# Are YouTube links to copyrighted material acceptable? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [October 27, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-youtube-links-to-copyrighted-material-acceptable/378171 "2006-10-27T21:08:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-youtube-links-to-copyrighted-material-acceptable/378171/1 "2006-10-27T21:08:05Z")
For example, a clip of _The Simpsons_ or a feature film or even a major sporting event. Since YouTube presumably doesn’t get formal clearance for this material, are we allowed to link to them, or will it get The Reader in trouble? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-youtube-links-to-copyrighted-material-acceptable/378171/2 "2006-10-27T21:22:30Z")
The was a LiveJournal community devoted to links to great YouTube videos. It’s been excised from LJ, wiped clean from the face of the Internet. One assumes this is because somebody said, “Hey, these things are all copyright somebody else…” ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-youtube-links-to-copyrighted-material-acceptable/378171/3 "2006-10-27T22:26:07Z")
This has been [answered](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=386509) > [@TubaDiva](#): > > We would hope all of our members would be considerate of one another and label their links for work safety, family.child viewing, whatever. BTW, we are not considered a “family safe” site and do not pretend to be so. > > As for sites such as YouTube we can in no way be responsible for what is placed there nor can we be arbiters of what is violation of copyright or not; that’s for them to say. Since YouTube is now affiliated with ABC/Disney I would think they would be much more careful. > [@TubaDiva](#): > > Wait a minute. The Reader and the staff here can in no way be held responsible for what our members put on this site, be it links or anything else. > > I also point out that we cannot vet YouTube or any other site in cyberspace for their policies re content. > > The real responsibility lies with our users. > > Think about what you post here. Think about what links you leave here. Remember that other people read this board from many different places, some private, some public. To go to an old oft-used phrase, don’t put anything here you wouldn’t mind seeing on a billboard right outside your house. With your picture on it. > > The standard “two-click” rule for material that is NSFW applies, as always. All such links to these sites should take at least two clicks to get to objectionable material and should be clearly labeled before the first click. > > It’s up to YouTube and every other site in cyberspace that features such materal to clear their material. It’s not our job to make that judgment call. IOW, while they will close a thread that discusses file-sharing in any way, even if illegal downloading is not an issue, you have express permission to link to stolen copyrighted material. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2006, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-youtube-links-to-copyrighted-material-acceptable/378171/4 "2006-10-28T00:03:21Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] IOW, while they will close a thread that discusses file-sharing in any way, even if illegal downloading is not an issue, you have express permission to link to stolen copyrighted material. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] Their policy is perfectly reasonable. The only option is to ban youtube links, which filters out as much good stuff as bad. They can’t dedicate a staff to checking up on the copyrights of every link. Besides, do you really want the board to get even more anal about that stuff for the sake of consistency? ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-youtube-links-to-copyrighted-material-acceptable/378171/5 "2006-10-28T23:13:29Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] IOW, while they will close a thread that discusses file-sharing in any way, even if illegal downloading is not an issue, you have express permission to link to stolen copyrighted material. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] We were just discussing hiring YOU to be the sole arbiter of every youtube link on the boards. I’d think you could give up sleeping AND eating for such a worthy project. 🙂 Yeah, it’s a problem. We’re aware of it. Hopefully Google and youtube will get their software up to snuff and keep this kind of a thing to a minimum. But you’re always welcome to “report this post” if you think a link is attached to copyrighted material. We always appreciate the help. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2006, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-youtube-links-to-copyrighted-material-acceptable/378171/6 "2006-10-29T00:38:46Z")
Of course it’s a problem. I’ve been saying so in any number of threads and I’ve emailed you mods directly on this in the past. TubaDiva unfortunately decided to solve it in the worst possible way, a way that directly contradicted every other policy on copyrighted materials that the Dope maintains, IMO. I don’t like her “who cares, it’s their problem” attitude. Certainly we can report suspected problem links, but given the care and caution that the Reader has enforced in the past this new policy needs to be re-examined. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2006, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-youtube-links-to-copyrighted-material-acceptable/378171/7 "2006-10-29T11:27:31Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] IOW, while they will close a thread that discusses file-sharing in any way, even if illegal downloading is not an issue, you have express permission to link to stolen copyrighted material. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] That’s not entirely true. There’s a fine line and I crossed it a cople f years back I wanted to discuss the morality, but framed the OP in such a way, I caught some mild heat fom Dex and a slap on the wrist (no formal warning, IIRC). The ruling then was that we could discuss fileharing as long as there were no specifics (links, software, how-to). It actually got me thinking about doing a new OP on the subject, seeing that filesharing has forced the media industry to make more and more material available online for free and are selling stuff for cheap through sites as iTunes. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-youtube-links-to-copyrighted-material-acceptable/378171/8 "2006-10-29T21:07:48Z")
> [@](#): > > TubaDiva unfortunately decided to solve it in the worst possible way, a way that directly contradicted every other policy on copyrighted materials that the Dope maintains, IMO. Links to copyright material have never been prohibited (or if they are, the mods have missed an awful lot of them). I’ve seen threads discussing a short story, which have links to the full text of the story, and likewise for full song lyrics. If anything, links to YouTube should be more acceptable than these, since YouTube is known to have and enforce a policy of removing copyrighted material as soon as the owner complains, so a YouTube link is, if anything, more likely to be legal than the web as a whole. And, of course, unlike most file-sharing systems, a fair portion of the material on YouTube was actually posted by the copyright owners anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-youtube-links-to-copyrighted-material-acceptable/378171/9 "2006-10-30T02:59:30Z")
One of us is confused about the subject of the thread. Of course, links to copyrighted material are fine. Always have been. I’m talking about links to stolen copyrighted material. Copyrighted material not of their own making posted on Youtube by a member, not the copyright owner, is stolen. Why should linking to that be legitimate? There can be no equating this to linking to a newspaper site or a promotional site for movies or television. This is a link to download (which even mere watching is, since a copy is placed on your computer) stolen material. There are millions, literally, of stolen videos on Youtube. You can claim that at some point in the future the legitimate copyright owner will have made them accessible, but you cannot seriously make that claim today. Nor is it at all likely that even in the future will you be able to confuse the legitimate videos with the stolen ones. Are links to stolen videos legitimate? I think not. TubaDiva says that it is official policy that it’s not the mods’ judgment call. Please let’s none of us pretend that the issue is about links to ABC or CNN.