How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos? About $37 Billion Per Year...

from the copyright-does-not-scale dept

Tue, May 29th 2012 10:00pm — Glyn Moody

Last week we reported that videos were currently being uploaded to YouTube at the rate of 72 hours every minute, and asked how anybody could expect Google to pre-screen such a deluge. Techdirt Insider xenomancer has gone a little further by working out how much it would cost to screen that material for potential copyright infringement, doubtless something the media industries would love to see imposed.

Most of the calculation is straightforward, but there's one key variable: the kind of person who will do the screening. You can't just use random people off the street, or starving artists, or bored software engineers, because the crucial question they must answer is: does too much of this video infringe on somebody's copyright? Only one class of person is qualified to answer that, and hence to take on this job: judges. Or, more specifically: horribly underpaid judges who happen to be extremely efficient at determining the copyright status of each video they watch and choose, of the little free will they have, to consider all video uploaded.
Using the fact that the average pay for a judge in Silicon Valley is apparently $177,454, and that based on the volume of uploads and number of hours in a working day, a mere 199,584 judges would be required as screeners, this gives us the final figure for the cost of checking properly those 72 hours per minute: $36,829,468,840 per year.
Interestingly, Google's revenue for 2011 was $37,905,000,000.

Absurd as this calculation may be, it does reveal the key problem with unthinking calls for YouTube videos to be pre-screened for possible infringement: only suitably-qualified individuals can do that, and eventually you run out of them. In other words, attempts to police rigorously online materials are doomed to fail by the nature of the copyright system itself. Basically, copyright does not scale.

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Filed Under: screening, video
Companies: youtube

133 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2012 @ 10:12pm

That's still a gross underestimate. It gets far worse when you consider that everything is automatically copy'right' upon creation. Someone would have to know the entire collection of infringing material and since copy'right' is opt out and there is no requirement for IP privilege holders to submit any information about their protected works to a centralized database that anyone can reference, it's virtually impossible to identify infringing content. Everyone looking at the content would have to have seen and would need to remember every protected piece of content in existence which is not possible being that they don't, and can't, have access to every protected piece of content ever created (since all content is protected upon creation and not all content has intentionally been made available to the public) and that there probably exists far more hours of protected content than the lifespans of those screening the content for infringement.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- jupiterkansas (profile), 29 May 2012 @ 11:21pm
  
  Re:
  Don't forget the 200 million photos uploaded to Facebook every day. Pretty much every single one of them are under copyright. Looks like Facebook's on the hook for a few billion as well.
  
  But they can make up the difference by suing every single person that uploads an image they can't prove they have permission to upload.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- ChrisH (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 2:55am
  
  Re:
  Excellent point and one that's missed by the article's title. Besides just watching each video, throw in several hours (or months) for researching the copyright owners, if it's even possible to determine. That will push the cost into the trillions. The only sane thing to do is trust the uploaded and wait to see if anyone submits a claim of infringement. One of my fears with solutions like a database is that it will lead to large copyright holders getting better enforcement than the home movie makers. This is probably already happening. One claim of infringement and you might have all your computers confiscated. Need to do work? Sorry. Can you imagine such a thing happening if the tables were turned and a large company was accused of infringing an individual's copyright? I can't.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 9:01am
  
  Re:
  Remember though that the MAFIAA doesn't care about your videos when they call for copyright enforcement. Just theirs. Everyone else can go hang for all they care.
  
  Its the old "freedom of speech for everyone that agrees with me" and "freedom of religion for all the christians and no one else" line of reasoning.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- hurricane head, 31 May 2012 @ 10:42am
  
  Re: absolute nonense
  google's already filtering and pre-screening video content. I have NEVER seen a live link to any kind of porn on youtube, EVER.
  
  so prove to me filtering does not work, just post FIVE active links to porn on youtube and I'll believe you...
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - nasch (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 11:35am
    
    Re: Re: absolute nonense
    so prove to me filtering does not work, just post FIVE active links to porn on youtube and I'll believe you...
    
    Keep reading through the comments and you'll see explanations of the differences between porn and copyright infringement. Amazingly, they are not very similar.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - hurricane head, 31 May 2012 @ 12:16pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: absolute nonense
      actually the only thing lacking is the will to solve the problem. you've proved my point, filtering works.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 3 Jun 2012 @ 9:34pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: absolute nonense
        "actually the only thing lacking is the will to solve the problem. "
        
        What problem? and if there really is a problem then why don't you solve it then? Why should everyone else solve your alleged problems for you?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Monkey (profile), 29 May 2012 @ 10:22pm

They want the service?
Make them pay for it.
Just have Google send the media companies or RIAA/MPAA a bill for services rendered for full screening of uploaded content.
Make sure it's a monthly bill... and, just like any other billing company does, stop the service after the end of the 1st month of non-payment.(If Google wants to be that generous, that is)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- MrWilson, 29 May 2012 @ 10:43pm
  
  Re: They want the service?
  Knowing studio accounting practices, I'd get a non-refundable deposit first if I were Google.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 1:53am
  
  Re: They want the service?
  If that happens, they would pass it on to customers with higher cost of DVDs, CDs, TV subscriptions.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Chargone (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 3:04am
    
    Re: Re: They want the service?
    which would rapidly raise the price to the point where said consumers simply stopped bothering.
    
    issue solved.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - anonymous, 30 May 2012 @ 3:34am
    
    Re: Re: They want the service?
    and if the"entertainment" industry rack up the prices on content , then the "pirates" will me more than justified in what they are doing. nuff said, the "entertainment" industry would choke on its own blood.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - WysiWyg (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 5:00am
    
    Re: Re: They want the service?
    Which would make their companies crash and burn, and we would be rid of them. See, we win anyway!
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 2:09am
  
  Re: They want the service?
  Torrentfreak just posted an article about this..
  
  Should Websites Charge A Fee To Process Copyright Takedowns?
  http://torrentfreak.com/should-websites-charge-a-fee-to-process-copyright-takedowns-1205 28/
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2012 @ 11:30pm

I'm not sure that you'd need judges, but do agree someone in the legal field would need to do it. Even at a third of the price though, $10 billion would be pretty steep. More likely is that we'd see the biggest media companies get free passes, so that they'd have an advantage on the site, while individuals would be forced to undergo a lengthy review process or pay extra fees in order to get their videos uploaded to the site. One thing that this calculation fails to consider is the billions in bogus lawsuits that society would be spared by giving law students and legal professionals something better to do with their time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2012 @ 11:36pm
  
  Re:
  Wouldn't need a judge? How can you judge something under the law without a judge?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 12:24am
    
    Re: Re:
    Especially if seems people in the entertainment industry itself does have difficulty figure out whether they have copyright on the films sometimes.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 12:56am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      You mean it isn't clear who owns the copyright on "Sorcerer"?
      
