YouTube and illegal videos

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epiclotus said:
Yes, you are fairly correct in summation. I think if you have reason to believe a Youtube video is illegally uploaded, it would be wrong to watch it. What I think we haven’t determined is what the moral principle is when navigating an antiquated legal system that simply does not address many of the situations we find ourselves in today.

A specific example, as Ed requests:

Take the birthday example. You are at a birthday gathering at a restaurant, and several people take up the song Happy Birthday. Should you join in, you would be breaking the law by violating Title 17 UCC § 106 (4), which grants the owner of Happy Birthday the exclusive right of public performance. Technically, you could face statutory damages that are a minimum of $200, with the fine climbing as high as $2500 if the court determines you knowingly infringed the work.

So, if you are breaking the law in this way, are you also sinning? Is singing Happy Birthday to a friend, family, or co-worker in a public place a sin?
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That is the question. Are some copyright infringements sinful and others not and how would you determine what would be a sin and what wouldn’t be? Does knowledge come into it, if somebody sings Happy birthday in a restaurant or watches a youtube video that was not uploaded by the owner not committing a sin if they did not know that it was copyright infringement but somebody who knows that singing Happy birthday is copyright infringement and watching a youtube video is but sings Happy Birthday and watches youtube video, commit a sin?

As the article I posted points out, there are many things which are copyright infringements, which do not involve the internet. Add the internet which millions use every day, and it is difficult to determine if all copyright infringement are sin, if some copyright infringements examples are sin.

John Tehranian points out singing along with a car stereo, particularly if the windows are down, could be a possible infringement on page 15

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1029151
 
edwest2 said:
Antiquated? Please don’t post anymore vagueness. OK?

Thanks,
Ed
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Antiquated is descriptive, not vague. Much of Title 17’s framework was laid out in 1976, prior to the widespread usage of the internet. It was incapable of handling the technological advances of the following decades, and was thus amended with the DMCA. The DMCA was written prior to the advent of most major social media outlets, is incapable of handling these new methods of social expression, and thus needs amending again. These are laws which were meant to stop mass piracy from happening, yet could not anticipate the problems brought about by peer-to-peer technologies, streaming video sites, and social media.

You want to stick with talking about Youtube and The Pirate Bay, but answering questions about those is fairly straightforward. You don’t like my birthday example, but what if I film it and put it on Youtube (an example put forth in the article mentioned earlier). Then I’m not only violating Title 17 UCC § 106 (4), but Title 17 UCC § 106 (3) as well, and could be liable for statutory damages based on every single view that video gets. The $200 minimum could turn into a multi-million dollar lawsuit in a blink, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility if Warner Chappell Music (who currently own the rights to the song) decided to pursue legal action. If we can all agree that’s illegal, is it also sinful? Was I sinning when I sang the song in a public place to begin with? What if I watch someone else’s video of a birthday party where they sing the song? That’s also illegal, but is it also sinful?

Again, I am not being at all vague here. Much of Title 17 was designed in an age where the average citizen was incapable of piracy (especially on a mass scale), and the DMCA was designed in an age when the internet was still in relative social infancy. While there is merit in their efforts, there is flaw in their execution. These laws were not designed to handle Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, Tumblr, Twitter, and whatever the next popular iteration turns out to be.

That’s why I say, we are left with a choice to either be very vigilant or to ignore much of the latest tech out there.
 
King_Louis_IX said:
By ‘oppressive’ he means that the law, if taken strictly, is outdated, impractical, and simply inadequate for the realities of the technological world we live in today. We all agree that stealing is the form of action which is technically breaking the laws that we are discussing, but we are not sure about whether it is immoral stealing, if I may put it that way.
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I don’t agree with that. Piracy is not, strictly speaking, “stealing”, because the act of stealing necessarily includes depriving someone else of property. Piracy can be loosely categorized as a kind of theft, but is not analogous to theft as it has always been regarded, because nobody loses property when piracy is committed. The crime in piracy is depriving another person of their “rightful” income derived from selling a copy of digital goods. That is more difficult to prove than a real loss realized by the deprivation of property, but it is a legitimate concern, or IP law would have no basis.
 
