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Criticism of YouTube

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The video hosting website YouTube has been the object of numerous criticisms.

Copyright

Content posted on Youtube must be permitted by United States copyright law; the uploader must own the copyright to a posted video. Despite this, a large amount of potentially infringing content continues to be uploaded by users that do not hold copyright to such videos. A decision in October 2007 allowed media companies to block their copyrighted video content loaded onto YouTube without seeking any prior permission. Since 2007, changes to the interface mean that only rights holders are able to directly report copyright violations. In 2010, the Italian government sought to pass a law that would make YouTube and similar sites liable for content that violates copyrights that is posted by users.

Hollywood remains divided on YouTube. Ian Schafer, CEO of online advertising company Deep Focus has been quoted as saying "'the marketing guys love YouTube and the legal guys hate it.'" Further,

While lawyers are demanding filtering technology, many Hollywood execs actually enjoy the fact that YouTube only takes down clips when they request it. "If I found part of a successful show up on YouTube today, I'd probably pull it down immediately .... If I had a show that wasn't doing so well in the ratings and could use the promotion, I wouldn't be in a rush to do that."

Content owners are not just targeting YouTube for copyright infringements, but are also targeting third party websites that link to infringing content on YouTube and other video-sharing sites, for example, QuickSilverScreen vs. Fox, Daily Episodes vs. Fox, and Columbia vs. Slashfilm. The liability of linking remains a grey area with cases for and against. The law in the U.S. currently leans towards website owners being liable for infringing links although they are often protected by the DMCA providing they take down infringing content when issued with a take down notice. However, a recent court ruling in the U.S. found Google not liable for linking to infringing content (Perfect 10 v. Google, Inc.).

In addition, YouTube has a rule prohibiting false claims of copyright from being filed; again, as with the rule aiming to prevent such videos from being uploaded, this too has been subject to abuse. For example, when American commentator and blogger Michelle Malkin uploaded commentary about Akon to YouTube, using footage from music videos and the Trinidad concert, Universal Music Group then forced its removal by issuing a DMCA takedown notice. The Electronic Frontier Foundation joined Malkin in contesting the removal as a misuse of copyright law, citing fair use. In May 2007, UMG rescinded its claim to the video, and the video returned to YouTube.

Problems with YouTube's copyright protection practices has caused some internet satirists who originally started on YouTube such Doug Walker (The Nostalgia Critic) to forgo YouTube altogether and form their own websites.

Infringement complaints

On October 5, 2006, the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) finalized its copyright complaints regarding Japanese media on YouTube. Thousands of media from popular Japanese artists (such as Tokyo Jihen and other music including Jpop) were removed.

When CBS and Universal Music Group signed agreements to provide content on YouTube, they announced a new technology to help them find and remove copyrighted material.

TV journalist Robert Tur filed the first lawsuit against the company in the summer of 2006, alleging copyright infringement for hosting a number of famous news clips without permission. The case has yet to be resolved.

In 2007, Viacom and the British Broadcasting Corporation both demanded YouTube take down more than 200,000 videos for potential copyright infringement.

Viacom announced it was suing YouTube, and its owner Google, for more than $1 billion in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Viacom claims that YouTube posted over 160,000 of its videos on the website without Viacom's permission. US District Court Judge Louis Stanton, on July 1, 2008 granted Viacom's request for data upon which YouTube viewers watch which videos on the website to support its case in a billion-dollar copyright lawsuit against Google. He debunked privacy concerns, directing Google to give Viacom viewing log-in ID / names of YouTube users and Internet protocol (IP) addresses (online identifier) and video clip details (totalling more than 12 terabytes of data). The judgement was criticized by Google and privacy advocates. Simon Davies said that the privacy of millions of YouTube users was threatened: "The chickens have come home to roost for Google." Stranton however, denied Viacom's pleas "to get its hands on secret source code used in YouTube video searches as well as for Internet searches, and to order Google to provide access to the videos YouTube users store in private YouTube files."

In May 2007, the English Premier League announced that it was suing YouTube for alleged copyright infringement, claiming that the website had "knowingly misappropriated" its intellectual property by encouraging Premier League soccer matches to be viewed on its site.

In 2007, a 15-year-old Australian boy managed to get YouTube to delete over 200 YouTube videos belonging to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation using a fake DMCA take down notice. When the fake DMCA notice arrived, the ABC already had in place a long-standing deal with YouTube to freely share its videos. In his hand-written letter, the boy claimed that he was acting on behalf of the "Australian Broddcasting [sic] Corperation [sic]", giving his own Hotmail address as his business contact and demanded that hundreds of videos from ABC's The Chaser's War on Everything television program be deleted from YouTube's servers. Despite the boy not having any affiliation with the ABC and the spelling errors on his hand-written form, YouTube did delete all of the videos at the boy's request and replaced each with a message stating "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Australian Broadcasting Corporation".