      You don't say?.jpeg
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 10:48am
        
        "Sorcerer"?
        I, for one, do not know which "Sorcerer" you are talking about.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 9:36am
  
  Re:
  "More likely is that we'd see the biggest media companies get free passes, so that they'd have an advantage on the site"
  
  They already have that, for instance, on Youtube. I guess you haven't been paying attention to Techdirt long enough.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 9:49am
    
    Re: Re:
    (dang it, I can't find the article about the MPAA?? using their privileged Youtube accounts to takedown a video they didn't have permission to remove)
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2012 @ 11:32pm

How do Google screen out porn and child porn from Youtube?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 12:01am
  
  Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 29th, 2012 @ 11:32pm
  i don't know, but at a guess: 1. there is porn on youtube. afterall whats wrong with consenting adults..... 2. people who put up nasty porn may add tags/keywords, for how else can it be found, and google can block it.
  so probably there is a lot of private nasty stuff. but to get a google / youtube account you have to give certain information that could be traced to the uploader - so uploading illegal films may not happen so much??
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Mike Masnick (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 12:21am
  
  Re:
  How do Google screen out porn and child porn from Youtube?
  
  This has been discussed countless times, and yet people always bring it up again and again. It's easy to make a determination on what's porn pretty quickly. You don't need to be a legal expert, and anyone can do the flagging.
  
  Copyright, not so much. You have no idea if the upload was authorized. You have no idea if the upload is fair use or parody or anything else. Those are things that can only be determined by a judge. With porn, there is no equivalent of "fair use" or "authorized vs. unauthorized." You can't let the public flag whether or not something is infringing, because they have no idea of the provenance. So while you can effectively "crowdsource" a porn filter, that's impossible with copyright.
  
  The comparison is apples and oranges.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 4:50am
    
    Re: Re:
    I like oranges, except when the juice squirts into my eye.
    Apples don't do that but they just don't have the zing.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 5:34am
    
    Re: Re:
    Those are things that can only be determined by a judge.
    
    You're not suggesting that a judge's ruling is required to remove infringing content from YouTube? As you know, that's not how DMCA works.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 5:46am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      You're not suggesting that a judge's ruling is required to remove infringing content from YouTube? As you know, that's not how DMCA works.
      
      Just because DMCA is an existing law doesn't mean it is right and isn't terrible. The DMCA takedown process is a tool that doesn't work all too well. Like most free people, Techdirt can criticize existing laws.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 6:00am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        All I'm saying is the suggestion that a judge's ruling is required to remove infringing content is incorrect.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        The eejit (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 9:12am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I think you miossed the point: that porn is pretty much easily identifiable. AS are gore and snuff videos. Infringing a copyright isn't that simple (see also: MegaUpload ad campaign, Jay Leno)
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Mike Masnick (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 10:38am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        All I'm saying is the suggestion that a judge's ruling is required to remove infringing content is incorrect.
        
        No one said you need a judge's ruling to remove content. They said you need a judge's ruling to determine if it's infringing.
        
        I get the sense that you have no problem with massive collateral damage of removing non-infringing works. That's pretty sad.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 11:22am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I get the sense that you have no problem with massive collateral damage of removing non-infringing works. That's pretty sad.
        
        I get the sense that you have no problem with massive collateral damage of infringing works. That's pretty sad.
        
        You're a gigantic buffoon, Masnick. The asshat of the internet.
        
        I hope Google's astro-turf frontages are paying you well, although in my instance, no amount of money would ever be worth sacrificing my reputation.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        RadialSkid (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 11:38am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        At least he's not too much of a buffoon to know where his HTML tags close.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 12:37pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        "no amount of money would ever be worth sacrificing my reputation"
        
        Well, AC, you have to have a reputation to sacrifice in the first place. You clearly do not. Nor, do I figure, have you ever. So there's no worry about being offered money to sacrifice what you have always and will always lack. (I'd add intelligence to that as well.)
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 1:39pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        No amount of money would ever be worth sacrificing your reputation which is why you're here sacrificing your reputation for free right?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 12:22pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        the bottom line is, this is a question of will not capability. all that is required is the will to solve the problem, as the problem itself is not unsolvable.
        
        and, to wit, youtube has done a great job of employing such filtering methods and get's better everyday. so it is a contradiction of those who keep shouting that it can't be done. it can be, and it is... as youtube raises the bar it also raises the bar for everyone else who claims it can't be done.
        
        humans make technology. humans solve problems. humans create laws. humans enforce laws. last time I checked, we are as yet not under the rule of computers and robots who have taken dominion over us...
        
        Ian Rogers "Get's It"...
        http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/01/how-about-this-instead-of-sopa-my-proposal-for-legisl ation-to-proactively-combat-piracy-while-encour-1-1.html
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 2:04pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I don't understand your point? If Youtube is doing a great job then what problem is yet to be solved?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        hurricane head, 31 May 2012 @ 11:42pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        they didn't start by doing a great job, they got leveraged into it... they started with "we can't do anything about this, it's IMPOSSIBLE to manage..." Guess what, with a $1 Billion Court case with Viacom, they started figuring it out!
        
        so again, it's hard to take people seriously that are obviously lying.
        
        It's only a question of will, not a question of capability as YouTube itself is proving...
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        ChrisH, 1 Jun 2012 @ 2:14am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        If the only metric is how many movies are removed, then a technological solution would certainly help. The only thing I see people saying is that when you do it that way you're going to get a lot of false positives (non-infringing clips removed). That's not a lie. If we're just speculating about the future, sure it's possible that you could make a more accurate filter.
        
        I also think Youtube should to treat everyone equally so whatever advanced tools it gives to the major film studios need to be available to the average person.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - That Anonymous Coward (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 6:02am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        In a perfect world where everyone did what they were supposed to the DMCA takedown process would be fine.
        There is supposed to be reasonable effort made to make sure they didn't randomly target things, and penalties if you abuse it.
        
