"In no way is that feasible in terms of cost. It also ignores how many people will upload videos without any form of copyright notice or even a description, which makes determining whether a video is infringing upon someone’s copyright a matter of supernatural clairvoyance."
I think you failed at reading. Someone posting a video specifically has the copyright on it (unless they pirated someone else's stuff, different problem). Unless they specify CC0, IT'S COPYRIGHT. You don't need to be clairvoyant, you just need to check for CC0 or not in the description. It's really not hard.
"…and we’re back. The answer is: Nobody! Night of the Living Dead is a public domain film"
Yup, and someone posting it would put "PUBLIC DOMAIN" in the description and no problems. Without it, nobody (including YouTube) knows.
Reality here: YouTube is turning a blind eye to copyright and playing the DMCA card. A duplication service reselling (in one form or another) ripped audio is taking a huge legal risk as a result.
"How could the service possibly distinguish between copyrighted material posted without a notice of copyright,"
no notice, assume it's copyright - that's how copyright works.
They actually do have control. They could quite simply look at the copyright statement and only allow ripping of those marked with a CC license or similar.
"None of them know, with the certainty of God, whether a video I save through that service infringes upon anyone’s copyright in any way. How does that jive with your logic?"
It's very difficult, yet incredibly simple when you take a moment to think: it's all copyright to somebody, and the ripping site doesn't have any specific rights to reproduce any of them for you. Do they have a license? Nope. The only ones they have clear rights to reproduce would have a CC0 license. Everything else is questionable and likely illegal.
They could choose to only reproduce stuff that clearly is marked CC0. They have a choice.
You are trying to build a case that doesn't make sense. If you have a website and you take your own pictures and post your own comments, there is no issue. Any website under the same situation has no problems. Use open source material, images, what have you? No problems. Use CC stuff with attribution (or whatever the requirement is of the CC license) no problems.
If your website exists solely to publish the works of others and profit them them, too f--ing bad, you are a leech.
Hosting companies (ie companies that provide servers / domain hosting) are passive providers of service. They aren't involved in the content of a site, they aren't publishers, they don't process, handle, manipulate, or present the content in any way. That is up to you, oh webmaster!
This ripping service is an active service. They actively do something for you and present you a finished product. They have the ability to choose what material they will work with. They are in control, they can decide how to use it. They could easily (as an example) check the page for a copyright notice and decline to copy anything with a notice on it. That might shift the legal burden to YouTube, who would likely ban them rather than deal with the implications.
Now, same service, but done instead as software or as a stand alone box you could buy a bring home might be a different legal story. You would be in control and the company would have no control over how you used it.
So good try, but the difference between passive and active services is pretty important.
Simpler example: Flea marker guy selling DVD burners is legal. Flea market guy banging out pirated copies of movies on the DVD burner and selling them, illegal. Simple, really - it's all a question of who does the work.
I think it comes down to the basic problem that if the service provider can't find a way to operate within the law, then you have to shut the entire service unless they can find a way to do it legally.
Youtube would have little interest in helping out considering that they themselves have a huge problem with people posting copyright stuff under the "standard Youtube license" which would be a false statement. Youtube cannot permit anything to base their business on those license terms, because YouTube themselves know that many of them are not telling the truth, and YT has little interest in policing it.
So the ripping service won't be able to get valid data, so they have no way to know if something is copyright or not. Since (by legal definition) almost everything on YouTube is subject to some sort of copyright, it's almost impossible for them to operate legally. In fact, I bet you that the "legal uses" are so exceptional, as to be negligible!
I think it's important to understand what Mike said. He specifically talked about equipment, which is to suggest things like a DVR / VCR or CD burner. It's a device that you can buy that can make pirated copies, but has significant other non-infringing uses.
On the other hand, you can't go to the local flea market and legally buy pirated DVDs (well, you probably can buy them, but it's not legal). The difference is that it is a service and not a neutral device.
A Youtube ripper is a service. You tell them what to rip, they rip it for you, and sell it / give it to you (and even when free, they generally bombard you with ads to pay for the service). It's a service, no different from the flea market guy using the legal device (DVD burner) to burn you a copy of a movie (or copying it onto a USB key).