Elizium23 said:
I don’t agree with that. Piracy is not, strictly speaking, “stealing”, because the act of stealing necessarily includes depriving someone else of property. Piracy can be loosely categorized as a kind of theft, but is not analogous to theft as it has always been regarded, because nobody loses property when piracy is committed. The crime in piracy is depriving another person of their “rightful” income derived from selling a copy of digital goods. That is more difficult to prove than a real loss realized by the deprivation of property, but it is a legitimate concern, or IP law would have no basis.
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If a crime of piracy derives somebody from selling their product, what if you download something via p2p sharing, or watch on youtube, a reality television show that will never be sold?

Most reality television shows I have come across are never sold via download, or DVD, they might be put on a stream on the official website of the show, but not all shows are streamed on an official website.
 
It always seemed obvious to me that posting a person’s work without permission =/= making and posting a derivative work. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with making a derivative work, because even if the characters and setting are not yours, the fan art or fanfic you make with them is. 🤷

Until now, I’ve been operating under the assumption that:
  1. Fansubs, scanlations, and illegally posted materials, on youtube or otherwise, are not OK, since this is directly copying and distributing someone else’s work without permission and without any sort of compensation to the creators.
  2. Parody videos, fan comics, fan art, fan fiction, and fan-produced derivative games or websites are OK, since they are using the other creator’s work as a starting point and then making something unique. They DO NOT simply distribute the author’s work without permission, and therefore are not taking hypothetical sales from the creators.
And yet, both are apparently illegal. 🤷
 
Parody is specifically protected by the law (although satire is not, so you have to be careful).

Also, fan works can be be legal as long as they’re transformative. Sadly, though, you could still end up in court having to prove that if the author decides to make you prove it.

Derivative works are otherwise the sole purview of the original owner.
 
epiclotus said:
Parody is specifically protected by the law (although satire is not, so you have to be careful).

Also, fan works can be be legal as long as they’re transformative. Sadly, though, you could still end up in court having to prove that if the author decides to make you prove it.

Derivative works are otherwise the sole purview of the original owner.
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The difference between parody and satire is, well… Not something we should have to argue in court. :ehh:

And I know fan works are not legal, but that’s the point- I don’t really see why they shouldn’t be. 🤷
 
True, I suppose the crime is piracy, not theft, in most of the cases we are talking about. Thank you, Elizium23. And, no, Ed, I do not think it’s always immoral to take something that doesn’t belong to you.

Now, to complicate things, or maybe simplify things, I noticed that YouTube has been celebrating gay pride weekend by including a rainbow flag in their logo and promoting several pro-gay-pride videos. Essentially propaganda, really, about what is currently a very divisive and unsettled issue in America. I don’t wish to discuss gay marriage here but I do wish to point out that this is yet another incentive for us Catholics, who do not support the gay pride movement, to stay away from YouTube a little more than usual.
 
Elizium23 said:
I don’t agree with that. Piracy is not, strictly speaking, “stealing”, because the act of stealing necessarily includes depriving someone else of property. Piracy can be loosely categorized as a kind of theft, but is not analogous to theft as it has always been regarded, because nobody loses property when piracy is committed. The crime in piracy is depriving another person of their “rightful” income derived from selling a copy of digital goods. That is more difficult to prove than a real loss realized by the deprivation of property, but it is a legitimate concern, or IP law would have no basis.
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That is pure, 100% unadulterated baloney. The FBI doesn’t see it that way. Difficult to prove? Every time I see one of our works turned into digital bits, what? I assume it was done for no particular reason? No, IT WAS DONE FOR THE OBVIOUS REASON OF PROVIDING MY WORK TO ANYBODY FOR NOTHING.

Get it through your heads folks. Stephen King’s print-only book, Joyland, has been pirated.

fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/white_collar/ipr/ipr

In Germany, new anti-copy technology is being developed and my company has developed a system where PDF copies of a title are marked and traceable.

Peace,
Ed
 
When I opened this thread, I had no intention of changing my YouTube viewing habits. Now, I’m not so sure. Since I’ve become more serious in my faith, I have stopped downloading music, movies and video games unless I’ve had the opportunity to pay the creator for their work (e.g. through iTunes, Steam, etc.) I’ve limited my internet music to YouTube since I had thought that they had a partnership with various record labels. If YouTube has recognition software that’s good detect when a song is in a video, how much harder could it possible be to simply remove a user whenever they use music which triggers their detection software. I had (and frankly, still do) assume that they have entered into some sort of partnership the relevant record labels.

