Very, very little of what is available on YouTube is considered public domain. You'd have to go many decades back to find things available in the public domain. And besides, that law does not consider public domain stuff as copyrighted video film because... for a video film to enter public domain in the first place, it has to lose its copyright.
The real issue with controlling this sort of content is that YouTube (and parent company Google) would have to voluntarily fold to the pressure--and in the process, lose a very, very, very large portion of their overall video library.
The language in United States federal law is not specific enough to deal with this type of video uploading in any sort of criminal matter. All admissibility on these counts is objectionable under several articles, and the current law only especially makes federal prosecutors able to prosecute those who duplicate copyritten material with malicious intent (defame, profit from unlawfully, etc). While it's easy to have a video pulled by a parent company, the rest infringes on any number of freedom of communication laws. Anything else is simply to incite fear in average users from committing "infringement," but as has been ruled abroad, that argument is extremely weak and why it rarely comes up in this country.
Copyright laws were put in place not to punish low-level users but instead to offer an administrative and exclusive control over the originator's creations with concern to monetary and intellectual gain. Civil and criminal lawsuits, no matter how numerous, still won't change the fact that, as it is written now, a low-level user simply isn't guilty of what they want them to be. Instead, these laws are meant to protect ideas at a higher level--from other corporations, authors, companies, etc. Of course, there are loopholes that they've continued to exploit in order to discourage this sort of behavior, but there's just no system in place to deal with it right now. Those that can be prosecuted and blamed for it are those that upload entire films and music albums (but not TV shows, because if they air on a public medium--ala broadcast television--it's hard to raise a burden of proof/prove a chain of custody over the content over all affected regions given that the broadcast companies are not actually making money per viewer as a film/music company would). Things that are on a per-purchase situation are very accountable with laws as they are now, but the scene groups are very, very difficult to track (insert here where we talk about P2P, the legality, etc--so tired of this topic ).
And all of that is just for the US. Sure, they could continue to flag every video with region settings, but if that happens, YouTube won't matter. Another site will be made elsewhere, and if that goes down, up comes another. And another, and another. Until there's a governmental crackdown on each and every ISP in entire countries (ala China), they'll never be able to truly inhibit sharing on the internet. Fortunately for us, there are a limitless laws protecting private companies and corporations from this sort of government overhead. While it isn't impossible for the current laws to change, there would be so much lobbying on the part of said companies that the government would be forced to back down in the end. Like a number of other governmental initiatives along these lines, they would go in circles for ages until the bill ultimately amounted to nothing significant whatsoever.
In short, at least in the case of the US: Unless the government takes full control of the internet, you'll always be able to do illegal things.
Besides, the important thing here is that YouTube is very, very healthy for the entertainment industry. How many times have you gone there just to look up a certain song, even? Music videos that have been aired publicly should never be pulled, but they are, sadly enough. I can understand keeping films and even TV shows off of YouTube, but--to me--I think everything else within reason should be perfectly fine.
Spoiler:
(Yesh, I have a law background. Not in this field, but I can at least provide some insight of some sort. Youtube 4 lyfe!? )
Last edited by Jd- on November 19th, 2009, 11:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
sstimson wrote:
So Jd the Lawyer What is your view of FAIR USE? Could some the the AMV fall in that grey area?
I think they definitely do in most cases. This depends on how proactive the representing firms and retained legal teams are, though. For instance, if you are deviating from what the source material was to a significant degree, one can claim the use is thereby not subject to copyright laws. It would be different if you're just condensing an episode or something, but if you're just clipping out bits here and there from a wide range of the source material, it's very likely going to be fair use more often than not.
The thing is, there's a difference from fair use in legal terms and what YouTube's ever-changeable Terms of Use says. What you could host on your own personal site differs greatly from what YouTube itself allows. So while you could post one AMV on a personal site, posting it on YouTube could get it taken down for a "copyright claim" that is really just a broad targeting of Google (their parent company)/YouTube and not you personally. When they do that, they're just saying that YouTube itself--as a corporate entity--does not have a license to allow that material to be viewed on their commercially-motivated site, and since YouTube does profit from virtually every facet of their site... It's more or less a fair motion in most conceivable scenarios.
Basically, I'm saying that if you use material you do not explicitly own on a commercial site ala YouTube, it's always subject to being taken down. Warner Music had a huge battle with YouTube, as many of you have probably come across now on any number of videos, and all of that fits right into this. The argument is as simple as one corporate rightsholder (whoever it may be) telling YouTube (a corporate entity) that they do not have the rights to allow viewing on their site, and unless YouTube wants to take it to court and risk a huge settlement on behalf of one lowly user of their millions, it's going to come down.
Even if they make it illegal (which they can't), people would still upload. There is no controlling the internet. Also, I think Anonymous would take this as a further offence to free speech as they did on Australia and initiate a trollfest, and for once I think i'd be with them.
mangaluva wrote:
Even if they make it illegal (which they can't), people would still upload. There is no controlling the internet. Also, I think Anonymous would take this as a further offence to free speech as they did on Australia and initiate a trollfest, and for once I think i'd be with them.
ah, yeah. I'd do that. :3
And oh, my ma says that if it DOES become a law, I can NOT watch any more Youtube!!!!