Essentially, you don't rip the youtube stream, the site does it for you - service, not product. Mike was very careful not to mention services.
I am not ignorant at all. Rather, I think you need to read more closely.
Copying EQUIPMENT may be legal (although there is some debate when it comes to DVD ripping software, as an example). However, this is not the sale of equipment, rather it's providing a service.
Websites are not equipment, they are services. They profit from providing a service. Selling the software might even be questionable (see DVD ripper issues).
So no, I am not ignorant - I just don't think that a website is equipment.
The "many non-infringing uses" stuff makes me laugh.
Plenty of things have not illegal uses, but we still outlaw or regulate them. It's the nature of the game.
For what it's worth, it's the same (insanely lame) argument that guns nuts use to justify having an AK=47 slung over their shoulders while they shopping in the local supermarket.
Congrats, you are on the same side as those wingnuts.
Google has become the "low hanging fruit" company when it comes to new business ideas. They generally start up well, often "big", and then as soon as they hit anything that suggests a headwind, they first ignore the project and the drop it.
It's why they tended to call everything "beta". It gives them an out on everything.
Google also doesn't do customer service very well. Having to deal with customers (aka, people, not machines) is not their strong suit.
Finally, it comes down to the numbers. Being an ISP is expensive, and installing service once it gets a little more difficult can get pricey. The income and the "extra" value of getting people to Google products didn't seem to add up to much. While they don't break Google Fiber out individually in their financial reports, we do know that their "moonshot" businesses absolutely lost their collective asses, year on year. Had Fiber been a big financial winner, you can be sure they would be crowing about it. Losing their asses on something that will take a decade or more to start to pay out is NOT the Google way.
I have said it before, and I will say it again: If Google can;t stomach the costs of becoming an ISP, I can't imagine too many other companies lining up to get there.
I think someone finally explained to the lame asses at PETA that the judgement was leading to the image going into the public domain and having absolutely no commercial value.
PETA is essentially a fund raising machine. They need to raise funds to continue. 25% of potential income (for one of their causes) is way better than 100% of nothing.
The back peddling is stupendous, if they hadn't forced all the Circuses to close they might have an act for the center ring.
Except, of course, that the cops weren't randomly enjoying text messages from different people. They were working on these guys for a reason. They already knew one was in the drug world, they had identified his supplier and had even seized a shipment from him.
So when you "roll it back" a but and have a look, you have to understand (and the judge clearly did) that you are dealing with two guys who's goal is to move drugs.
The lack of argument from one defendant in court in regards to how the police interpreted the phrases and such used says a lot.
I would suspect that the two were already subject to a wiretap style warrant for their text messages and such.
It's a very different story when you consider those things.
It's always a question of balance, and the problems society faces as a result.
The US has a terrible problem with opioids. Over prescription of these medications have helped to create a huge problem of addiction. The "high" associated with these drugs also makes them a popular choice for people looking to get high while avoiding the street drug risks.
The problems of diversion of prescriptions, doctor shopping, doctors selling prescriptions, are huge. The government interest to know who is receiving these drugs is pretty significant.
Better control of highly addictive substances is needed. This arguing over state versus federal law is deck chairs on the Titanic material.
Police should always exercise caution. You should be way more upset about criminals who deal drugs, consume drugs, and leave loaded weapons around children.
"that naked person running away might be concealing a weapon surgically grafted into his vertebrae, better gun down the fucker."
Obvious troll is even more obvious.
"MyNameHere isn't interested in accuracy or collateral damage."
I am very interested in accuracy. I am also very interested in responsibility. If you read the story on Torrent Freak, you will see the line "The main reason behind this situation is that ‘pirate’ site operators rarely (if ever) turn up to defend themselves.". So let's assign the blame where it belongs, with those who abuse the system and those who allow them to do it.
Perhaps if they were a little more worried about the collateral damage they will cause, there wouldn't be such an issue.
"he's such a model citizen"
I am in no way a model citizen. I am an adult that understands that my actions are my own, but they can affect, hurt, or benefit others. I am responsible for them. Are you, troll?
