In the A Meme to banish forever… thread, CKDH pops in to let us know that “YouTube fragments” are a possible source of copyright violation:
What’s a YouTube fragment? Is it just a YouTube clip (fragment) of copyrighted material? But then what does “this process” refer to? The link is gone, so I can’t tell if it’s simple or something I’m not familiar with.
And while we’re at it, what’s a henfur?
Posting of short excerpts of copyrighted works on YouTube in our view constitutes fair use and is permissible under copyright law. YouTube has a process by which copyright holders can ask that a posted video clip be removed; this is discussed in:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/20/MNU412FKRL.DTL
YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, a large, reputable company. Our default assumption is that any video clip on YouTube has been posted with the tacit (at least) approval of the copyright holder and may be legally viewed.
Now I’m completely confused. Why did **C K Dexter Haven **remove that link, then?
Someone complained and he thought it wise to inquire. The inquiry having been completed, I told him he can restore the link.
Aha. Thanks for the clarification.
Thanks – so a “YouTube fragment” is just a YT clip/fragment of a larger copyrighted work.
that you find on “the internets”, I assume.
You Tube users often put full movies up broken into 10 minute sections (the maximum allowed unless you have a Director account). Technically I guess each separate video could be called a clip, although obviously that’s not how YouTube or the copyright owners look at it.
I have no way of knowing if that was the position here.
If I might be permitted to ask – what exactly did Dexter or any other PTB think would happen if THAT. LINK. WEREN’T. REMOVED. RIGHT. NOW. with ominous hints of a CHANGE. IN. POLICY. ?
Honestly, what is the deal with you guys? Nobody’s going to come pounding on your door at 2 am for having a link to a Youtube clip. Anyone who’s surfed the Internet at all in the past 5 years could tell you that. So what’s with all the glowering and heavy breathing, anyway?
The SDMB boards are owned by a publishing company. As such, they have a more then average interest in honoring copyrights. Kind of a “Do unto others…” thing.
So is Cracked.com, as well as any number of more popular and more entertaining sites out there that also feature a message board. Youtube clips and even [horrors!] links to other, dodgier video sites are kinda popular on all the ones I’ve seen.
But then, I’m speaking to you from the distant fanciful future world of two oh oh nine.
I asked it in the other thread and still have received an answer, but the contention that merely posting a link to a file that infringes on a copyright is copyright infringement itself baffles me.
I could see if a poster stored a copyrighted movie on SDMB servers, but that didn’t happen here. To me it would be if I said that there were prostitutes in downtown New York City and was told that I had just committed illegal prostitution by saying that…
It’s a gray area of the law. Many websites exist which consist of nothing else but links to copyrighted movies which have been put up on the many video-sharing sites such as YouTube, Veoh and a thousand other smaller ones. (Many of the links don’t stay live long as the movies get taken down, some quickly, some not so quickly.) The argument of these sites is that because they are not hosting the files they are not in breach of the law. The big studios take another view. I’m not sure if there’s been a test case yet to clarify this legally speaking.
Short clips, like short quotes, have always been deemed part of “fair usage.” The argument was raised that YouTube sometimes takes an entire movie, broken into ten-minute clips. This would be the analog in publishing of taking someone’s book, copying each paragraph onto a separate page, and thus claiming that you weren’t infringing copyright because you were only quoting one paragraph at a time.
I was in a hurry this morning, and thought it was best to be over-protective, so I removed the link in question and summoned them as knows. The answer has been to reaffirm our prior policy. In this case, on our boards, there was only a link to one clip (clearly fair usage); if the copyright holders object to the entire movie being available on YouTube in fragments, they have recourses to have it removed (and that’s YouTube’s responsibility, not ours); and our link wasn’t to how to download the movie (illegal) but to watch a short clip.
Hence, a question was raised and clarified, or at least as clarified as it can be based on aldiboronti’s statement.
I’m baffled that you’re baffled.
The management here is very sensitive to copyright issues. No only do they not want to infringe on any copyrights themselves, they don’t want to used as a vehicle to let others infringe on a copyright. This has been incredibly obvious for years in messages from the admins and management, and from their policy on “no threads about how to use torrent or downloading sites”. It obviously is not a copyright violation to talk about those things, but the SDMB does not want to encourage those acts in any way.
It would be a better analogy to say “and I was specficially telling people how to find the hookers, make your deal, and everything else about the transaction”. Probably still not illegal, but certainly supportive of the illegal activity.
And in this case, a question was raised, clarification was made, and the link restored. No harm no foul.
Koxinga you’re late to the party. It’s already done with and your can link.
So it was a non-issue to start with. Surprise, surprise.
But I’m still curious: what exactly did the PTB fear would happen if that link weren’t removed immediately? What dire consequences did they think could potentially be in store?
anzwr plz?
I don’t really buy that bit about how they’re owned by a publishing company, so it’s a matter of professional courtesy or whatever. If it really came down to that, they could formulate a policy that forbids what they consider to be unprofessional use of other people’s copyrighted stuff, regardless of whether it’s permissible from a strictly legal standpoint. “Professional courtesy” is not conveyed by “we looked into it and the law says you’re technically able to get away with it, so ‘no harm no foul’.”
They have always been very cautious about stuff that could get them sued with copyright violation. This should not be a surprise when it’s something the paper has been concerned with for their entire existence, even well before they hosted a message board. Once you’re being sued for hosting copyright material you didn’t remove it’s to late to avoid the expenses of defense or settlement. It’s also hypocritical to want copyright protection of your own stuff if you leave people violate other people’s copyrights. This time a link was removed for a short time and put back in after a mod got clarification. Mods are not perfect and to expect them to always know something is not reasonable.
Also one has to be especially careful linking to fragmented videos on YouTube. If it’s the first fragment it may be a Playlist link, which means the fragmented videos will automatically play one after the other, so in effect you’re inadvertently providing a link to the whole movie.
It’s easily checked, the Playlist link will identify itself as such in the url, but it’s still something you need to be careful with.
As is often the case, it was simple practicality. I was only online for a limited amount of time, and I knew I wouldn’t be back online for many hours. I had no idea how complicated the legal question might be, nor how long it might take to get an answer. It seemed easiest (and safest) to remove the link; it seemed that it would be easier to restore the link later if that was prudent, rather than to risk letting an illegality run for several hours or days before we were seen to respond.
So, no, there were no dire consequences, it was simple practicality and the easiest approach.
BTW, the person posting the link has said he doesn’t want it restored, which is why I haven’t.