I might have to look into this more. I might stick with the official channels and VEVO until I could figure this out…

With that said, even if this does turn out to be illegal I find it very difficult to believe it is immoral outside of breaking the law (which, admittedly, can be immoral). The worst part of music piracy is that it deprives creator of income;however, the advertisement system on YouTube seems to ensure that this isn’t the case. Furthermore, there are still good reasons to purchase music as opposed to just listening to it on YouTube (it’s no fun to be chained to a laptop with an internet connection).
 
Of course it is more difficult to prove. A store is selling oranges and has twelve in inventory. They cost $0.25 apiece. I steal an orange from the store: they just lost a sale of $0.25. They can point to their 11 oranges and my 1 orange and arrest me for theft because I have deprived them of real property.

Now the same store has twelve oranges, and I point my magic wand at one and flawlessly duplicate it. Now I have one orange and the store still has twelve. The store arguably lost money because I didn’t buy one from them. But if customers come around and buy all their oranges, the store still makes $3.00. Then again, if would-be customers come up with magic wands and flawlessly duplicate oranges until everyone has an orange, the store is stuck with twelve unsellable oranges and just lost $1.20 they spent to buy them from the wholesaler, and throws them out when they go bad.

So yes, it is harder to concretely see why piracy causes real monetary losses for the copyright holders.
 
I emailed Patrick McKay, who has a website and is an attorney. I asked him in the email about if it was illegal for me to watch music videos, film mash ups with music in the background, clips of television shows and movies, but not full television or movies, youtube videos,m that were not uploaded by the content owner, and here is his response which he has allowed me to quote

No it’s not illegal to watch. Courts have ruled that while the person who uploads copyright infringing content to a streaming site is liable for copyright infringement, someone who just watches infringing content on streaming site does not commit copyright infringement.

Patrick McKay
Attorney at Law
Cell: (303) 809-3613
Email: patrick@fairusetube.org

I sent another email asking what court cases those were and another email asking if I could quote him and he said

Sure you can quote me. Here’s an article talking about that court ruling: techdirt.com/articles/20120803/05165019928/judge-posner-embedding-infringing-videos-is-not-copyright-infringement-neither-is-watching-them.shtml

Patrick McKay

He is not a Priest, he can not comment on for sure if it is a sin to watch a video on youtube that commits copyright infringement.
 
I emailed Patrick McKay, who has a website and is an attorney. I asked him in the email about if it was illegal for me to watch music videos, film mash ups with music in the background, clips of television shows and movies, but not full television or movies, youtube videos, that were not uploaded by the content owner, and here is his response which he has allowed me to quote. He is not a Priest, he can not comment on for sure if it is a sin to watch a video on youtube that commits copyright infringement

No it’s not illegal to watch. Courts have ruled that while the person who uploads copyright infringing content to a streaming site is liable for copyright infringement, someone who just watches infringing content on streaming site does not commit copyright infringement.

Patrick McKay
Attorney at Law
Cell: (303) 809-3613
Email: patrick@fairusetube.org

I sent another email asking what court cases those were and another email asking if I could quote him and he said

Sure you can quote me. Here’s an article talking about that court ruling: techdirt.com/articles/20120803/05165019928/judge-posner-embedding-infringing-videos-is-not-copyright-infringement-neither-is-watching-them.shtml

Patrick McKay:shrug:
 
I emailed Patrick McKay, who has a website and is an attorney. I asked him in the email about if it was illegal for me to watch music videos, film mash ups with music in the background, clips of television shows and movies, but not full television or movies, youtube videos, that were not uploaded by the content owner, and here is his response which he has allowed me to quote. He is not a Priest, he can not comment on for sure if it is a sin to watch a video on youtube that commits copyright infringement

No it’s not illegal to watch. Courts have ruled that while the person who uploads copyright infringing content to a streaming site is liable for copyright infringement, someone who just watches infringing content on streaming site does not commit copyright infringement.

Patrick McKay
Attorney at Law
Cell: (303) 809-3613
Email: patrick@fairusetube.org

I sent another email asking what court cases those were and another email asking if I could quote him and he said

Sure you can quote me. Here’s an article talking about that court ruling: techdirt.com/articles/20120803/05165019928/judge-posner-embedding-infringing-videos-is-not-copyright-infringement-neither-is-watching-them.shtml

Patrick McKay:thumbsup:
 
I emailed Patrick McKay, who has a website and is an attorney. I asked him in the email about if it was illegal for me to watch music videos, film mash ups with music in the background, clips of television shows and movies, but not full television or movies, youtube videos, that were not uploaded by the content owner, and here is his response which he has allowed me to quote. He is not a Priest, he can not comment on for sure if it is a sin to watch a video on youtube that commits copyright infringement

No it’s not illegal to watch. Courts have ruled that while the person who uploads copyright infringing content to a streaming site is liable for copyright infringement, someone who just watches infringing content on streaming site does not commit copyright infringement.