The blame doesn't rest with the government, the courts, or the rights holders, the problem lays with the hosts themselves and their lax attitudes towards piracy and other illegal uses of the web.
By the numbers in the story, nearly 10% of the sites hosted were marked for blocking. That doesn't mean that a few small sites were hiding on the host, but that one in ten of them was illegal, and obvious enough to make it to the block list.
The host could (and should) do more to protect it's other clients by not hosting the stuff and removing it as quickly as the become aware of it. If they are a true "no content removed, no client refused" host then they should make that clear to all of their clients, so their potential clients know the risk.
You have to think that some of the 41,000 would have been somewhere else avoiding problems.
I think as much as you consider him a troll, it does seem a little odd.
Accounts that have been essentially dormant for upwards to a decade Suddenly all show up and start posting pithy one liners? Seems more than a little odd.
The public is always a stakeholder, but they are proxied through various groups, including the FCC itself.
Since you can never actually have the entire public in any discussion, they will always be there by proxy. Even a "group representing users" would like be made up people from the 1.5% who posted comments to the FCC, which would not in any way represent the large population.
IMHO, the FCC is beyond their bounds in trying to impose net neutrality rules without the specific backing of the legislative branch. The rules of the FCC are suppose to be working interpretations of the laws on the books, the "how to" for what has been passed into law. There is no net neutrality law that I can find.
On the post: Music Industry Is Painting A Target On YouTube Ripping Sites, Despite Their Many Non-Infringing Uses
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think you failed at reading. Someone posting a video specifically has the copyright on it (unless they pirated someone else's stuff, different problem). Unless they specify CC0, IT'S COPYRIGHT. You don't need to be clairvoyant, you just need to check for CC0 or not in the description. It's really not hard.
"…and we’re back. The answer is: Nobody! Night of the Living Dead is a public domain film"
Yup, and someone posting it would put "PUBLIC DOMAIN" in the description and no problems. Without it, nobody (including YouTube) knows.
Reality here: YouTube is turning a blind eye to copyright and playing the DMCA card. A duplication service reselling (in one form or another) ripped audio is taking a huge legal risk as a result.
"How could the service possibly distinguish between copyrighted material posted without a notice of copyright,"
no notice, assume it's copyright - that's how copyright works.
On the post: Music Industry Is Painting A Target On YouTube Ripping Sites, Despite Their Many Non-Infringing Uses
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"None of them know, with the certainty of God, whether a video I save through that service infringes upon anyone’s copyright in any way. How does that jive with your logic?"
It's very difficult, yet incredibly simple when you take a moment to think: it's all copyright to somebody, and the ripping site doesn't have any specific rights to reproduce any of them for you. Do they have a license? Nope. The only ones they have clear rights to reproduce would have a CC0 license. Everything else is questionable and likely illegal.
They could choose to only reproduce stuff that clearly is marked CC0. They have a choice.
On the post: Music Industry Is Painting A Target On YouTube Ripping Sites, Despite Their Many Non-Infringing Uses
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hosting companies are covered by DMCA.
You are trying to build a case that doesn't make sense. If you have a website and you take your own pictures and post your own comments, there is no issue. Any website under the same situation has no problems. Use open source material, images, what have you? No problems. Use CC stuff with attribution (or whatever the requirement is of the CC license) no problems.
If your website exists solely to publish the works of others and profit them them, too f--ing bad, you are a leech.
Hosting companies (ie companies that provide servers / domain hosting) are passive providers of service. They aren't involved in the content of a site, they aren't publishers, they don't process, handle, manipulate, or present the content in any way. That is up to you, oh webmaster!
This ripping service is an active service. They actively do something for you and present you a finished product. They have the ability to choose what material they will work with. They are in control, they can decide how to use it. They could easily (as an example) check the page for a copyright notice and decline to copy anything with a notice on it. That might shift the legal burden to YouTube, who would likely ban them rather than deal with the implications.
Now, same service, but done instead as software or as a stand alone box you could buy a bring home might be a different legal story. You would be in control and the company would have no control over how you used it.
So good try, but the difference between passive and active services is pretty important.
Simpler example: Flea marker guy selling DVD burners is legal. Flea market guy banging out pirated copies of movies on the DVD burner and selling them, illegal. Simple, really - it's all a question of who does the work.
