Equipoise posted a link to a third-party site that offered links to music recordings. These recordings are copyrighted. SkipMagic broke the link and closed the thread.
Meanwhile, there are usually a handful of threads in CS in which mandy different Dopers post links to a third party site that offers links to copyrighted media files. These threads remain open.
It’s always been my understanding that it’s not allowed to post copyright material on these Boards. But Equipoise didn’t post copyrighted material: she posted a link to a third party site.
Now, the site was of her own creation. But . . . does that mean that anyone would be allowed to post a link to YouTube except the guys that created it? Isn’t the “loophole” that makes links to YouTube OK on the Dope the fact that it’s offsite, and whoever created the site is irrelevant?
I hope the fact that this in the Pit, due to the technicality that (for some reason) discussion of Board rules are supposed to go hear, doesn’t mean that this can’t remain a serious discussion of the nuances of the Dope’s rules on copyrighted links.
The mods are discussing this situation, but it is the holiday period, so we’re not all on 24/7 like usual.
There’s a second issue that comes into play here, separate from the copyright issue: we don’t allow commercial solicitation. From the registration agreement:
Basically, we don’t want people posting links where the primary purpose of the post is to induce you to buy something. We do allow exceptions for “worthy causes” and promotion of arts/literature/music is usually considered a “worthy cause.” Hence, as I say, the matter is under discussion. Discussion and rational consideration takes time, unfortunately, even in an electronic world.
I must admit this entire sharing of copyrighted material minefield is an ugly mess. Guessing wrong means paying lawyers. Knuckling under makes fighting ignorance tougher.
I agree it’s a mess. Which, again, is why I thought that relegating any questionable material to off-site URLs was the policy.
And while I agree with CKD’s point about the legitimacy of not allowing spam, links to YouTube are more commercial than Equipoise’s link: YouTube profits from advertising dollars, determined by the number of visitors, while Equipoise’s site was entirely without anything of the sort. Not that a link to YouTube is spam; only that Equipoise’s link was, if possible, even less so. YouTube uses questionable material to earn advertising revenue; Equipoise, only to share unavailable Christmas music without any hope of income.
In addition, though we take it for granted that YouTube assumes the responsibility for posting copyrighted material, none of us believes that YouTube actively investigates whether each item posted is copyrighted or not: they wait, I have not doubt, until the copyright holder contacts them and asks to have it removed.
The more I ponder it, the biggest differences I can see between YouTube and Equipoise’s link are: A) YouTube profits from copyrighted material until actively ordered to remove it; and B) they have a logo.
Just to clarify a particular issue: Equipoise’s thread wasn’t closed because it was seen as spam (that’s a different issue with something else that was posted later on); her thread was closed and the link to her website within removed because she was illegally offering copies of copyrighted works. Even if she wasn’t making any money from sharing those files (she wasn’t) she was clearly violating U.S. law and, consequently, board rules.
I see a significant practical difference. If I were the board staff, I would look at this issue as follows:
Youtube contains a high percentage of files that are legal to view, because of the permission of the copyright holder (or otherwise).
So far, youtube*s business model of (a) not actually keeping/providing copies
of files and (b) immediately blocking any file that the copyright holder objects to
has stood up to scrutiny, and is verifiable. (In other words, they have not been shut down, despite being a prominent site.)
Youtube has files that are of great interest to SDMB readers. This can be seen by the dozens of yuotube links in various threads.
Point 3 warrants the investment of staff time to verify Points 1 and 2
Private websites that have just a few files are many, and few are of ongoing, great interest to SDMB readers. Also, a small private site may be too new or small to have come to the attention of copyright holders.
So, even if a private website is telling the truth when it claims permission to make a file available, unless that permission is somehow easily verifiable, the utility of that site is not worth the investment of SDMB staff time to chewck it out.
I understand that. I was just pointing out things that should be considered.
And again, she was only violating U.S. law to the extent that YouTube violates U.S. law: i.e., posting files and then leaving it up to the copyright holder to contact her to ask her to take them down. She was not, in fact, breaking board rules, because she posted no copyrighted materials, anymore than someone posting a link to a YouTube page of an SNL clip is posting copyrighted materials: in both cases, they are posting a link, not a copyrighted file.
