Mark Cuban's Wrong: Porn Filtering On YouTube Doesn't Mean It Loses Safe Harbors
from the porn-ain't-copyright-infringement dept
Mark Cuban has a weird obsession with trying to convince people that YouTube is illegal, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. His latest discussion on the topic is a real stretch. In response to the bad ruling that gives YouTube log files to Viacom, Cuban is saying that Viacom can now wipe out Google's DMCA safe harbors by showing that the company filters porn.This is simply incorrect. The DMCA safe harbors do not claim that if you filter any material you must filter it all. Filtering out porn is a different beast than filtering out infringing content. You can tell that porn is porn simply by looking at it. But you cannot tell if content is infringing just by looking at it. It could be put up there on purpose by those who own the copyright. It could be fair use. It's not as simple as just saying that because YouTube removes porn it loses its safe harbor provisions. Also, while not specifically concerning the DMCA, other lawsuits involving the similar safe harbors in the CDA have found that intervening with content on a site does not mean that the safe harbors go away. Having knowledge that some content is porn is quite different than having knowledge of what content is infringing on someone's copyright.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: cda, dmca, filtering, mark cuban, safe harbor
Companies: google, viacom, youtube
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
But you can't just tell by looking.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Or were you off on a wild tangent, musing on the whole "I know it when I see it" definition of porn, completely disconnected from the article at hand? If so, the concept you're missing is called "context" -- just because a scene is pornographic doesn't mean the movie containing the scene is. Likewise in that a porn flick that has a scene with fully clothed people doesn't instantly become not-porn.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
As far as the context argument goes, it's really more, "I know it when I don't see it." YouTube would have a strong tendency toward making porn out of art.
I can sort of see where there's significant detail and the implication of a broader relevant story even within a truncated clip. However, the effect for the porn-consumer watching this truncated art is just that it's much easier to suspend reality and get more realistic kicks.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Second, if you're going to dish out grammatical advice at least make yourself seem less a fool on such issues by capitalizing your own damn sentence.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: umm..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: umm..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Filtering infringing content is less of a value judgement than filtering porn
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
pfffft
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Streetball
I like Hulu a lot, and it keeps getting better. I don't-even-notice-so-as-to-be-able-to-ignore Cuban's antics.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Are we to believe that Mark is an expert on Internet video because he sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo? What an valuable acquisition that worked out to be for Yahoo.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Strike like.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mark Cuban's wrong because he's wrong
It's not so hard to learn correct use of the apostrophe, is it?
Its use is determined by its context (note that the apostrophe is NOT used in the possessive form of "it").
eg
My grandfather's dead - my grandfather is dead - he'd better be because we buried him yesterday.
My grandfather's cat's dead - the cat of my grandfather is dead - we put him in the coffin with my grandfather so he's ("he has") probably suffocated by now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mark Cuban's wrong because he's wrong
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The Accidental Billionaire
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
He Is An Anus
What comes out of his mouth is the same stuff humans flush down the toilet everyday.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mark Cuban has an axe to grind
I think ultimately he's highly jealous of youtube - his 'broadcast.com' got bought for big bucks, but it was a total waste of money on Yahoo's part. The site doesn't exist, it's brand went nowhere and was ultimately a real failure, despite the huge cashout that for some reason makes Mark Cuban a "learned commentator".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I know it when I see it...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Happens every 90 days
As evidenced by this idea, it looks like Mark Cuban ran out of A.D.D. meds again.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
YouTube Robot allows you to search for videos using keywords or browse video by category, author, channel, language, tags, etc. When you find something noteworthy, you can preview the video right in YouTube Robot and then download it onto the hard disk drive. The speed, at which you will be downloading, is very high: up to 5 times faster than other software when you download a single file and up to 4 times faster when you download multiple files at a time.
Manual download is not the only option with YouTube Robot. You may as well schedule the download and conversion tasks to be executed automatically, even when you are not around. Downloading is followed by conversion to the format of your choice and uploading videos to a mobile device (if needed). For example, you can plug in iPod, select the video, go to bed, and when you wake up next morning, your iPod will be ready to play new YouTube videos.
Product page: http://www.youtuberobot.com
Direct download link: http://www.youtuberobot.com/download/utuberobot.exe
web-site: http://www.youtuberobot.com
E-mail: support@youtuberobot.com
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Baseball
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
nothing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]