Is Youtube use Immoral?

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Background:

Copyright infingment, in the United States, is a strict liability offense. This means that even if you commit copyright infringement without knowing it you have broken the law.

YouTube users cannot legally upload copyrighted content which they do not have the right to license to YouTube. However, YouTube takes advantage of a provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which requires them to remove content only when served with a DMCA violation notice from the copyright owner. This means YouTube does not need to police the content before offering it to the public. It also means that, copyrighted material is freely available on YouTube until a notice is served. In the mean time, many people are breaking the law by watching the infringing content.

Morality:

There are two situations which may arise that require moral consideration:
  1. a user watches content that they believe to be legit but is in fact not.
  2. a user watches content that they suspect is in violation because it is a BBC production and it was uploaded by JackTheRipper not the BBC.
From a legal standpoint both situations are illegal. From a moral standpoint the second has the potential to constitute “full knowledge.” However, there is still some ambiguity because we do not know if JackTheRipper got permission from the BBC to redistribute their content. Also, we don’t know if the BBC even cares. Under the DMCA, they have to file a violation with YouTube if they do care. However, we have no way of knowing this because we have no way of knowing if the BBC is even aware that the content exists.

There is more and more content on YouTube which is clearly legal. However, the fact of the matter is the there is a lot which is illegal. What is a person to do?

Common sense would seem to say stick to videos which are clearly legal, don’t lose too much sleep over the stuff the is hard to discern, and avoid the content which shows the the signs of being seriously suspect.

Your thoughts?
 
I’ve uploaded some AC/DC concerts from the 80s…can’t really tell if they’re allowed or not, so, as someone that kinda suffers from scrupulousity, I’m supposed to go by the assumption that it’s not bad.
 
A lot of people have a disregard of intellectual property rights and copyright.

I noticed a link on Flickr to someone’s blog about just this point. The writer–a professional photographer, was tired of having her work stolen even though is was marked as copyrighted with all rights reserved. She said she is going to take down the photos and replace them with ones with a big annoying watermark.

Stealing is just too easy.
 
I’m not an expert on copyright, but there’s also the fair use clause.

There’s also a lot of “official” videos on youtube now too. Music labels and artists will put their songs on youtube so fans can listen. I believe some tv shows and channels also do that. So there are some copyright holders who are making them available.

You’ve also got to wonder how many other artists and labels do know that their “stuff” is on youtube and just allow it to be there (strictly from a marketing point of view, it’s free publicity, plus for a lot of the songs you’ll often find an iTunes link to go and buy the song which you’ve got to think generates some purchases, and if you want to you can have it pulled at anytime because Google is a big company that respects copyright law).
 
presidentjlh said:
I’ve uploaded some AC/DC concerts from the 80s…can’t really tell if they’re allowed or not, so, as someone that kinda suffers from scrupulousity, I’m supposed to go by the assumption that it’s not bad.
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I best clarify myself, this doesn’t mean I just post whatever I want. I am not going to post a single AC/DC song that I had to purchase to get. If I am ever told I need to remove my videos as they are violation of something, I will do so immediately. As far as I’m aware, I’m not in violation of anything, my videos have been up for months, and I have received no complaints.
 
I don’t use anything from youtube. But I used to use images I found on the internet for a newsletter I publish, before I realized that many if not most of them, were copyrighted. So lately, if I want to use an image, I email the owner for permission first.

PS–not to complain, but according to the bottom of this page, Catholic Answers owns the copyright to everything I’ve just written!
 
sjs said:
Background:

Copyright infingment, in the United States, is a strict liability offense. This means that even if you commit copyright infringement without knowing it you have broken the law.

YouTube users cannot legally upload copyrighted content which they do not have the right to license to YouTube. However, YouTube takes advantage of a provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which requires them to remove content only when served with a DMCA violation notice from the copyright owner. This means YouTube does not need to police the content before offering it to the public. It also means that, copyrighted material is freely available on YouTube until a notice is served. In the mean time, many people are breaking the law by watching the infringing content.

Morality:

There are two situations which may arise that require moral consideration:
  1. a user watches content that they believe to be legit but is in fact not.
  2. a user watches content that they suspect is in violation because it is a BBC production and it was uploaded by JackTheRipper not the BBC.
From a legal standpoint both situations are illegal. From a moral standpoint the second has the potential to constitute “full knowledge.” However, there is still some ambiguity because we do not know if JackTheRipper got permission from the BBC to redistribute their content. Also, we don’t know if the BBC even cares. Under the DMCA, they have to file a violation with YouTube if they do care. However, we have no way of knowing this because we have no way of knowing if the BBC is even aware that the content exists.

There is more and more content on YouTube which is clearly legal. However, the fact of the matter is the there is a lot which is illegal. What is a person to do?

Common sense would seem to say stick to videos which are clearly legal, don’t lose too much sleep over the stuff the is hard to discern, and avoid the content which shows the the signs of being seriously suspect.

Your thoughts?
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Well, in terms of legality, it would seem like the guilty party is the person who uploads copyrighted content without permission. YouTube only becomes liable once someone complains.

What does the DMCA say about watching things that maybe copyrighted but the owner of the copyright has not complained yet?
 
sjs said:
Background:

Copyright infingment, in the United States, is a strict liability offense. This means that even if you commit copyright infringement without knowing it you have broken the law.

YouTube users cannot legally upload copyrighted content which they do not have the right to license to YouTube. However, YouTube takes advantage of a provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which requires them to remove content only when served with a DMCA violation notice from the copyright owner. This means YouTube does not need to police the content before offering it to the public. It also means that, copyrighted material is freely available on YouTube until a notice is served. In the mean time, many people are breaking the law by watching the infringing content.