In August 2008, a U.S. District judge ruled that copyright holders cannot order a deletion of an online file without determining whether that posting reflected "fair use" of the copyrighted material. The case involved Stephanie Lenz, a writer and editor from Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, who made a home video of her 13-month-old son dancing to Prince's song Let's Go Crazy and posted the 29-second video on YouTube. Four months later, Universal Music, the owner of the copyright to the song, ordered YouTube to remove the video enforcing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Lenz notified YouTube immediately that her video was within the scope of fair use, and demanded that it be restored. YouTube complied after six weeks, as required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to see whether Universal planned to sue Lenz for infringement. Lenz then sued Universal Music in California for her legal costs, claiming the music company had acted in bad faith by ordering removal of a video that represented fair-use of the song.

Beginning in December 2008, various music labels (primarily Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group) removed YouTube videos featuring their songs, in hopes of a new contract between them and YouTube. After negotiations, the companies worked out a contract with YouTube, and the videos were restored.

Use of acoustic fingerprints

On October 12, 2006, YouTube announced that because of recent agreements with high-profile content creators, they are now required to use antipiracy software, which uses an audio-signature technology that can detect a low-quality copy of licensed video. YouTube users would have to substitute an approved version of any clip or remove the material immediately. Industry analysts speculated that removal of content with such a system might reduce overall user satisfaction.

On April 16, 2007, Google's CEO Eric E. Schmidt presented a keynote speech at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas. During the Q&A session, Schmidt announced that YouTube was close to enacting a content filtering system to remove infringing content from the service. The new system, called "Claim Your Content", will automatically identify copyrighted material for removal.

Google spokesperson Ricardo Reyes stated on June 13, 2007 that the company was seeking "a way to make video identification technology a reality" when they began to test the system with Time Warner and Disney.

On October 15, 2007, Google announced the release of YouTube Video Identification, a tool that would be able to identify potentially copyright infringing videos. In a blog posting on the release, YouTube product manager David King said YouTube Video Identification will help copyright holders identify their works on YouTube and choose what they want done with them.

In January 2009, YouTube's Video ID system was used by Warner Music Group to aid in automatically taking down or muting the audio of a mass amount of potentially infringing and non-infringing videos. On September 18, 2009, CNET reported that Warner Music Group had possibly struck a new deal with YouTube and WMG videos may start appearing back on YouTube within weeks, however some videos were still either muted by WMG, or were not able to be viewed globally. On September 29, 2009 that YouTube and Warner Music Group agreed on a multi-year deal.

Censorship

YouTube has been criticized by users for political censorship.

YouTube also removed, then later restored, a video produced by the American Life League which is critical of Planned Parenthood.

On February 22, 2008, Pakistan Telecommunications attempted to block regional access to YouTube following a government order. The attempt subsequently caused a worldwide YouTube blackout that took 2 hours to correct. Four days later, Pakistan Telecom lifted the ban after YouTube removed religiously controversial comments made by Dutch member of parliament Geert Wilders concerning Islam.

During the December 2008 Gaza Strip airstrikes, YouTube removed videos of air strikes against the Palestinian militant group Hamas that were posted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Pat Condell's video "Welcome to Saudi Britain" was removed by YouTube early in October 2008, but reinstated shortly after. In the video Condell criticises Britain's sanctioning of a Sharia court, and refers to the entire country of Saudi Arabia as mentally ill for its abuse of women. A YouTube spokesman said "YouTube has clear policies that prohibit inappropriate content on the site, such as pornography, gratuitous violence or hate speech...If users repeatedly break these rules we disable their accounts." The National Secular Society were among the complainants to YouTube."

Neo-Nazis and genocide denial

On December 18, 2007, the news network CNN reported about the abundance of neo-Nazi propaganda and Holocaust denial videos on YouTube. Hundreds of Nazi- and SS-glorifying, Holocaust-denying, anti-Semitic and racist videos have been brought to the attention of both YouTube and its parent company Google Inc. by the German Jewish group Zentralrat der Juden (tr. "Central Council of Jews"), which did "not get any response". The first reports about the violation of YouTube's own rules surfaced in August 2007 after the German TV-magazine Report Mainz reported that even over a hundred complaints by the federal Jugendschutz.net watchdog to YouTube about videos forbidden by German law had not been answered and that the flagged content had not been removed by YouTube. Some of the flagged videos have been online for over a year. CNN contacted Google specifically about a six-part video series of Holocaust Denial videos, which Google promised to "block immediately", but over five weeks later (and as of January 17, 2008) were still available. At some point between January 17 and February 9, 2008, the video was taken down for a "terms of use violation".