        The problem is in practice the rightholders are getting what they want well outside of the scope of the law. They threaten to sue to get their way, and special treatment that isn't part of the law is demanded and given... and it is never enough.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 6:58am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      You're not suggesting that a judge's ruling is required to remove infringing content from YouTube? As you know, that's not how DMCA works.
      
      That's exactly how the DMCA process works. Only a judge can force a video to be pulled from Youtube. If Google wants to voluntarily remove a video, via ContentID, a DMCA notice, or some other method, that is entirely their choice in the matter. If Google wishes to accept liability that a video is not infringing, they don't have to remove anything when they recieve a DMCA notice.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 7:46am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        ouch, buuuuurn.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 9:40am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        So you are stating that a judge's ruling is NOT required to get infringing content removed from YouTube. Thanks for the affirmation. You are a dope. BTW, how many times has an actual judicial finding been required to have YouTube act?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Dave Xanatos, 30 May 2012 @ 2:19pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        BTW, how many times has an actual judicial finding been required to have YouTube act?
        
        This. A thousand times *this*.
        
        Hundreds and thousands of Youtube video is pulled "voluntarily" from the site every day and there is effectively no judicial oversight on the process. Tens of thousands of fraudulent DMCA notices are sent "under penalty of perjury" with exactly zero penalty.
        
        This is horribly broken. You hit the nail on the head, AC.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 5:55pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Thanks for jumping in and taking the debate in an entirely different direction. The assertion is that only a judge can determine what is infringing. The counterpoint is that infringing material is removed all of the time without a judge. That's all.
        
        Thanks for jumping in to piss and moan about the DMCA. Your friends at Google were key architects of the DMCA and now find it a burden. That's tough.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        ChrisH (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 7:37pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        The DMCA procedure is for the removal of allegedly infringing material. Determining if said material is actually infringing can only be done by a court.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Mike Masnick (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 12:54am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Your friends at Google were key architects of the DMCA and now find it a burden. That's tough.
        
        DMCA voted on and passed in the House: August 4th, 1998
        Google founded: September 14th, 1998
        DMCA passed the Senate: September 17th, 1998
        Signed into law: October 28th, 1998
        
        I grant you that it's possible Sergey and Larry spent the days just prior to starting Google architecting the DMCA, but I doubt it.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Dave Xanatos, 31 May 2012 @ 9:46am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Thanks for jumping in
        You're welcome. You really seemed to be having a hard time getting the point, so I'm glad I could help.
        
        The assertion is that only a judge can determine what is infringing.
        Exactly. Now you get it.
        
        The counterpoint is that infringing material is removed all of the time without a judge.
        Wait. What? How do you know this? Who determined it was infringing? I'm pretty sure only a judge can do that. You said so above. I'm pretty sure a lot of material is removed that is alleged to be infringing. If it ever got to a judge, who knows? I do know that there are a lot of false positives. I don't care how good Google's coders are, they can't and never will replace an actual judge. It's a shame that those darn monopolists are hindering innovation and culture and that the law is written to support that. Don't you agree?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        xenomancer (profile), 1 Jun 2012 @ 8:58am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Beyond the fact that in the end only a judge has the final say on whether or not a work is infringing on a copyright (which I used as a fact based not-so-far-fetched logical extreme), my derivation for what I still consider to be a grossly simplified first approximation is based on the assumption that Google has decided (or was ordered) to settle the question of copyright status of all new content hosted on YouTube.
        I don't care how good Google's coders are, they can't and never will replace an actual judge.
        And this was why I leaped so far to an extreme in my assumptions. The entitlement mentality cultivated by the ability to sever the abstract ownership and rights to a fixed implementation of creative effort is skew to the progressive attitude concomitant to technological progress. Attempting to get the needs of both to intersect requires a warped view of reality or a questionable point of view.
        /badvectorcalculusjoke
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Leigh Beadon (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 8:21am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      You're not suggesting that a judge's ruling is required to remove infringing content from YouTube? As you know, that's not how DMCA works.
      
      You're not suggesting that active filtering is the same thing as notice-and-takedown are you? As you know, that's not how the DMCA works.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 9:40am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        "As you know"
        
        and that's your first mistake, you assume that IP extremists know anything. No matter how much something is repeated over and over they never learn.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Mike Masnick (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 10:33am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      You're not suggesting that a judge's ruling is required to remove infringing content from YouTube? As you know, that's not how DMCA works.
      
      The DMCA allows a copyright holder to alert the service provider that they believe a work is infringing. But that is just part of the process, and DOES NOT confirm that a work is infringing. Only a judge can do that.
      
      And, as others have noted, nothing in the DMCA requires that upon notice you remove a work, and nothing in it means that the work is automatically infringing.
      
      The issue is that if you're asking a third party to determine, without input from the copyright holder, if a work is infringing, you're going to need a judge.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Macka, 31 May 2012 @ 2:01am
    
    Re: Re:
    "So while you can effectively "crowdsource" a porn filter, that's impossible with copyright."
    
    Well, that and the fact that only the copyright owner has the right to make an accusation of copyright theft.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - hurrican head, 31 May 2012 @ 12:15pm
    
    Re: Re:
    but knowing what it is allows for it to be filtered, so employing a master database, rights registry for site like youtube would achieve the same effect.
    
    the bottom line is, this is a question of will not capability. all that is required is the will to solve the problem, as the problem itself is not unsolvable.
    
    and, to wit, youtube has done a great job of employing such methods and get's better everyday. so it is a contradiction of those who keep shouting that it can't be done. it can be, and it is.
    
    humans make technology. humans solve problems. humans create laws. humans enforce laws. last time I checked, we are as yet not under the rule of computers and robots who have taken dominion over us...
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - nasch (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 1:10pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      but knowing what it is allows for it to be filtered, so employing a master database, rights registry for site like youtube would achieve the same effect.
      
      If there were such a master database, and no such thing as fair use, and Google could tell exactly who their uploaders are, that would probably work. But none of those conditions are true.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - hurricane head, 31 May 2012 @ 11:44pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        that's true for TODAY... and fair use doesn't come into the equation really and google does know who the uploaders are...
        
        so it's really not that far off...
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        nasch (profile), 1 Jun 2012 @ 6:17am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        that's true for TODAY...
        
