers

 

There is so much copyright infringing material on it, google video seems to deal with it far better than youtube does.

 

Well, the thing is that users submit all kinds of videos and YouTube isn't focused explicitly on broadcasting copyrighted material, and they comply with the lawyers' requests as soon as they get them, so they're kinda covered, legally speaking.

I think it's a real mess, it's one of the biggest holes in copyright law these days. The whole world can watch copyrighted videos (and even save them, using services like KeepVid.com) before the lawyers wake up, and everything is fine at the bottom line.

I'm positive the big studios and other copyright holders will take some major actions to solve this awkward situation, soon. We'll have to wait and see...

 

They do get the odd legal request, for example alot of BBC's Top Gear has been taken down from the site.

 

People from tv companys are gettin annoyed and are writing in.

 

They used to be really strict on family guy stuff. They always deleted that kind of content, but lately they've been allowing stuff.

Skinny

 

Their loop hole is that the users submit the content thus it's their responsibility.