References

Notes

  1. "YouTube Community Guidelines". YouTube. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  2. "YouTube allows media companies to block copyrighted content". Retrieved 2007-10-16.
  3. "Reporting Copyright Infringement". Google. 2009-12-10. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  4. "Italy plans copyright crackdown on YouTube". MusicWeek. 2010-02-04. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  5. ^ Jones, Ben (2007-03-10). "Showbiz's site fright/Web seen as both a threat and a gold mine". Variety. Retrieved 2007-03-12. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  6. Guy, IPTV (2006-07-12). "TV Show Directory QuickSilverScreen.com Threatened by Fox". Web TV Wire. Retrieved 2006-10-12.
  7. Thor, Lord (2006-10-02). DailyEpisodes_closed_down_by_Fox_for_LINKING_to_TV_show_episodes "DailyEpisodes closed down by Fox, for LINKING to TV show episodes!". Digg.com. Retrieved 2006-12-10. {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help)
  8. Sciretta, Peter (2006-07-26). "Columnia Pictures tells /Film to remove website link". SlashFilm. Retrieved 2006-10-12.
  9. "Linking to infringing TV Shows is probably illegal in the US". WebTVWire. 2006-09-26. Retrieved 2006-10-12.
  10. Malkin, Michelle. "Akon's record company abuses DMCA to stifle criticism on YouTube", MichelleMalkin.com, 2007-05-03.
  11. "Malkin Fights Back Against Copyright Law Misuse by Universal Music Group", Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2007-05-09.
  12. "YouTube phenom Doug Walker, a.k.a. "That Guy With The Glasses"". AVClub. 2009-03-24. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  13. "YouTube deletes 30,000 files on request by Japan". InfoWorld. 2006-10-20. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  14. Lombardi, Candace (2007-12-02). "YouTube cuts three content deals". Cnet-News.com. Retrieved 2007-12-02.
  15. Jones, K.C. (2006-07-18). "Journalist Sues YouTube For Copyright Infringement". InformationWeek.com. Retrieved 2006-07-28.
  16. Montgomery, James (2006-07-19). "YouTube Slapped With First Copyright Lawsuit For Video Posted Without Permission". MTV.com. Retrieved 2006-07-28.
  17. Sandoval, Greg (2007-02-02). "Does YouTube have a control problem?". cnet. Retrieved 2007-02-04. {{cite news}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
  18. Reuters (2007-03-13). "Viacom in $1 bln copyright suit vs Google, YouTube". Reuters. Retrieved 2007-03-13. {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  19. BBC News (2007-03-13). "Viacom will sue YouTube for $1bn". BBC. Retrieved 2007-03-13.
  20. Afp.google.com, Judge orders Google to give YouTube user data to Viacom
  21. "Google must divulge YouTube log". BBC. 2008-07-03. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  22. "Premier League to take action against YouTube - Football News - Telegraph". 2007-05-05. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  23. Jensen, Erik (2007-04-14). "Boy dupes YouTube to delete videos". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  24. ^ Rampell, Catherine (2007-10-19). "Standing Up To Takedown Notices". The Washington Post. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help); Text "http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/18/AR2007101802453.html" ignored (help)
  25. Egelko, Bob (2008-08-20). "Woman can sue over YouTube clip de-posting". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2008-08-25.
  26. Kramer, Staci (2008-12-22). "Someone Forgot To Tell Warner YouTube Has The Upper Hand; WMG Videos Are Off Google Site's Grid". paidContent.org. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  27. "Warner Music, YouTube Reportedly Strike Deal to Restore Videos". Rolling Stone. 2009-09-28. Retrieved 2008-08-25.
  28. Veiga, Alex (2006-10-12). "Anti-piracy system could hurt YouTube". Associated Press. MSNBC. Retrieved 2006-10-13.
  29. Ali, Rafat (2007-04-16). "NAB: GoogleTube Close To Its "Claim Your Content" Filtering System". paidcontent.org. Retrieved 2007-04-17.
  30. Claburn, Thomas (2007-06-13). "Google Plans Video Identification Test For YouTube Next Month". Information Week. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  31. "YouTube begins public test of anti-piracy database". Reuters. 2007-10-15. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  32. Sandoval, Greg (2009-09-18). "YouTube, Warner Music feud nearing an end". Cnet. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  33. "Warner Music Group statement regarding YouTube". WMG. 2009-09-29. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  34. Zeller, Tom Jr. (2006-10-09). "A Slippery Slope of Censorship at YouTube". New York Times.
  35. Nimmo, Kurt (2008-12-02). "More Political Censorship at YouTube". InfoWars. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  36. Sheffield, Matthew (2009-02-19). "YouTube Reinstates Pro-life Show After Removal". NewsBusters.org. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  37. Pakistan Drops YouTube Ban | CBS News.com
  38. Pakistan welcomes back YouTube | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
  39. Israel posts video of Gaza air strikes on YouTube AFP, December 30, 2008
  40. Beckford, Martin (2008-09-04). "YouTube censors comedian's anti-Sharia video called 'Welcome to Saudi Britain'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2009-03-16.
  41. "Neo Nazis on YouTube". CNN. December 18, 2007.
  42. Neonazi-Propagandafilme: Zentralrat der Juden droht YouTube mit Anzeige - Netzwelt - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
  43. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/28/google_germany_neo_nazi/
  44. YouTube criticized in Germany over Neo-Nazi clips | Technology | Reuters
  45. YouTube criticized in Germany over anti-Semitic Nazi videos - Haaretz - Israel News
  46. Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com
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