Assignment Number Something: Viacom and YouTube

For this assignment, we were supposed to read the article found here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301451.html

Having given up television in January due to the costs, i'd say i spend at least 20 minutes a day looking for things on YouTube to watch. Some days this equates to mechanical dinosaurs, some days it equates to comedy things that i know are from good groups that i want to look up. Other times, i'll type in the name of a television show i like, and see if anyone is bending the rules by putting it up, just so i can see a quick bit of it.

Is this wrong? According to the DMCA, yes. Who's fault is it? According, again, to DMCA, YouTube's. Are either of these statements true in my mind? Not entirely.

It IS wrong to put up someone else's copyrighted material for free. This much i can agree with. It is not right of someone, to take someone else's work, and freely distribute it. Is it wrong for me to look for it? Probably not. Technically, yes, because i am then "stealing" that programming, which would otherwise cost me some amount of money, in some way, to watch. Is the quality of a YouTube dub of something going to satisfy me, should i truely want to watch a movie or television show? No, not at all. Therefore, i personally would go out and seek the same programming somewhere i could purchase it. Does this fit as a mass generalization? no, so therefore, it is wrong to post this material from an ethical standpoint.

One quote from this article, which was written by a spokesperson for the Viacom corporation, really struck me as both odd and hillarious. "Does YouTube have "knowledge" of copyrighted material on its site? Does it have the "right and ability to control" the content? Yes and yes. If the public knows what's there, then YouTube's management surely does." I do not think that any managment staff in the world is accutely aware of every file being hosted on its giant ever changing website. Could YouTube do a more selective filtering, so that something like, South Park could never appear as a title because the software would automatically assume it was copyright? Yes. YouTube could easily impliment such filtering, but it would probably instantly lose much of what makes it so popular today. Perhaps it should be doing this sort of filtering, but again i think this would stifle many people, and also make it difficult to post some videos. (For instance "Tribute to South Park" would also be blocked from being posted under this framework)

It IS the responsibility of YouTube to take down these copyrighted materials. However, i feel as though as long as they are doing so, to the best of thier knowlege in as timely a manner as is possible, then this should satisfy the law. Again, whether or not this actually satisfies the legal rammifications at work here, i am unsure. Though the DMCA was meant to protect intellectual property, i do not think it was meant to stop or infringe on creativity on the web. Viacom is pulling an RIAA here in my opinion. Though, instead of going after the little guy, they are going after the big hoster guy, who is basically controlled by the little guy.

This sort of "grinds my gears" in general, but i really dont have the legal background or expertise to discuss it in more depth than the unfocussed ramblings of above.