        If you want to speculate about what might happen in the future, go ahead, but you should have some sound reasoning as to why you think something is going to happen if you want to convince anyone.
        
        and fair use doesn't come into the equation really
        
        Oh? Why is that?
        
        and google does know who the uploaders are...
        
        Do they now? If someone from Paramount signed up for a YouTube account and uploaded some Star Trek, Google would be able to tell who that is? How, exactly?
        
        As you said, it's hard to take seriously people who are lying (or just tremendously wrong).
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 5:28am
  
  Re:
  Stop asking difficult questions that challenge the Techdirt meme.
  
  The answer is that they use software that focuses on skin tone and a few other things. Copyrighted motion pictures use watermarks. The goofball claiming that it would cost $37 billion is obviously a former member of the of the anti-SOPA "truth squad" trying to create some new lies that will be packaged as facts by the piracy apologists, freeloaders and sundry parasites.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 6:17am
    
    Re: Re:
    Amazing how out of touch with reality you are.
    Hey idiot, if such a process worked, they would be using it already.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - That One Guy (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 6:57am
    
    Re: Re:
    Marked as funny, as you're either making a joke, or you are one, and in either case people get a laugh.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 10:00am
    
    Re: Re:
    So then you have nothing to complain about, right? According to you, infringing content is blocked and everyone is happy.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 10:03am
    
    Re: Re:
    "The goofball claiming that it would cost $37 billion"
    
    Under the current ContentID system, no. But to pre-screen everything manually would cost far more than $37 billion, which is the point being made. Stop being an idiot and changing the subject. The point of the article isn't to determine the cost of ContentID, the purpose is to determine the cost of pre - screening everything manually and to show that such is infeasible and so shouldn't be a requirement.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - xenomancer (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 11:38am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Shh!!! If you keep handing all that logic out for free you'll ruin the industry!
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - xenomancer (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 11:49am
    
    Re: Re:
    I am pretty goofy, but do I really match the character of a whole ball of goof? Can you cite an authority on this matter? I'd like to know how I can keep this prestigious designation and what committee to lodge complaints with when I get so serious about the little things.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 12:29pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Maybe you can petition the Lord High Piracy Apologist to award you a dorky medal like he got, proclaiming you "Goofball In Perpetuity" with all of the ancient rights and privileges appertaining thereto. If that's too big a reach, I'm sure you're entitled to a "Stooge Of The Day" plaque.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 12:33pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        You are aware Mike has repeatedly stated he is against file sharing (that isn't authorized) and piracy, right?
        
        He's said so in the comments on numerous occasions.
        
        You poor pathetic ACs. Your insults suck and your trolling isn't much better, especially since you can't back up any of your statements with facts. As for "Stooge of the Day", I think it should be "Stooge for Life", and that award was handed to you the day you were born.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        hurricane head, 31 May 2012 @ 12:18pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        citation please!
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 1 Jun 2012 @ 7:45pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Been done multiple times. If you don't see it, it's nobody's problem if your ADHD gets in the way.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- John, 30 May 2012 @ 8:08am
  
  Re:
  I think most people who upload that stuff upload them as unlisted or private videos. I have only seen porn on Youtube once when I was on a message board where someone insisted there was porn on YT. Someone asked them to prove it and they linked to an unlisted video.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 9:56am
  
  Re:
  Google doesn't prescreen (all of) it. They allow the Youtube community to flag something as offensive and then they review it after it has been flagged. Is the system perfect? No, occasionally some offensive content may leak for a short period of time before being flagged and screened.
  
  The same thing applies to infringing content. The content isn't (all) pre-screened, it's flagged as infringing by anyone claiming infringement after being uploaded. Then Google may screen it.
  
  I don't know why this is a question even worth asking.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 2:23pm
  
  Re:
  I'm pretty it's similar to the way their safe search "moderate" and "strict" options works - to hugely oversimplify things, human skin has only a certain range of tones - if a video contains lots of that tone then it quite likely contains a lot of bare human skin. Add a little bit of facial recognition and voil�! A recipe for porn detection is yours.
  
  Copyright however, is a much more abstract concept than nudity. There is no simple algorithm for detecting it.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
drew (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 1:08am

Now the next interesting figure to see would be how much is spent, in total, on anti-piracy "enforcement" and work out how much new content could have been created instead.
Hell, it'll probably even pay for a couple of those $200m movies...
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- Ninja (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 4:15am
  
  Re:
  If you consider they have to maintain and improve the ContentID system, deal with takedown requests for their search engine and deal with copyright disputes I will risk Google spends more on copyright issues than we dare imagine. I wonder why Google and others that suffer with the copyright idiocy don't bring that up. It should be interesting comparing fictional lost sales with very real enforcement costs. And I'm not even talking about taxpayers money spent with this bs.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Ed C., 30 May 2012 @ 8:30am
    
    Re: Re:
    I thought everyone knew that privatizing profits and socializing losses was the gold standard of MAFIAA accounting.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - nasch (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 1:43pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I wonder why Google and others that suffer with the copyright idiocy don't bring that up.
    
    They probably fear it doesn't make them look good in the debate to be whining (or seen as whining) about how much it costs them to deal with copyright issues. It could play into the maximalists' argument: see? Google just wants copyright infringement to be easier and cheaper!
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 2:08am

And this people is how to compute for X using Copyright math.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- xenomancer (profile), 1 Jun 2012 @ 9:02am
  
  Re:
  Remember that day back in middle school when your teacher said showing your work was really really really important?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
That Anonymous Coward (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 4:30am

And the sad thing is the cartels feel that no price to protect their precious copyrighted material is to high, as long as they don't have to pay it.

We have bills right now giving more money for Government Agencies to act as their private police force.
We have a federal lawsuit sitting in the weeds, violating the law, screwing over innocent bystanders, all to make the cartels happy.
We have a young man facing being extradited from his home country to face breaking the laws of a country he never set foot in, while his actions have never been deemed as in violation of his homeland.
We have voiced silenced as websites are seized on the demands of the cartels, who can't backup their claims or be bothered to provide evidence.
We live in a world where a birdsong is flagged as infringing not once but twice, and there is no penalty for the reporter lying.
We have a newspaper facing being censored from being found via a search engine because part of its name matched a motion picture title, and even an 8 yr old could tell you they aren't the same thing.

