Viacom v. YouTube

Recently I had a friend who used Youtube to promote her new album in a very successful way. She uploaded some demo clips on Youtube and sent out Emails asked us to watch. It’s easy for us to recommend her clips to all of our friends through Emails. So everybody just checked her clips on Youtube and found she really had a great voice. Some of the link sent to the owner of restaurants or host of some great music related events. One month later, when she started to promote her new album, she got several chances to sing in restaurants and several events. She’s a new signer, but through Youtube, tons of people getting to know her. Moreover, they bought her albums to support her. Youtube really provided a platform for those who want to share their talent through video clips. If you dare to show, you’ll definitely find your fans. It’s a great opportunity for those super-star-to-be. They don’t have support from big music companies and don’t have promotion budget as well, unable to afford buying any advertisement on any channels. But at least they have YouTube.

Also, I can understand that through some special features like “share” and “friends”, you can hide your videos that only allow friends to access. No privacy concern and you can share only with your close friends overseas. It’s a thoughtful function to me. So I think it’s unfair to state that YouTube hinders plaintiffs’ attempts to locate infringing videos to protect their rights only because they have this kind special service. It is true that some users use this function to hide their videos which contain infringed content. But I’ll say you can always figure out doing illegal things through some legal functions.

Moreover, I don’t really think YouTube shift all the burdens entirely onto copyright owner to detect infringing videos. There’re over billions clips over there, it’s too hard for YouTube to police all the infringing works. People use that platform to share their creations for free, shouldn’t let YouTube suffer undue burden!

Viacom v. Youtube

It seems that, in the viacom v. Youtube case, we can have some viewpoint similar to the Sony case. One of reasons that the court held that Sony's betamax did not infringe copyrights of many producers, is that it had substantially non-infringing use. Similarly, main purpose of Youtube is to guarantee users to post and show their own opinions and expression without any restrictions. The objective of Youtube is not to freely share copyrighted works. Before Youtube, it was hard for citizens to express their opinions to the public unless they obtained any kind of support of a broadcasting station. However, thanks to Youtube, anyone can create and post video clips to show their opinions. They don't need the broadcasting station's support or help any more. Of course, there may be some copyright infringing contents in Youtube. However, Youtube is properly handling this issue by immediately taking them down. It seems that Youtube should win in this lawsuit because it is closely related to the freedom of speech.

Innovators' presentation

Hi everyone! Innovators decided to make a video as their presentation (available if you click on the title of the post I suppose). After much struggle, the video has been posted on my facebook profile. It is accessible to my friends, friends of friends and the UW network. I assume that most of you would be in one of those situations and could get access to it... You can check it out before class on Wednesday if you would like. See you on Wednesday!

Update on TM case re discussed in class v. Second Life

Yesterday I mentioned that a lawsuit had been filed against Linden Lab, maker of Second Life, regarding trademark infringement. We also talked about "who to sue" in cases such as this. So there has been a development in the case against Linden Lab - the plaintiff has dropped the case. Why? What do you think?

A noteworthy blog

I am passing along this blog, without expressing my opinion about the author's views and perspective. Tt contains so many timely articles about things we've been discussing. Also and especially it provides a terrific list of links to other blogs and websites of interest. Several of you asked me for links to good places to do some research, and I think you'll find something of use in his list of links. Cheers!

For those who did not know second life a lot

I find this 5 minute introductory video of second life, it is helpful to know what is going on in the Second Life.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2496361n

Viacom v. Y-Tube

Law is just law even though it may be not fair. Under the Statute of DMCA safe harbor provision, YouTube is not liable if it takes down the infringing materials immediately after receiving a notice from right owner. Viacom is arguing that YouTube has to have more actions to prevent copyright infringement which are not required by law, maybe required by fairness principle which is not law. Furthermore, there are huge amount of non-infringing uses and possible fair uses in YouTube which will strongly support the public benefit. As we all agree, YouTube has moved the video market forward faster than any other player. Viacom has not made any innovation and just fears loss of control, particularly of the distribution channel, which will just stifle further innovation in the market. However, I am afraid but it seems to me that Google also might have a very strong business incentive to settle this case, like a Google book case.

Google Book

Frankly, I was really hoping to see a court decision on this case which might provide a guideline on the fair use of digital copyright. As many critics are saying, Google seems to make a business decision to maintain its monopolistic position on the digital book market. I understand that is why US government agency is going to start antitrust investigation on this settlement. At a glance, Google book project is really cool and great benefit to the public and in some other sense it also could be profitable to authors as well because I do not think that the Google book actually give a serious impact on the printed book markets for the time being. Furthermore, under the settlement agreement, each book's author and/or publisher, whoever holds the copyright, retains the power to set the price on consumer access to the book, as well as the right to withdraw the book completely from the database. The antitrust concern also need to be balanced between the pro-competitive effect/consumer protection and the protection of right owner. I wonder how long the monopoly power of Google might be last in dynamic digital technology age.

Autod Admit Lawsuit & Legal Implications of On Line Discussion Boards

In light of the fact that our topic for Wednesday's class is the legal implications of social networking, etc., I wanted to pass along two links for recent articles about the Autoadmit lawsuit.

