Google May Be Able to Fix YouTube's "Fatal" Flaw
Michael Kolowich
in video for the web, video trends
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“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Those words of Mark Twain in 1897 rang true for YouTube today as it announced a whopping $1,65 billion deal to sell itself to Google.
The deal itself will not derail the impending collision with video copyright holders that many have predicted and feared. In fact, Google’s deep pockets would seem to make YouTube an even bigger target for copyright enforcement.
But now, a Google-backed YouTube would seem to have the staying power and legitimacy that would incent video producers to negotiate deals to allow YouTube users to post their material on the service. In the words of Forrester Research’s Josh Bernoff, “solving the copyright problem is easier at Google.”
Action implication for us video marketers: don’t shelve those YouTube-based guerrilla tactics yet. This phenomenon has legs, and will probably be a useful outlet for video teases, trailers, and viral blasts for a long time to come.
Michael Kolowich
ZDNet posts an interesting story tonight about the copyright infringement controversy surrounding Google’s acquisition of YouTube. They point out that YouTube has long relied on a provision (Section 512) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 to shelter them from the storm, but that a Google deal may chip away at that protection:
Section 512 essentially lets hosting companies off the hook for legal liability, as long as they respond promptly to formal notifications from copyright owners and remove any infringing material. YouTube does this through a formal posted policy, and prohibits uploads of unauthorized videos more than 10 minutes in length.
But Section 512 also has four additional requirements that must all be met for plaintiffs to benefit from the so-called safe harbor. First, the copyrighted material must “reside” on the hosting service. Second, the material must be stored “at the direction of a user.” Third, the hosting service must not be “aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent.” Fourth, the hosting service must not “receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity.”
If YouTube places more ads alongside video content, that would chip away at the shield of Section 512. So would any evidence that YouTube’s executives turn a blind eye toward piracy. Copyright holders could also claim that YouTube modifies the video in ways that Section 512 does not anticipate or protect.
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