Copyrights are not worth all of this misery visited on the rest of us to make some corporations "happy". They seek to extract more money from services shown to stem the tide, forcing them to be less useful while bemoaning the situation they put themselves into and making it worse.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 4:48am

So the artists, musicians, studios and labels have to suffer losses of 250 billion dollars because google who benefits greatly from the availability of free stuff online (so many of the top searches have the keywords of free and torrent alongside the titles of copyrighted films, tv, software and music)refuses to spend the $36,829,468,840 (despite having it) necessary to monitor for copyright infringement because if they did they would only make a profit of just over a billion dollars.

That is of course if google paid for all monitoring, but the search engines could easily work together to monitor and removal all infringing material.
The employment of 199,584 judges would help to boost the economy therefore increase ad revenues to google, thereby helping to defray the costs relating to their responsibilities.
Google's motto is don't be evil and if helping to prevent pirates from destroying the various entertainment industries isn't the very epitome of that motto then I don't know what is, while standing by and doing as little as they can possibly get away with to prevent it is in fact being evil.

It's like a city refusing to pay for stop lights and signs claimed to not be being evil because it isn't actively encouraging people to be run down on the street.

A billion is surely plenty for google to make for providing a search engine service and some free email accounts. When they start making major blockbuster films, top albums, complex software and videogames then they can start claiming some right to benefitting from them being made available for free by pirates and linking to those.

As people have pointed out before, if google wanted it could buy at least one major record label, games company, even movie studios but it doesn't and why not?
Because the return on that is a lot less than return achieved from the eyeballs delivered to google by the pirates.

Equally, google could protect the sanctity of marriage by not linking to gay sites like disney and could prevent terrorism by removing links to all sites in foreign languages or hosted outside the US.
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- fairusefriendly (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 5:24am
  
  Re:
  if artist and musicians and studios and labels are losing 250 billion a year as you claim
  
  then would 37 billion a year in cost be a good investment.
  
  Why not pay Google 37 billion to setup such a system and pocket the extra 213 billion.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 5:29am
    
    Re: Re:
    Right, so if someone is complicit in depriving you of your money, you would consider it reasonable to pay them about 15 to 20 % of it for them to stop being complicit?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 5:51am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Right. Google executives and employees are personally stealing pre-released digital movies from studios and uploading them to YouTube. Obviously complicit.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - fairusefriendly (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 6:14am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      if they were complicit in the copyright infringement that action would void the safe harbor provision which means you would have no problem suing them into oblivion.
      
      That fact that Viacom failed proves they are not complicit by the legal definition.
      
      Which comes back to the same point why not just pay 37 billion and pocket the extra 213 billion.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 12:19pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Hi, I'm Vinny from the **AA, and this is my little 'friend' Persuasion (aka large baseball bat)...
      
      I hear that some of your neighbors have had 'problems' with Persuasion, that have resulted in them taking extended vacations in the nearest hospital...
      
      It would be 'terrible' if something like that happened to you, wouldn't it?
      
      For only 10% of your gross revenue, I can 'protect' you from being Persuaded by any other thugs, I mean lobbiests...
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Zangetsu (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 5:36am
    
    Re: Re:
    Why not pay Google 37 billion to setup such a system and pocket the extra 213 billion.
    
    In many respects that is what ContentID is supposed to do. Perhaps Google should be setting up a relationship with the MPAA and RIAA. For every item blocked by ContentID it is considered a "lost sale" that is being recovered. As a result Google obtains a "finders" fee of 10% of the recovered sale.
    
    This finders fee would go towards the creation of new technology to "recover" lost sales for other industries like tourism (all those pictures about Hawaii are stopping people from going to Hawaii) and the restaurant industry (all those pictures about food are stopping people from going to restaurants). There is precedent for this, after all we've told the tobacco industry to post pictures of people who have had bad things happen to them due to smoking.
    
    Congratulations, fairusefriendly, I think you've hit upon a revenue stream that sees no realistic limit.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- fairusefriendly (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 5:31am
  
  Re:
  "Equally, google could protect the sanctity of marriage by not linking to gay sites like disney and could prevent terrorism by removing links to all sites in foreign languages or hosted outside the US."
  
  btw if you were being sarcastic "good one"
  
  you really need to put the sarcasm sign link at the bottom of the post.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- xenomancer (profile), 1 Jun 2012 @ 9:27am
  
  Re:
  It's comments like this that make me look for DarkHelmet's awesome wit.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
vegetaman (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 4:48am

See!
That's 37 billion worth of jobs created by the entertainment industry, don't you see! They're the real job creators!

/sarc
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 4:55am

My favourite argument from the other side is that while cinema takings have increased it's only because they've raised ticket prices so much and that audiences are dwindling (because of piracy, not because of price rises).

The complete lack of awareness that statement demonstrates is so mind blowing that it umm... eh... blew my mind.

"Hello, Mr Tiddles... Do you want some nice fish?"
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bob, 30 May 2012 @ 5:20am

There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
All it takes is for Big Search to turn over the information from the various Big Search cookies to the copyright holders. The search engines relentlessly tracks us whenever we use YouTube or any other site. They could easily help the copyright holders-- if they chose to do so.

But they would rather collect their ill-gotten ad revenue and put up insanely complicated firewalls that require the copyright holders to jump through hoop after hoop. That's the only way to keep the content coming for free.

Then they bamboozle the kids into thinking they're getting away with something by uploading "remixes" which are just music videos created with unlicensed copies of the music mixed with unlicensed photos. If the kids are told this is "cool" and they're not supposed to do it, the kids will frantically do the work for free! Then Big Search's owners can collect their billions. Isn't the digital economy great?!

So no. It won't cost $34b to screen them all. All YouTube needs to do is make it easier for the rightsholder to track the users by releasing the information about the uploader without a fight.

In fact, why not require people to log in and certify that the video is their own creation? Isn't this Internet party all about encouraging the creators who were ignored by the mainstream media? If YouTube would only get people to certify that the videos are their own creation -- and punish the people who lie-- we might actually converge on what the Internet is supposed to be.
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- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 5:27am
  
  Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
  To be fair, if people had to certify that they held copyright on something it would surely be subject to at least the same level of overclaiming that currently happens when rightsholders sent dmca notices.
  