On the post: Music Industry Is Painting A Target On YouTube Ripping Sites, Despite Their Many Non-Infringing Uses
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Youtube would have little interest in helping out considering that they themselves have a huge problem with people posting copyright stuff under the "standard Youtube license" which would be a false statement. Youtube cannot permit anything to base their business on those license terms, because YouTube themselves know that many of them are not telling the truth, and YT has little interest in policing it.
So the ripping service won't be able to get valid data, so they have no way to know if something is copyright or not. Since (by legal definition) almost everything on YouTube is subject to some sort of copyright, it's almost impossible for them to operate legally. In fact, I bet you that the "legal uses" are so exceptional, as to be negligible!
On the post: Music Industry Is Painting A Target On YouTube Ripping Sites, Despite Their Many Non-Infringing Uses
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the other hand, you can't go to the local flea market and legally buy pirated DVDs (well, you probably can buy them, but it's not legal). The difference is that it is a service and not a neutral device.
A Youtube ripper is a service. You tell them what to rip, they rip it for you, and sell it / give it to you (and even when free, they generally bombard you with ads to pay for the service). It's a service, no different from the flea market guy using the legal device (DVD burner) to burn you a copy of a movie (or copying it onto a USB key).
Essentially, you don't rip the youtube stream, the site does it for you - service, not product. Mike was very careful not to mention services.
On the post: Music Industry Is Painting A Target On YouTube Ripping Sites, Despite Their Many Non-Infringing Uses
Re: Re:
On the post: Music Industry Is Painting A Target On YouTube Ripping Sites, Despite Their Many Non-Infringing Uses
Re: Re:
Copying EQUIPMENT may be legal (although there is some debate when it comes to DVD ripping software, as an example). However, this is not the sale of equipment, rather it's providing a service.
Websites are not equipment, they are services. They profit from providing a service. Selling the software might even be questionable (see DVD ripper issues).
So no, I am not ignorant - I just don't think that a website is equipment.
On the post: Music Industry Is Painting A Target On YouTube Ripping Sites, Despite Their Many Non-Infringing Uses
Plenty of things have not illegal uses, but we still outlaw or regulate them. It's the nature of the game.
For what it's worth, it's the same (insanely lame) argument that guns nuts use to justify having an AK=47 slung over their shoulders while they shopping in the local supermarket.
Congrats, you are on the same side as those wingnuts.
On the post: Lawyer: Without The Monkey's Approval, PETA Can't Settle Monkey Selfie Case
On the post: The Google Fiber Honeymoon Period Appears To Be Over
I don't want to say it but...
Google has become the "low hanging fruit" company when it comes to new business ideas. They generally start up well, often "big", and then as soon as they hit anything that suggests a headwind, they first ignore the project and the drop it.
It's why they tended to call everything "beta". It gives them an out on everything.
Google also doesn't do customer service very well. Having to deal with customers (aka, people, not machines) is not their strong suit.
Finally, it comes down to the numbers. Being an ISP is expensive, and installing service once it gets a little more difficult can get pricey. The income and the "extra" value of getting people to Google products didn't seem to add up to much. While they don't break Google Fiber out individually in their financial reports, we do know that their "moonshot" businesses absolutely lost their collective asses, year on year. Had Fiber been a big financial winner, you can be sure they would be crowing about it. Losing their asses on something that will take a decade or more to start to pay out is NOT the Google way.
I have said it before, and I will say it again: If Google can;t stomach the costs of becoming an ISP, I can't imagine too many other companies lining up to get there.
On the post: Monkey Selfie Case Reaches Settlement -- But The Parties Want To Delete Ruling Saying Monkeys Can't Hold Copyright
100% of nothing
PETA is essentially a fund raising machine. They need to raise funds to continue. 25% of potential income (for one of their causes) is way better than 100% of nothing.
The back peddling is stupendous, if they hadn't forced all the Circuses to close they might have an act for the center ring.
On the post: Court Says 'Possible' Just As Good As 'Probable;' Lets DEA Keep Evidence From Warrantless Search
Re: Buying money
So when you "roll it back" a but and have a look, you have to understand (and the judge clearly did) that you are dealing with two guys who's goal is to move drugs.