For those of you who don't know anything about it, the basic background to this lawsuit is that two female Yale Law students were the targets of some very nasty and vicious remarks by fellow students who posted their comments on a website called autoadmit.com. The website was originally intended to be a discussion board, a place where students could communicate with each other and provide honest feedback about what life is really like at an Ivy League school. The purpose was to share "inside information" on professors, classes, general student life, etc. The "autoadmit" title refers to the fact that the students who are admitted into these Ivy Leage schools have such high test scores, grades, and other qualifications that they are "automatically admitted" into the Ivy League schools.

The root of the lawsuit is that fellow students (whose identities were not known since they used on line names and not their real names)started posting such nasty remarks that the female students were professionally affected by the comments. The two law students took a leave of absence from the Yale Law School, and one of them believes that she lost job offers because of the comments. Eventually, the two students got together and sued one of the owners and operators of the site, who was himself a law student at an Ivy League law school (University of Pennsylvania).

Interestingly, the basis of the lawsuit is copyright infringement, since one of the posts on the site included an on line beauty pageant, in which people voted, and one of the pictures used for this contest was a Facebook photo of one of the two female students. The lawsuit has gained a lot of attention of late because the one of the owners of the suit (the UPENN law student) sued the two female law students as well, claiming that he lost a job offer from a Boston law firm due to their suit against him.The story was even featured on National Public Radio a few months ago.

Needless to say, this law suit and its origins indicate just how complicated and even messy the effects and consequences our on-line actions can be.
For further details, here are the two links:

www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/28661

www.techliberation.com/2009/02/16/the-autoadmit-case-and-the-future-of-sec-230/

SL in near future

I have been playing Second Life (I have my home/land in SL) since 2006 and I participated to discuss how my company might utilize the "world" at the time many companies discussed on same topics. I think my company could introduce virtual musical instruments for marketing or promoting RL music lessons in SL but none of them was developed because of the characteristics of participants of the "world" at that time... But I foresee this kind of "world" will be more common in near future and the IP issue will be critical for developer to ensure certain exclusivity of IP in the "world". I believe it's much easier to restrict copy or identify infringement in the "world" so it could promote progress of science and arts more than in RL.

About second life's IP solution

From a legal viewpoint, I believe what second life did does make sense, since it's the way we used in real life. People who creates an image or scene or uploads his works should have the IP rights thereof.
My concern, however, is whether this is that important, since it cannot produce any real value. Maybe someone would use or buy it, but that does not change its virtual nature, or maybe it is good for some special businesses which have not been in my knowledge. Hope to know more on this week's class.

This Wednesday's Class

Hi Everyone,

At  Wednesday's class, we are going to be talking about some of the legal implications of a few  "novel" innovations at the intersection of technology and intellectual property, including virtual worlds and social networking.  Of course, each of these subject areas provides more than a semester's worth of material on its own, but we'll at least familiarize ourselves with the issues.

I'd like each of you to be prepared to discuss in class your opinions and ideas.  These are incredibly rich subject areas that provoke a wide range of reactions among lawyers.

Please visit www.secondlife.com.  Ideally, download the application and spend some time visiting different environments in Second Life.    Here's how to do it:

Start on the home page off www.secondlife.com.

Click "Explore".  

This will take you to a registration page.  You have to make up a name for your avatar.  Just pick a first name, and then it will give you a limited list of last names to choose from.

When you register, you have the option of "choosing a community" from which to start when you join.  I recommend you do this, especially if you are not a native English speaker.  You'll likely find a community (which is just an entry portal into Second Life) in your native language or originating from your home country.

Then download the application.

Once you download the application, you will have opportunities to easily navigate around Second Life by following links to different experiences.  You can also find these under "community".

We'll try to do this in class Wed. as well if we can maintain a stable Internet connection.

One of the interesting aspects of Second Life is that its creator, Linden Lab, allows individual users to own the intellectual property in any creations they make and upload to Second Life, which is quite unlike most websites or applications to which users contribute content.  Given the many issues we've been discussing this semester, the implications of this business and legal strategy are quite significant.  

This is the terms of service for Second Life.  Paragraph 3.2 contains the intellectual property clause.  http://secondlife.com//corporate/tos.php

This is the terms of service for Second Life.  Paragraph 3.2 contains the intellectual property clause.  http://secondlife.com//corporate/tos.php

And check out this counter-perspective on the intellectual property ownership strategy:  

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/04/eff-and-sl.html

The following readings are optional.

Here is an interview of Prof.  Larry Lessig that occurred in Second Life regarding his opinions on some topics related to public policy, the Google Books case, intellectual property law, Creative Commons, the scope of copyright, and some other subjects we've discussed in class.    In addition, this is an interesting example in and of itself on the kinds of events that can and do occur within Second Life.   http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/01/the_second_life.html

We talked a bit about the Google Books case a few weeks ago.  This is one particularly lucid piece of commentary analyzing the case and the potential far-reaching implications on the settlement.  Of course, it's one perspective, so feel free to post your own or links to others that you find compelling or worth noting.

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/04/legally-speaking-the-dead-soul.html

Let me know if you have questions.  Happy teleporting in the meantime, and I'll see you Wednesday.

Kelly Jo MacArthur

Some researchers use YouTube for study of animal brain

I found interesting article regarding YouTube.
Researchers use YouTube to study animal brain.
YouTube contributes animal science.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009154754_parrots01.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7IZmRnAo6s