  They certify that they own the copyright under penalty of perjury and still end up claiming that a page on the san francisco chronicle infringes on the movie chronicle despite there being nothing to do with the movie on the page and having no content of anykind that the rightsholder has any claim to.
  If experienced rightsholders can't get it right and aren't punished do you think it is more likely that ordinary people will get it right, or is it just that you would be far more certain that when they got it wrong, they'd be severely punished?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 5:29am
  
  Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just blame Google
  There, fixed your title for you.
  
  Also, in short you want access to everything that a search engine has and essentially no due process as long as it might make things a little harder for you to get something taken down. No dice.
  
  But then again, this is paywall bob, right? Whose definition of an argument is comparing Rebecca Black to the Beatles and rationalising that since she's not as rich as them, the Internet must be a failure (and even getting her song name wrong and calling her an "Internet darling")? We all know you're full of manure.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 5:35am
    
    Re: Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just blame Google
    But I thought we should always blame Canada?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - That One Guy (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 8:14am
      
      Re: Re: Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just blame Google
      Are you kidding me?
      
      I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want mounties crashing through my window, throwing syrup-bottle wielding beavers at my head to stop me from slandering what is certainly a nice, peaceful country, that could never do anything wrong.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 8:42am
      
      Re: Re: Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just blame Google
      Why would bob blame Canada? They already have a blank media paywall put in place. I guess if he blames Canada it's because the paywall isn't high enough.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 5:54am
  
  Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
  First person to whip up a batch of Big Search cookies will be awarded +1,000 internets!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 6:00am
    
    Re: Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
    Here you go.
    
    Now where's my internets?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- ChrisH (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 6:07am
  
  Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
  Why would you want users personal information (I can only wildly guess that's what's meant by "Big Search cookies") when you can just get the content removed with a dmca takedown notice?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- ChrisH (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 6:11am
  
  Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
  In fact, why not require people to log in and certify that the video is their own creation? Isn't this Internet party all about encouraging the creators who were ignored by the mainstream media? If YouTube would only get people to certify that the videos are their own creation -- and punish the people who lie-- we might actually converge on what the Internet is supposed to be.
  
  How is this not exactly what we have now?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Colin, 30 May 2012 @ 6:27am
  
  Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
  In fact, why not require people to log in and certify that the video is their own creation?
  
  So what happens when people click that button, but they don't, in fact, "own" it? Will punishment be enforced? Such a clause isn't being currently enforced for DMCA takedowns, as evidenced by the Chronicle issue. Of course, if it's not a big studio making the claim, I'm sure the perpetrator will be punished swiftly and harshly...
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 6:45am
  
  Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
  Google is coming around. They want and need content and soon content they actually paid for will be more important to their revenue stream. Once that happens, the willfully blind shall see again and there will be a new day in copyright enforcement. That's the one good thing I can say about Google. It's all about the money. Once the money flows from content they own, they'll protect it like Rupert Murdoch was running the show.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Mike Masnick (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 10:43am
    
    Re: Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
    . That's the one good thing I can say about Google. It's all about the money. Once the money flows from content they own, they'll protect it like Rupert Murdoch was running the show.
    
    Weren't you one of the people insisting Google was the driving force behind stopping SOPA? If it's true that they're going to protect their content like crazy, then wouldn't they have wanted that mechanism? Just curious how the world works in this fantasyland you appear to live in.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 10:57am
      
      Re: Re: Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
      Google's business model is evolving. They're taking a far less bellicose tone on copyright protection as they get deeper into discussions with content providers. And yes, Google (in the form of your fellow dopey medal winner Marv Ammori) was the major force behind the insurgency. But as one of his briefcase carriers, you already know that.
      
      And clearly you understand that laws like SOPA compel. Google and others can engage in voluntary activity that will accomplish the same thing.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Bobbo, 30 May 2012 @ 8:11am
  
  Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
  Interesting idea, except turning over all their search metrics/cookie data would essentially be giving away one of Google's major assets for free. All that demographic data in the hands of the entertainment industry would be their wildest dreams come true even without the copyright enforcement part.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Leigh Beadon (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 8:25am
  
  Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
  All it takes is for Big Search to turn over the information from the various Big Search cookies to the copyright holders
  
  The should turn over all your data? Based on what? Accusations from a interested parties that are famous for overclaiming rights and attacking people that didn't break the law?
  
  Tell me that even you, bob, can see the problem with that...
  
  why not require people to log in and certify that the video is their own creation?
  
  I guess because they already do that, and doing it twice wouldn't change anything?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- RD, 30 May 2012 @ 12:37pm
  
  Re: There's no need to prescreen-- just give us good enforcement mechanisms
  "But they would rather collect their ill-gotten ad revenue and put up insanely complicated firewalls that require the copyright holders to jump through hoop after hoop. That's the only way to keep the content coming for free."
  
  Oh yes, the hoops required by law by the DMCA, the law that YOUR INDUSTRY pushed congress for and got enacted against the wishes of the public and everyone except hollywood. Sorry, you reap what you sow.
  
  Getting really sick of you and your distorted lies like this. This sort of "tell a big enough lie often enough" is how Hitler and the Nazi's got started. (Godwins Law alert!)
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 7:50am

First off, let's be clear here: if this sort of "wild" number came from the RIAA types, you would be mocking them up and down the road. Let's try to play fairly.

Second, The issue of cost to YouTube could be resolved very easily by doing one very simple thing: Only allowing approved accounts to upload.

Youtube's problem is in the fact that it allows anonymous uploading (you get a disposible email and bobs your uncle), which means that the uploaders feel no compulsion to even try to be legal. Also,

Thirdly, that number would suggest that the videos were watch end to end, slowly and carefully. Unless you are going for an absolute 100% level of accuracy, it would be much easier to skip through the video, checking out the music used, the video source, etc. I doubt that a 10 minute video would require someone to watch all 10 minutes of it.

Seem that the number is bullshit, and seems like an attempt to ass cover for the impending storm... yes, SOPA like laws will get passed, perhaps not all in one place, but they will happen and YouTube / Google will find themselves on the hook.
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- Some guy, 30 May 2012 @ 8:11am
  
  Re:
  My dear ... The small problem is this issue that record labels have made it clear that ANYTHING is "owned" by them. Even the video that yourself did of your child walking, or birds singing in the backyard of your home. I'd like to believe that you understand where I'm getting at.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Leigh Beadon (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 8:28am
  
  Re:
  Thirdly, that number would suggest that the videos were watch end to end, slowly and carefully. Unless you are going for an absolute 100% level of accuracy, it would be much easier to skip through the video, checking out the music used, the video source, etc. I doubt that a 10 minute video would require someone to watch all 10 minutes of it.
  
