Kevin Lee’s use of short film clips as part of his video reviews would normally be regarded as fair use, but several complaints about his channel forced YouTube to protect itself under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
“[I]t seems as if perfectly lawful clips are being silenced at the whim of copyright owners who don’t like the thought of anyone other than themselves posting content,” writes MediaPost’s Wendy Davis.
The search giant has lost two cases involving thumbnail images included in the previews of search results.
The rulings can be appealed.
According to court documents seen by Folio, a number of US magazine publishers have ended copyright action against magazine-sharing website Mygazines.com.
US Congress is close to passing legislation that would allow more time for arranging an agreement to help save the emerging internet radio market from a rise in copyright royalty rates.
Mike O’Donnell, chief executive officer of iCopyright, gave Journalism.co.uk a sneak preview and an introduction to its new Discovery tool at the SIIA Global Information Industry Summit yesterday.
The tool scans public sites, including blogs, for reuse of a publisher’s content. The publisher can specify the search terms, e.g. how much of a match, how important the offending site is in terms of ad revenue, and how the application will contact and deal with the infringer.
[audio:http://www.journalism.co.uk/sounds/mikeodonnell.mp3]A tool from iCopyright, which already handles copyright licensing for the Associated Press, is also being developed for bloggers and smaller, independent publishers, O’Donnell said.
Speaking in a session on copyright on the web at yesterday’s SIIA Global Information Industry Summit, Greg Merkle, vice president and creative director of Dow Jones‘ enterprise division, said a standard system for tagging the copyright of material online is needed – in particular, because of the growing use of social media tools to distribute content.
Dow Jones relies on ‘trust’ and ’emerging standards’ to prevent news and information, which it releases through social media tools such as RSS feeds, from leaving that network, said Merkle.
“There’s no standard for marking up the copyright of information. We are looking at microformats which is a way to say this is copyrighted,” he said.
“We know users collaborate on information, but there are no provisions and no guidelines. We instill trust and we are banking on emerging standards.”
The news that video-sharing site Veoh have won their copyright case could set a precedent for similar sites, according to a host of bloggers today.
In a legal analysis by the Electric Frontier Foundation, Fred von Lohmann writes: “the ruling should be required reading for the executives of every ‘Web 2.0’ business that relies on ‘user-generated content.”
On Wednesday a US District court judge ruled that the site qualified for protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and could not be sued for copyright infringement.
The adult video site Io Group were suing on grounds that Veoh violated its copyright in 2006 when the site showed user-uploaded clips from 10 of the company’s films. However, Veoh was found to have complied with DMCA guidelines.
Media companies have begun advertising on a small number of YouTube videos.
The new system allows companies to run advertising alongside content posted without their permission.
An online petition has been set-up urging bloggers to boycott the Associated Press (AP), after the agency filed takedown notices against Drudge Retort for use of its content on the site.
The campaign run by UnAssociatedPress has gained 75 signatures since it was set-up on Saturday and encourages bloggers to make use of other agency’s material.
Since issuing the takedown notices to the Drudge Retort, AP vice president Jim Kennedy has said the agency’s tactics have been heavy-handed and a more thoughtful approach would be considered going forward.
According to the New York Times, the agency is considering a set of guidelines for bloggers on how to use their content.
In a statement he stressed the importance of bloggers in ‘the news conversation of the day’, but said the agency is concerned by wholesale reproduction of its content, which goes beyond reference.
Ever wondered where the videos that have fallen off YouTube – or been pushed – end up?
Enter YouTomb – the elephant’s graveyard of clips that have been removed from the video sharing site for copyright infringements and other offences.
Speaking to Wired.com, YouTomb’s creators – a group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – say the site isn’t about reshowing illegal material, but is for tracking cases where remixed and satirical clips have been removed for alleged copyright infringements.
“MIT Free Culture became especially interested in the issue after YouTube announced that it would begin using filtering technology to scan users’ video and audio for near-matches with copyrighted material. While automating the takedown process may make enforcement easier, it also means that content falling under fair-use exceptions and even totally innocuous videos may receive some of the collateral damage,” a mission statement on the site reads.
As such the videos on YouTomb are represented by stills and are not available to play, but show stats on how many views they attracted before being pulled.
Despite YouTube’s recent efforts to step up copyright policing and create an automate removal process, removed videos live on in some form through YouTomb, which takes on the mantle of a video watchdog.
According to the site, it is currently monitoring 223834 videos and has identified 4428 videos taken down for alleged copyright violation and 13522 videos taken down for other reasons.