Then again, there's a good chance that I'm completely wrong and have no idea what I'm talking about. (In other words, I suck at legal speak.)

Karaidli: Just say IANAL (I Am Not a Lawyer).

I went to check that section as well (great minds and all that!) but didn't have the energy to post/extend the discussion. To be honest I don't see how we know this guy is the actual copyright holder and if he is, why isn't he taking it up with YouTube in the first place.
I blogged that video to show what a pointless exercise it can be to go around asking people to remove links - when it's out there, it's out there. Don't upload it to YouTube in the first place if it's so precious. Because with a clip like that it's going to be on thousands of blogs and websites.

One more point; the uploader is granting YouTube a generous license to do pretty much what they want with the video - so much for protecting your copyright.

I think the whole copyright thing is bullshit. I mean, Warner Brothers would never upload one of their movies and then cry foul when people start downloading them. If you put it on the internet, then you've granted permission for people to download it.

Also, why did we remove the video?? We were just embedding it, there's nothing wrong with that!

karaidl,

I removed it because under the DMCA if we are notified by a copyright user and we fail to act within 5 days we are libel. I couldn't find any prior incidence of the video online.

Libel or liable? English is not my strong soot.

Thanks, James. Consider me enlightened. (Although I think that bit is bullshit, too.)

It's libel.

no it's liable, English is apparently not one of my skills either. I would agree it's pretty lame but we have no warchest to fight lawyers with so we capitulate.

Oh right! Libel is that other legal thing that I don't know anything about!

Evidently we're just a couple of non-english speaking dumbasses.

libel is when you publicly call someone an asshole who thinks he is not and he sues you for deflagration of clarity...

Really? I thought that one was slander... isn't libel on paper?

James, did the user serve a DMCA takedown notice? I presume they have to do something more than just claim it's their video in a one line comment on a post.

Slander is spoken. Libel is written - you've got that part straight, K.

Phew... Maybe I can rest a little easier now.

JR, you are only require by DMCA to remove content you have control over. An embed displaying something from another site is not illegal. Imagine there was a .jpg you were hotlinking. The hosting site is responsible.

Imagine the case in front of a judge. Where is the video? not on our harddrive. ok, well what are you hosting? this 25 character URL..

Isn't there someplace that we (And by "we," I mean James) can call and inquire about embeds? Maybe the U.S. Copyright office? They've got a number on their website.

You gotta admit, it would be nice to have this all sorted out once and for all. And try as I might, I CANNOT find anything about embeds on anything I've read about the DMCA.

While we could probably keep the video up and force the user to get an actual take down notice VideoSift is not now nor will it ever be in the habit of being an asshole. Well with the exception of self linkers.

RE: JoeDirt, There has yet to be a court case decided on the legality of linking to infringing material. We tend to walk on the frightened little kid side of the line.

copyright is changing... it's amazing to watch.

as a musician and designer, it's also pretty fucking annoying that i can't get some kind of lifetime free ride by writing one christmas hit single, but i am not gonna moan about it in court.

copyright is de facto dead. there's some lawyer speak for ya.

i agree with taking the video down though, i mean it's not like one of our community was flexing his freedom of speech, it's not a matter of principle, it's just a video. we have others.

We tend to walk on the frightened little kid side of the line.

LMAO, quality comment!

JR,

You can't tell me you honestly believe you can't walk into court with a poster board written in big letters the embed code, and say judge, this is all that was hosted on my website. It was from youtube, the largest website on the internet, owned by one of the largest companies on the internet (have your ever heard of 'google', judge?). It wasn't some secret way to find infringing videos. This lawyer asshat on the opposing bench is abusing DMCA and should be fined for tortious interference and prevented from ever filing DMCA claims again until an independent 3rd party reviews their DMCA take down request from now on.

I can't imagine they can claim contributory copyright infringement when google and YT have mechanisms to make the video "no longer available" and this site staff does not "post" these video submission or have any control over what content shows up on the frontpage, but is open to any person to post and no videos are actively selected or rejected by admins (except in the case of illegal or offensive content).

What happens when corporation start making a living at doing this full time. You will get DMCA request for everything and good luck finding out if they are legal content holder, or even filed legal request and aren't just spamming any old video they think they can. it will become full time.. so just let them keep sending letters.

Just reply with form letters, please contact youtube where the video is hosted as they have mechanisms to verify DMCA takedown request. Thank you have a nice day.

Sheesh! I'd hate to see the frigidity dun heaver if he actually tried to take legal process. I can see it now "All parties for Videosift v. Dumbshit." Ignoring the fact that the publisher allowed embedding, what makes you think people won't rip it off You Tube anyway? The guy obviously has no legal backing but it could be a case studied by law students in the coming years about defining information acts and policies established by the state.

Its one of those better to be safe than sorry things. If this was my site, it would be gone with no discussion. If you aint rich, avoid All possible legal issues.

*discard

Discarding this post - discard requested by original submitter karaidl.