  Wow. I'm glad you're not a judge!
  
  "Ehhh whatevs, I get the idea - let's move on to sentencing."
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 12:18pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Damn, you are an ass dude.
    
    Why does it have anything to with being a judge? Are you daft?
    
    The idea is to pre-screen and get rid of the obviously offending material, to cut down on what is out there. Reviewing the videos for content should be part of the game. They are publishing the stuff, shouldn't they be somewhat responsible?
    
    If the business model doesn't work when you are responsibly, perhaps the business model is broken?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - ChrisH (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 7:26pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      The point is there is no such thing as "obviously offending material". I'm assuming you and some others are thinking that if it looks like a Hollywood movie then it's infringing, otherwise it's not. However you need to account for cases where the account owner was authorized to upload the film clip by the studio. Conversely, how do you know that a home movie was actually uploaded by it's copyright holder and hasn't been illegally copied?
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Mike Masnick (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 12:47am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      The idea is to pre-screen and get rid of the obviously offending material,
      
      There is no such thing as "obviously" offending material. You have no idea if it was uploaded with authorization or not.
      
      They are publishing the stuff, shouldn't they be somewhat responsible?
      
      No, they are hosting it. Publishing requires proactive decision making. That's kind the crux of the whole issue.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 1:11am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        "There is no such thing as "obviously" offending material. You have no idea if it was uploaded with authorization or not"
        
        Umm, the work is copyright. Was it the copyright holder uploading it, yes or no?
        
        If your answer is anything other than CERTAINLY YES, then you don't put it online until you know.
        
        Generally, few people have the rights to distribute content legally. A music video? I know who has the rights. Songs from a band's album with "lyrics added" by Paul92838393, I am pretty sure he doesn't have the rights. It's not hard.
        
        It's only hard if you try really hard to make it so.
        
        "No, they are hosting it. Publishing requires proactive decision making. That's kind the crux of the whole issue."
        
        Actually, in naked hosting, there would a URL to see the file, and nothing more. That Youtube indexes content, displays it on pre-made pages, surrounds it with advertising, and so on is something much more than just hosting.
        
        let me ask you: Does your hosting company take your posts and put them inside it's own format, putting it's own ads, and showing related or popular posts that it feels users would enjoy? Do they sort and index your content for easy user viewing? Do they allow people to embed your posts?
        
        Nope. They are a hosting company. Youtube is a publishing organisation, sourcing it's content from users for free. Would you consider a magazine that used only user submitted articles to be a publication? What if it was available online too? What if it was only online? Why would you feel there is a difference, if the intent is the same?
        
        Remember: File locker sites lost their popularity as soon as people couldn't "share" their files with others. It shows that those site's business models were not based on hosting or storage, but purely on distribution. Youtube is the same, it's not based on hosting, it's based on distribution.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Mike Masnick (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 2:24am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Generally, few people have the rights to distribute content legally. A music video? I know who has the rights. Songs from a band's album with "lyrics added" by Paul92838393, I am pretty sure he doesn't have the rights. It's not hard.
        
        Heh. Did you see how Viacom uploaded videos *legally* under names just like that?
        
        Yeah. That's the point.
        
        Nope. They are a hosting company. Youtube is a publishing organisation, sourcing it's content from users for free. Would you consider a magazine that used only user submitted articles to be a publication? What if it was available online too? What if it was only online? Why would you feel there is a difference, if the intent is the same?
        
        Oh, I see. You don't understand shit about the internet. I'm done with this conversation.
        
        I didn't realize who you are. Now I know. Too bad, I thought you'd finally lived up to your promise to leave the site.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        ChrisH (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 9:15am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Umm, the work is copyright. Was it the copyright holder uploading it, yes or no?
        
        If your answer is anything other than CERTAINLY YES, then you don't put it online until you know.
        
        Sure, but the question you're asking is obviously a question for the Youtube account holder since they are in a much better position to make this call. Youtube the company has no way to know if the person uploading is the copyright holder or was otherwise authorized by the copyright holder. Youtube handles this the way you would expect them to. They tell you in the terms of service not to upload without authorization. If you choose to ignore this rule, Youtube could cancel your account or even go after you for breach of contract. I don't know what else you can reasonably expect them to do.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        ChrisH (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 9:38am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Generally, few people have the rights to distribute content legally. A music video? I know who has the rights. Songs from a band's album with "lyrics added" by Paul92838393, I am pretty sure he doesn't have the rights. It's not hard.
        
        Actually, on a site designed for home-made videos, I bet a heck of a lot of people have rights to distribute content. With the music video example, how do you know the video wasn't released under creative commons or the public domain. If you determine such-and-such studio is the copyright holder, how do you know who their authorized agents are, any of whom might have legally uploaded the video? We haven't even talked about fair-use which even allows for whole copying of the work in some cases.
        
        Actually, in naked hosting, there would a URL to see the file, and nothing more. That Youtube indexes content, displays it on pre-made pages, surrounds it with advertising, and so on is something much more than just hosting.
        
        A lot of CMS do the same thing. This isn't the 90's where every web page is a static file. There's databases which automatically index content. That the CMS and page theme have already been chosen simply reflects the fact that this is a video hosting service, not a straight web-hosting one. The difference is with a hosting company (Youtube), everything that's done with the content is completely automated and evenly applied whereas a publisher is looking at each work and making creative decisions about how to handle them.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 10:25pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      >The idea is to pre-screen and get rid of the obviously offending material
      
      >Umm, the work is copyright. Was it the copyright holder uploading it, yes or no?
      If your answer is anything other than CERTAINLY YES, then you don't put it online until you know.
      
      If it was so obviously offending Viacom wouldn't have demanded a takedown of content they uploaded themselves. The answer in this case was CERTAINLY YES, and look what happened.
      
      If even the original rightsholder doesn't even have a handle on their own content why the fuck should the hosting service know better?
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- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 8:38am
  
  Re:
  Thirdly, that number would suggest that the videos were watch end to end, slowly and carefully. Unless you are going for an absolute 100% level of accuracy, it would be much easier to skip through the video, checking out the music used, the video source, etc. I doubt that a 10 minute video would require someone to watch all 10 minutes of it.
  
  um... yeah they would have to watch the entire video. How else would they find that 10 second snippet of their copyright protected content playing in the background of that video on how to style your daughter's hair? c'mon!
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- RadialSkid (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 11:43am
  
  Re:
  Only allowing approved accounts to upload.
  
