Jun 11, 2007
Linking youtube and others….
The fact that I have seen more and more video clips of this and that on blogs and websites through youtube and other user-generated video site, it makes me wonder….
Does uploading a, say, TV commercial, Music Video, or a portion of a TV show violate the copyright and/or licensing issue?
How about a compilation of clips from a sports star or celebrity?
Not that I am trying to be judegmental or anything, but I do think we in general link whatever is available on youtube with no regards on Intellectual rights.
Any thoughts?
Filed by edmund at 9.10 pm under Culture,Tech |
2 Comments
Peggy
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諗下諗下就寫了一大篇 ….
Jun 12th, 2007
Anson
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I think youtube does provide pretty clear guidelines on what’s appropriate to be uploaded or not. So the issue about uploading is closed. No questions about it.
However, linking is another complicated matter. I’m not even sure linking does involve a copying action, since the video is streamed over. There’s just one copy on youtube’s server, and everyone else is just receiving a stream of those bytes. Or maybe not, youtube may have thousands of load balancing servers, does that mean their infrastructure by default is infringing copyright?
Now if the definition of “a copy” means more than one copy existing on earth, then every computer is copying things internally 24/7, since there’s a copy of the file in the hard disk, in the RAM and even in the cache. If I view a website, my browser is fetching the html page over (by means of copying) and rendering it on my screen. Does that infringe copyright? Anyways, that’s going too far….I guess the terms “copyright” and “copying” need some solid definitions first. Back to more fundamental questions.
I “think” copyright is to protect the benefit of the copyright holder, in most cases, monetary gains. From a user point of view, I have to make sure I’m not abusing the copyright holder (out of greed and not willing to spend money) and causing him/her monetary loss. I should pay what I ought to pay, in order to be entertained, and I make sure the copyright holder gets what he/she deserves to get. Therefore my guiding principle (as of now, until I find a better one) is that if there’s an option where I can buy the stuff (the video or music) officially and legally elsewhere, then I won’t watch or listen to that copy online. That means if the copyright holder has setup a means for me to use my money to exchange for his/her product, no matter it is available locally or internationally, as long as it exists as a purchasable product, then I’ll honor that by paying up. Otherwise, things that can’t possibly be purchased with money at all, I’ll assume there’s not even monetary loss for the copyright holder.
e.g. I’ve always wanted to watch the TV drama “24” starting from season 1. There are DVD box sets out there, and I can also rent from blockbuster. So I’ll go for the official routes to get my entertainment. Now if I have missed an episode of Heroes on NBC just a few hours ago because I have set the wrong recording time on my VCR, then may I catch up by watching it online? Well, just from the user point of view, I have already paid my monthly subscription fees to Shaw cable, which will reach the copyright holder eventually. So by watching the missed episode online, I think I can pass my conscience, because I’m not ripping the copyright holder off. If I don’t even subscribe to cable TV at home and I watch everything online, then there’s a problem. (Now those in the states are even more lucky, everything from NBC can be rewatched on NBC’s offical website anyways.) As for movie trailers, as well as commercials, you can’t buy that stuff (as far as I know), and there’s no monetary loss in terms of the copyright holder’s point of view, but gaining promotion instead. So I think it’s okay. For music videos, it’s quite tricky under this principle. Yes, some videos can be purchased (usually comes along with a music CD). However, for those music videos that are not purchasable, then does it mean it’s okay? Probably not. Because the whole point of a music video is to lure you into liking that band/singer and eventually buying their music on CD. However, watching the entire music video online already does provide adequate entertainment for most people. I don’t know, this is a tricky one, especially those video clips from MTV, shown purely for promotional purposes. An interesting question is, may I watch an MTV online for which I have already bought the artist’s album?
Well, I still think this is an unsolved problem. Even the content producers have no clue what does copyright mean in this digital and interconnected age. Meanwhile, I keep sticking to a principle that works and passes my conscience, and I’ll see how it goes. Maybe the best way is to lose interest in all of these things and go up to a mountain and become a monk, then life will be simpler ;)
Jun 12th, 2007
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