YouTube has become extremely popular but still has plenty of issues with copyright infringement.
YouTube’s Copyright Problem
On its upload page it has this disclaimer.” Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts, or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself. Please refer to our Copyright Tips page for some guidelines and links to help you determine whether your video infringes someone else’s copyright.”
Jeff Atwood writes, “It’s perhaps the ultimate case of cognitive dissonance: by YouTube’s own rules, YouTube cannot exist.” Atwood speculates that 90 percent of the content on the site is copyrighted and used without permission. He says YouTube does not make an effort to identify infringing content and that it remains on the site until a copyright owner complains.
On YouTube’s upload page it reads,” Anytime we become aware that a video or any part of a video on our site infringes the copyrights of a third party, we will take it down from the site. We are required to do so by law. If you believe that a video on the site infringes your copyright, send us a copyright notice and we will take it down.”
Atwood is puzzled that YouTube continually gets away with copyright infringement. The site maintains that it is protected by fair use under the DMCA and that it does remove copyrighted content if it receives a takedown notice.
YouTube has been called on copyright infringement by Viacom who is suing Google for $1 billion and other suits include one from the Football Association Premier League (Premier League) and the Bourne Co. who are suing for wide scale copyright infringement.
Google has said that YouTube will have technology in place by the end of the year to detect and prevent infringing content from being uploaded.