  And how, precisely, would said account be approved?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 3:21pm
    
    Re: Re:
    **AA members
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- xenomancer (profile), 1 Jun 2012 @ 9:22am
  
  Re:
  Thirdly, that number would suggest that the videos were watch end to end, slowly and carefully.
  ... going for an absolute 100% level of accuracy ...
  Two assumptions I thought I was pretty clear on when I wrote the derivation out.
  ... the number is bullshit ...
  True of the specific number, but the magnitude is probably pretty close to reality. Bear in mind that I left out jurisdictions and the contents of the comments on the videos. You can tack on three more zeros for jurisdictions alone.
  ... seems like an attempt to ass cover for the impending storm ...
  It was just a thought experiment. I have no more stake in this than any other ordinary netizen. I went through the motions since I had a spare five minutes and it turned out to be a humorously large number. The thing to take away from it is the issue of scalability. Regardless of the cost issue, there simply are not enough people deemed qualified by the current legal framework for a final say on the matter of whether or not a work infringes on a copyright to properly assess the general content of the internet, let alone just YouTube. It is simply not feasible to make that determination with legal certainty prior to making that content available.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 8:13am

Horse Hockey
What total hack job. 99.99% of filtering could be done by computers automatically. You'd just need humans for 0.001% of the content, lowering the human cost from $37 billion to $37 million, a very affordable number. The compute cost might still be tens of millions more, but that's still a drop in the bucket.

If each uploaded video were automatically mirrored to servers owned by content owners (these servers could be located near to youtube's servers to save bandwidth costs), then the content owner's servers could automatically scan each video to see if frames or audio closely match their content. An automatic algorithm with tunable heuristics could determine the percentage of possible infringement. Anything that exceeds the threshold gets flagged and reviewed. Since content owners would provide their own servers, they could control what stuff they want to police.

You guys are naive.
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- Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2012 @ 9:13am
  
  Re: Horse Hockey
  That is assuming that its the content that is infringing, and not the user. An upload is infringing if the user did not have permission to upload it, and that has nothing to do with what the content is, or how closely it is related to another persons work.
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- Ed C., 30 May 2012 @ 9:25am
  
  Re: Horse Hockey
  Naive? If you even had 0.001% of a clue how any this technology worked, you would know just how laughable your suggestions are. 99.99% accuracy? I doubt your inflated statistic accounts for false positives. And just how many servers do you think Google owns? 50? 100? 1000? The estimate is over 1,000,000. Your ingenious plan would not only require buying adjacent property to build a climate controlled warehouse to store all of those mirroring servers, but a trunk of fiber just to feed them. The bandwidth required would certainly impact the performance of Google's services. And I suppose you expect Google pay for all of this too?
  
  No, the media industry's copyrights do NOT entitle them to private copies of videos copyrighted by individuals and other companies. In fact, Google would be liable if they were to allow such mass infringement of their users' copyrights. If you turn your argument around, it would be demanding that everyone should be entitled to a private copy of every movie that Hollywood has made, just to be sure that their copyrights hasn't been infringed upon. It would only be fair, right?
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- fairusefriendly (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 11:26am
  
  Re: Horse Hockey
  would you still support the system if the result of a false positive was the loss of every copyright held by the accusing copyright holder.
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Gerald Robinson (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 9:26am

Screen youtube video
Anonymous Coward has nailed it. Under current copyright law it is impossible; as there is no way to know what is copyrighted nor not without a trial!! This is particularly true of photographs.

An obvious way out is to only screen for registered material, only allow OWNERS of registered coyrights to file for take downs and not allow photos to be screened or taken down.
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Insightful, 30 May 2012 @ 7:02pm

It isnt necessary that all 72hrs be audited. Watching a few minutes can be enough to figure out if the video is a studio released movie or not. That would make it lot more cheaper. For every 10 minutes of video 1 minute review would suffice.
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- ChrisH (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 7:18pm
  
  Re:
  How does whether or not it's a studio released movie have any bearing on it's infringement status?
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- nasch (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 8:03pm
  
  Re:
  For every 10 minutes of video 1 minute review would suffice.
  
  So they would need only 20,000 full time judges at $3.6 billion (at minimum) per year. This seems OK to you?
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- Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 10:28pm
  
  Re:
  For every 10 dollars you demand in statutory fees, 1 dollar would suffice.
  
  For every 10 laws you pass, 1 law would suffice.
  
  For every amount of enforcement you demand, a tenth of that enforcement would suffice.
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- Anonymous Coward, 3 Jun 2012 @ 9:48pm
  
  Re:
  and how would they know what's infringing vs what's not. By magic? Why should everyone else hold the burden of enforcing the copy protection privileges of IP holders.
  
  at least you seem acknowledge that requiring every video be fully screened and researched shouldn't be a requirement. That's a step in the right direction.
  
  and your post is hardly insightful. You are likely not disciplined and knowledgeable enough (since knowledge requires discipline and IP extremists are too lazy to even click through links) to provide technocrats far superior than you, intellectually, with much insight. That you would even think calling yourself 'insightful' will be viewed as anything but retarded by others shows how retarded you are. You can't simply assert the insightfulness of your own comments or your own insightfulness, that must be earned and is best evaluated by others, not you. That you seem to lack this basic understanding makes you look silly.
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Dave, 4 Jun 2012 @ 11:08pm

Massive overestimate
This estimate is massively flawed - 95% or more of the videos need minimal screening by lesser skilled viewers - and only a small amount of the material needs to be forwarded up to skilled decision makers.

Screening material is no "rocket science" development - but it might cut into company profits. very sad for that but necessary.
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- nasch (profile), 5 Jun 2012 @ 7:49am
  
  Re: Massive overestimate
  This estimate is massively flawed - 95% or more of the videos need minimal screening by lesser skilled viewers
  
  Even if that number you pulled straight from your butt is close to correct, the other 5% will take far longer to research than just watching it. Many, many times longer. So the cost could perhaps be less than indicated, but it would be billions of dollars a year in any case, and growing.
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