I hope he sends a C&D to Viacom, I'd love to see Viacom try and get out of it when they use and support them so extensively. |
There's actually some interesting discussion about this going on in the comments of the post on Slashdot:
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/08/30/128226.shtml
One of the more interesting comments:
"Viacom used his video as part of a report that included commentary on it. That's fair use.
He then used Viacom's derivative work, but, it seems, didn't provide any commentary on the clip you uploaded to YouTube. Instead, he just made a direct copy. That's copyright infringement."
It seems like a lot of people have a lot of confusion about what constitutes fair use and what doesn't. (And this seems to be coming up more and more in cases like Viacom versus YouTube, the possibility that the NFL is making claims that are overly broad against rebroadcasting any part of their program, etc.) |
I agree with Niraj – there is a ton of confusion over what constitutes Fair Use.
To learn more about the key factors of fair use and how technology can help add much-needed objectivity, check out a recent post I made at http://attributor.com/blog/?p=18 |
The whole law needs to change to accomodate for the web. Why? Because in traditional fair use (in German laws too) the amount of context/ commentary you are providing on a given piece determines how much it is fair use. Hence, a copy of a painting where you provide nothing but the painting may not be fair use by law, but a copy of a painting within a 200 page book discussion on this painter may be fair use. But on YouTube, how do you measure this commentary? Are the subsequent comments people make part of the overall work – a community work of providing context, putting the clip into fair use? What about blogs embedding a YouTube video, and putting their own discussion below the clip? And just what *constitutes* the work in a blog – is it the blog post (relatively little context) or is the "work" the full blog (which is a huge amount of context)?
In this specific case, I wonder though what the law of fair use says about re-integrating derivatives. Seems to me fairness should account that it's YOUR work to begin with; so the only part of the video Chris didn't own was the commentary, which may have been only a small part of the work, hence fair use (because of the context of his original work provided within the clip). Added to his potential title/ description provided with the upload of course. |
It's a very fussy part of the law |
Chris is definitely getting screwed, and I won't defend the vagaries of Fair Use, but technology can take the emotion of the room by providing some objectivity to the discussion – including those that cross media types such as your example of the painting and book discussion.
The ease of reusing/transforming someone else's content is one of the most amazing things about the web, yet it's also one of its Achilles heels for its further development – without incentives, why would content creators release their best work on the web?
Admittedly, anyone who fails to think of the web as the most powerful distribution channel ever has a major blind spot, but content creators need to have some visibility of reuse of their work to give them the confidence to push everything out as far as it can go.
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>without incentives, why would content creators release their best work on >the web?
yeah, the main reason youtube can't get content creators to release original work is the lack of incentive </sarcasm>
copyright laws only protect financial incentives.
Apparently in this day and age when the cost of creating content has decreased dramatically (you can do most anything on your own pc – filming, editing, publishing, music, special effects etc) copyright law only serves to protect outdated dinosaurs like Viacom.
They don't actually protect the rights of authors either.
In fact, if you get paid for creating content (be it coding, art, writing or music) you usually have to sign away your rights just to get the job.
I'm not saying this system should be abolished – just that it doesn't really protect YOUR rights. You have to waive rights just to be able to create and make a living creating.
Which is an acceptable trade-off for people who want to create. But it certainly can't be said to be the incentive for creating. |
I agree that Viacom is trying to protect its financial incentives, but aren't the decreased barriers/costs you mention even more incentive for the industry to figure this out?
The individuals who create and publish themselves should be able to seek the same financial rewards as the dinosaurs and have access to the same tools; otherwise, they will be subject to signing away their rights as you mention.
The main point is that relying on the same tactics to interpret (feeble) laws will not get us anywhere – technology should be able to help.
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Follow-up: Christopher Knight's DMCA counter-notification was a success, and the video is restored now:
http://theknightshift.blogspot.com/2007/09/viacom-situation-update-youtube-has.html
<<I filed a counter-notification claim with YouTube, arguing that I should be entitled to use the clip because it was a derivative product built on material that I was the original creator of. The incident received quite a bit of publicity after I posted about it on this blog. ... And sure enough, the clip is back up.>> |
