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Posted by Colin B on 12/08/06 20:00
"Christopher Campbell" <christophercampbell@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:0001HW.C19EEECA001B80FFF0407500@news.wavecable.com...
> I might find all kinds of arguments about why I am entitled to use your
> car,
> or even why it might be a benefit to you for me to use your car. But I
> suspect that if I took your car without asking you or paying for it, you
> could still have me arrested. Sure, I might claim "fair use" by only using
> the car for a little while and while you were not using it but, selfish
> and
> unreasonable person that you are, you probably would think I was simply
> stealing your car. No matter how beneficial to you it might be for me to
> steal your car, you probably would insist that the decision be left up to
> you, not to me.
>
> It is disingenuous to steal intellectual property and then rationalize it
> by
> insisting it was a benefit to the property owner. The fact remains: you
> took
> something that belonged to somebody else and used it for your own benefit
> without the owner's permission. All the rationalization in the world does
> not
> change that fact. Some property owners might allow the use of their
> property
> on YouTube. Others might not value the so-called 'benefits' as greatly.
> Their
> circumstances or the nature of their property might be different. The
> decision should be theirs, not left to a bunch of covetous juveniles on
> YouTube whose only interest is getting something for nothing.
>
> It should be up to the owners of intellectual property to decide who gets
> to
> use that property and under what conditions. Thieves should not be the
> ones
> who make up the rules about using intellectual property.
You say that "the fact remains: you took something that belonged to somebody
else and used it for your own benefit without the owner's permission". I
would agree with this statement entirely if I made exact copies of a
commercial DVD without the owner's permission and then sold them on the
black market for a profit for myself.
But isn't the Youtube situation slightly different? If I were to upload one
track from a commercial DVD without permission, then I haven't gained any
financial benefit from doing this. In these circumstances, isn't it really
Youtube who gains all the benefit from this upload, and isn't it Youtube who
made the site available for me to do the upload? Isn't it the uploaders who
are taking all the risks and Youtube who are gaining all the benefits?
I have been told in this thread that, all the present law requires Youtube
to do, is to remove offending items when (and if) the legitimate owners
complain. If it is obvious to Youtube that huge numbers of uploads are
"stolen property" then wouldn't it be better if Youtube refused to publish
these items in the first place (despite the current law) instead of waiting
for the copyright holders to ask for such items to be removed? Aren't
receivers of stolen property who use it for their own benefit also
committing a crime?
But as has been pointed out in Fred's blog, perhaps the rights' owners don't
mind that poor copies of a few tracks from their DVDs appear on Youtube? If
huge numbers of these "stolen items" remain on internet for a long time,
then couldn't we assume that the owners are pleased to get the free
advertising from having these items on Youtube? If they were concerned about
the situation, wouldn't they have asked Youtube to delete these items long
ago?
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