Morality:

There are two situations which may arise that require moral consideration:
  1. a user watches content that they believe to be legit but is in fact not.
  2. a user watches content that they suspect is in violation because it is a BBC production and it was uploaded by JackTheRipper not the BBC.
From a legal standpoint both situations are illegal. From a moral standpoint the second has the potential to constitute “full knowledge.” However, there is still some ambiguity because we do not know if JackTheRipper got permission from the BBC to redistribute their content. Also, we don’t know if the BBC even cares. Under the DMCA, they have to file a violation with YouTube if they do care. However, we have no way of knowing this because we have no way of knowing if the BBC is even aware that the content exists.

There is more and more content on YouTube which is clearly legal. However, the fact of the matter is the there is a lot which is illegal. What is a person to do?

Common sense would seem to say stick to videos which are clearly legal, don’t lose too much sleep over the stuff the is hard to discern, and avoid the content which shows the the signs of being seriously suspect.

Your thoughts?
Click to expand...
We have made so many laws, many of them are in opposition from old laws nevertheless I believe that we break laws everyday. It is the way that the System can prosecute those that it wishes…I would not be surprised if you broke by the time you got to work everyday.
 
There’s a few Catholics or Christians around this forum that believe they’re free to take whatever they want, whenever they want and never have to pay a dime for it, so long as they’re getting it from the internet…nothing wrong with that. :rolleyes:

Youtube specifically…youtube is legit, organized and does remove copyright material, so long as a proper DMCA complaint is made by the copyright holder.

If a youtube video has been on for months, with tens of thousands of views…you can sleep soundly knowing that the video is present with the permission of the copyright holder, else they’d have had the video removed.

If you’re watching a pay per view sporting event on youtube, just a few minutes after it aired on tv…rest assured you’re complicit in a copyright violation…as that video will be removed as soon as it’s reported…within hours or minutes.
 
I stopped watching videos on YouTube because of such concerns.
But if it really is probably all legal if it’s been up there for a while maybe I’ll think it over again!
There are some songs I’d really like to watch.
 
Dependson what it is. I know several tv and animation studios stream 100% free and legal shows on their Youtube channels, and there are LOTS of original videos on YT.

There are also times where enough editing is put into something that copyrights aren’t as big a problem, as they become almost like parodies or remixes. Like, for graduation every year, my school makes a slideshow of the grades photots form kindergarten onwards, with clips of songs from each era in the background, and we put them on YT. We’ve never been flagged for CR infringment, even by the infamous WGM, since we’re under something like, what’s it called, a fair use?

In another instance, I made a music video to a song I liked using clips from a movie. I was, months later, given an email that said the companies would allow me to continue streaming the video as long as I agreed to them the run adds for their studios on my YT page. In the end, everyone was happy.
 
Kathrin said:
How do you know something is an original video?
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Isn’t it pretty easy to tell? I mean, the camera quality will scream handheld, or you can see the use of adobe flash rather than professional animation. You can’t be 100% sure that it’s theirs, no, but then, you can’t pick up a book or read a newspaper article without knowing 100% that it isn’t plagarized either, can you?
 
presidentjlh said:
I’ve uploaded some AC/DC concerts from the 80s…can’t really tell if they’re allowed or not, so, as someone that kinda suffers from scrupulousity, I’m supposed to go by the assumption that it’s not bad.
Click to expand...
AC/DC???Now that’s a crime aginst music 😃
 
shondrea said:
Isn’t it pretty easy to tell? I mean, the camera quality will scream handheld, or you can see the use of adobe flash rather than professional animation. You can’t be 100% sure that it’s theirs, no, but then, you can’t pick up a book or read a newspaper article without knowing 100% that it isn’t plagarized either, can you?
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So are you saying videos that are the original videos of a song are most likely on YouTube legally??
 
Perhaps I am just overly-naive about copyright laws, but I do not think simply watching a video on YouTube (which is posted by someone without the copyright holder’s permission) is illegal. It would be illegal to download that video (which you would need to make a concerted effort to do).

Or is the law far more strict than I realize?
 
Zatzat said:
There’s a few Catholics or Christians around this forum that believe they’re free to take whatever they want, whenever they want and never have to pay a dime for it, so long as they’re getting it from the internet…nothing wrong with that. :rolleyes:

Youtube specifically…youtube is legit, organized and does remove copyright material, so long as a proper DMCA complaint is made by the copyright holder.

If a youtube video has been on for months, with tens of thousands of views…you can sleep soundly knowing that the video is present with the permission of the copyright holder, else they’d have had the video removed.

If you’re watching a pay per view sporting event on youtube, just a few minutes after it aired on tv…rest assured you’re complicit in a copyright violation…as that video will be removed as soon as it’s reported…within hours or minutes.
Click to expand...
Well said 👍
 
Joe_5859 said:
Perhaps I am just overly-naive about copyright laws, but I do not think simply watching a video on YouTube (which is posted by someone without the copyright holder’s permission) is illegal. It would be illegal to download that video (which you would need to make a concerted effort to do).

Or is the law far more strict than I realize?
Click to expand...
If a video has been posted in violation of copyright laws and you’re watching that video…you too are in violation of copyright laws.
 
Zatzat said:
If a video has been posted in violation of copyright laws and you’re watching that video…you too are in violation of copyright laws.
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Really? Even if it’s streaming from a site whereby one should be able to assume that all the content posted violates no copyright law? Is each user supposed to research each video themselves?
 
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