Both sharing and downloading those files would be illegal without the proper permissions; since she was encouraging others to download those files, she was “foster[ing] or promot[ing] activity that is illegal in the U.S.”
In my personal, non-official opinion, linking to YouTube is a different beast because, as I mentioned in the other thread, simply viewing a copyrighted video is not illegal. Were someone to encourage others to upload or download copyrighted videos on YouTube, I would see that as a violation of the above rule, and I’d be inclined to step in a thread and put a stop to it.
Huh indeed. If you go and look at the full thread, you’ll see that the video to which astro referred was uploaded by NBC themselves with full permission, and continues to be hosted on YouTube. Not quite the example you were looking for, perhaps.
For that matter, even were your example one of copyright violation, it would illustrate the difference with YouTube. It’s independently policed for copyright violations (however lackadaisically), so the burden of ensuring the bona fide nature of its content falls on Google. You can’t download the videos anyway, so practically speaking astro’s suggestion wasn’t possible; the problem of violation would have been taken out of the SDMB’s hands as soon as the video was removed. And from a more pragmatic view, no-one is ever going to sue sites that post links to YouTube videos because a) you’d be suing the entire internet and b) there’s a much more direct and obvious target for liability (Google).
By contrast, the SDMB allowing users to post links to privately hosted, unmoderated, copyrighted content represents a far greater potential liability, since the SDMB is the largest and most obvious target for anyone wishing to stamp out the sharing. I suppose you’ll say that this is just “they have a logo” again, but that actually sums up several very sensible reasons why a distinction can and should be made.
Lissener, Astro’s post claiming that YouTube is pulling the video is 4 days old, and the original link still works. The original was uploaded by NBC. If anything, all NBC is doing is asking YouTube to pull non-official copies of the video.
If someone linked to an obviously illegal copy of a video on YouTube, then someone can report it, or a Mod will notice, and they should break the link. If you can show that the mods are leaving links to obvious copyright infringement on YouTube, then that’s a fair complaint. The SNL video isn’t one of them.
I think this is an important topic, though. YouTube is seemingly safe, and they HOST the illegal copies. I can’t believe the Reader would get in trouble for merely allowing links to exist, especially if they are willing to delete the links upon request. If they were going to run the SDMB like YouTube, they wouldn’t do a damn thing about copyright infringement (even in text form) until the copyright holder makes a complaint.
Here’s a question. Let’s imagine Equipoise turning the holiday playlist into a long YouTube video, with flashy colors in the background. She then links to “this cool holiday video I found on YouTube” Would it be OK?
So? If you’re assuming I saw the post, you’d be wrong. Like many other people, I don’t read every single post in a thread when I’m just casually skimming. That’s why we have the “Report Bad Post” button; we count on and appreciate the help the TM gives us in reporting posts that may (or may not as it sometimes happens) be against the rules. We’d much prefer your help than be engaged in a game of “gotcha”.
My point is that such things can’t really be policed very carefully. Again, hence my assumption that if it’s a third-party site, the responsibility to police it is not the Dope’s.
(My secondary point is that in that post, astro was explicitly encouraging illegal behavior. And friedo, NBC uploaded it to their own site, but it keeps being taken off of YouTube. Presumably because NBC didn’t make it available on their own site in order to provide advertising revenue for YouTube.)
Jesus Christ on a cracker, SkipMagic, now you’ve posted a completely unnecessary warning in that thread.
The video was uploaded by NBC. They’re not pulling it. It is free. They WANT you to watch it and pay them no money and sit through no commercials at all.
Does that clarify the situation?
Although, looking back over that thread, it looks like the Conan O’Brien clip that I posted was not officially uploaded by NBC. My bad. I would not object to that being removed.
List to me, you worthless shit-for-brains dunderhead: The video was uploaded to YouTube by NBC. Don’t believe me? Look here. See the bright orange official fucking NBC logo on the right? The only ones being pulled from YouTube are the copies that were not provided by NBC.
No it’s not. When I posted it, I had been searching for the “post your favorite YouTube video” thread (which comprises probably a majority of illegal files), and C&P’ed the wrong URL. I left it as is, because while it wasn’t the best example, it’s still relevant.
And I’m not interested in showing “that the mods are leaving links to obvious copyright infringement on YouTube.” Only in pointing out that we connive at such links, with the presumption that as a third-party site, any legal liability is at least one step removed from the Dope.