Monday, December 8, 2008

youtube can get you in trouble!!!


The pride and joy of so many teenagers was under scrutiny in 2007. Youtube/Google was sued by one of the largest businesses; Viacom. Viacom claimed that the users were copyrighting music and videos on Youtube. They claimed that is violates DMCA or Digital Millennium Copy write Act of 1998. Google refuted these remarks saying that they have "Google and You Tube respect the importance of intellectual property rights, and not only comply with their safe harbor obligations under the DMCA, but go well above and beyond what the law requires". Viacom claimed that 150,000 copy written clips were up on Youtube and have been viewed 1.5 billion times. This same thing has happened before. Napster had problems with this law also and they were shut down. As for Viacom-Youtube case it went to the Supreme Court. Youtube then put up notifications asking if you are violating there policy of copyright infringement. This is why today we have to check that little box at the end of certain documents. So that way they are not liable for what is copy written on there website. They even make it easy for someone to claim that something is copy written. They put it right on there website. They will never really go after every single person who ever used Youtube because the list is too big. As one blogger said "Face it, You tube is a library for video. People don't sue libraries." another person commented back "You tube engages in massive copyright infringement. They profit from people viewing copyrighted material. They deny any responsibility to the copyright holders. In their own way, they're as arrogant as the music thieves were." so obviously there are two sides to this matter. For use in schools the teachers should make sure that there students are not going over any time limits for music and videos.
I think that Youtube is one of the greatest eventions our nation has come upon. It has brought this generations of kids a lot closer and lets them see what other student in our nation and even in other nations are thinking. It allows students to pick up and learn from other people and do something that they enjoy. If a student wanted to pick up movie editing there are about 20 full videos on how to use each program. It brings us together with the hope that it will make us stronger. Whenever I am thinking of buying something I always go on Youtube to see if it is worth it. I am careful to not watch the videos the companies put up for advertisment. Yes, you can get introuble from using Youtube improperly but the chances of that are very slim. Youtube is a way for every person to express themselves.

other great writers on this topic are these people:

2 comments:

Alex said...

I think as long as you put up or watch videos in a way that won't get you in trouble - for example, not putting up copyrighted matieral or watching full movies or television series - that Youtube is an awesome website and hope it stays around and doesn't get sued in the future.

Jenny said...

I think that youtube is a great way of sharing information, music movies, etc. and a great way that new artists can promote themselves. I also see tv companies and musicians getting frustrated with youtube, because other people are publishing their work, and they aren't getting the credit they deserve. I believe that the benefits of this outweigh the side-effects that only a small amount of people will have to deal with. I hope that Youtube is able to resolve their problems, and that people use it lawfully.