The lack of argument from one defendant in court in regards to how the police interpreted the phrases and such used says a lot.
I would suspect that the two were already subject to a wiretap style warrant for their text messages and such.
It's a very different story when you consider those things.
On the post: Thanks To The DEA And Drug War, Your Prescription Records Have Zero Expectation Of Privacy
The US has a terrible problem with opioids. Over prescription of these medications have helped to create a huge problem of addiction. The "high" associated with these drugs also makes them a popular choice for people looking to get high while avoiding the street drug risks.
The problems of diversion of prescriptions, doctor shopping, doctors selling prescriptions, are huge. The government interest to know who is receiving these drugs is pretty significant.
Better control of highly addictive substances is needed. This arguing over state versus federal law is deck chairs on the Titanic material.
On the post: Russia Piracy Blocking: Four Thousand 'Pirate' Sites Blocked... Along With Forty Thousand Sites Worth Of Collateral Damage
Re: Re: Re: Re: Lay the blame where it belongs
Nice! Now the US can just legislate Putin out of existence.
On the post: Russia Piracy Blocking: Four Thousand 'Pirate' Sites Blocked... Along With Forty Thousand Sites Worth Of Collateral Damage
Re: Re: Yes, let's
"Exercise caution in case there's a baby?"
Police should always exercise caution. You should be way more upset about criminals who deal drugs, consume drugs, and leave loaded weapons around children.
"that naked person running away might be concealing a weapon surgically grafted into his vertebrae, better gun down the fucker."
Obvious troll is even more obvious.
"MyNameHere isn't interested in accuracy or collateral damage."
I am very interested in accuracy. I am also very interested in responsibility. If you read the story on Torrent Freak, you will see the line "The main reason behind this situation is that ‘pirate’ site operators rarely (if ever) turn up to defend themselves.". So let's assign the blame where it belongs, with those who abuse the system and those who allow them to do it.
Perhaps if they were a little more worried about the collateral damage they will cause, there wouldn't be such an issue.
"he's such a model citizen"
I am in no way a model citizen. I am an adult that understands that my actions are my own, but they can affect, hurt, or benefit others. I am responsible for them. Are you, troll?
On the post: Russia Piracy Blocking: Four Thousand 'Pirate' Sites Blocked... Along With Forty Thousand Sites Worth Of Collateral Damage
Lay the blame where it belongs
By the numbers in the story, nearly 10% of the sites hosted were marked for blocking. That doesn't mean that a few small sites were hiding on the host, but that one in ten of them was illegal, and obvious enough to make it to the block list.
The host could (and should) do more to protect it's other clients by not hosting the stuff and removing it as quickly as the become aware of it. If they are a true "no content removed, no client refused" host then they should make that clear to all of their clients, so their potential clients know the risk.
You have to think that some of the 41,000 would have been somewhere else avoiding problems.
On the post: Comcast Whines That The Net Neutrality Debate It Keeps Rekindling Is A Lot Like 'Groundhog Day'
Re: Is that one of those 'rhetorical questions'?
Accounts that have been essentially dormant for upwards to a decade Suddenly all show up and start posting pithy one liners? Seems more than a little odd.
On the post: Case Dismissed: Judge Throws Out Shiva Ayyadurai's Defamation Lawsuit Against Techdirt
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Congrats Etc
On the post: Case Dismissed: Judge Throws Out Shiva Ayyadurai's Defamation Lawsuit Against Techdirt
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Congrats Etc
On the post: Large ISP & Silicon Valley CEOs Were Too Afraid To Publicly Testify On Net Neutrality
Re: Re:
Since you can never actually have the entire public in any discussion, they will always be there by proxy. Even a "group representing users" would like be made up people from the 1.5% who posted comments to the FCC, which would not in any way represent the large population.
IMHO, the FCC is beyond their bounds in trying to impose net neutrality rules without the specific backing of the legislative branch. The rules of the FCC are suppose to be working interpretations of the laws on the books, the "how to" for what has been passed into law. There is no net neutrality law that I can find.
Next >>