Patrick McKay
Attorney at Law
Cell: (303) 809-3613
Email: patrick@fairusetube.org

I sent another email asking what court cases those were and another email asking if I could quote him and he said

Sure you can quote me. Here’s an article talking about that court ruling: techdirt.com/articles/20120803/05165019928/judge-posner-embedding-infringing-videos-is-not-copyright-infringement-neither-is-watching-them.shtml

Patrick McKay:shrug::eek:
 
I emailed Patrick McKay, who has a website and is an attorney. I asked him in the email about if it was illegal for me to watch music videos, film mash ups with music in the background, clips of television shows and movies, but not full television or movies, youtube videos, that were not uploaded by the content owner, and here is his response which he has allowed me to quote. He is not a Priest, he can not comment on for sure if it is a sin to watch a video on youtube that commits copyright infringement

No it’s not illegal to watch. Courts have ruled that while the person who uploads copyright infringing content to a streaming site is liable for copyright infringement, someone who just watches infringing content on streaming site does not commit copyright infringement.

Patrick McKay
Attorney at Law
Cell: (303) 809-3613
Email: patrick@fairusetube.org

I sent another email asking what court cases those were and another email asking if I could quote him and he said

Sure you can quote me. Here’s an article talking about that court ruling: techdirt.com/articles/20120803/05165019928/judge-posner-embedding-infringing-videos-is-not-copyright-infringement-neither-is-watching-them.shtml

Patrick McKay:cool::mad:
 
I emailed Patrick McKay, who has a website and is an attorney. I asked him in the email about if it was illegal for me to watch music videos, film mash ups with music in the background, clips of television shows and movies, but not full television or movies, youtube videos, that were not uploaded by the content owner, and here is his response which he has allowed me to quote. He is not a Priest, he can not comment on for sure if it is a sin to watch a video on youtube that commits copyright infringement

No it’s not illegal to watch. Courts have ruled that while the person who uploads copyright infringing content to a streaming site is liable for copyright infringement, someone who just watches infringing content on streaming site does not commit copyright infringement.

Patrick McKay
Attorney at Law
Cell: (303) 809-3613
Email: patrick@fairusetube.org

I sent another email asking what court cases those were and another email asking if I could quote him and he said

Sure you can quote me. Here’s an article talking about that court ruling: techdirt.com/articles/20120803/05165019928/judge-posner-embedding-infringing-videos-is-not-copyright-infringement-neither-is-watching-them.shtml

Patrick McKay:eek::cool:
 
I emailed Patrick McKay, who has a website and is an attorney. I asked him in the email about if it was illegal for me to watch music videos, film mash ups with music in the background, clips of television shows and movies, but not full television or movies, youtube videos, that were not uploaded by the content owner, and here is his response which he has allowed me to quote. He is not a Priest, he can not comment on for sure if it is a sin to watch a video on youtube that commits copyright infringement

No it’s not illegal to watch. Courts have ruled that while the person who uploads copyright infringing content to a streaming site is liable for copyright infringement, someone who just watches infringing content on streaming site does not commit copyright infringement.

Patrick McKay
Attorney at Law
Cell: (303) 809-3613
Email: patrick@fairusetube.org

I sent another email asking what court cases those were and another email asking if I could quote him and he said

Sure you can quote me. Here’s an article talking about that court ruling: techdirt.com/articles/20120803/05165019928/judge-posner-embedding-infringing-videos-is-not-copyright-infringement-neither-is-watching-them.shtml

Patrick McKay:cool::confused:
 
I emailed Patrick McKay, who has a website and is an attorney. I asked him in the email about if it was illegal for me to watch music videos, film mash ups with music in the background, clips of television shows and movies, but not full television or movies, youtube videos, that were not uploaded by the content owner, and here is his response which he has allowed me to quote. He is not a Priest, he can not comment on if it is a sin to watch a video on youtube that commits copyright infringement

No it’s not illegal to watch. Courts have ruled that while the person who uploads copyright infringing content to a streaming site is liable for copyright infringement, someone who just watches infringing content on streaming site does not commit copyright infringement.

Patrick McKay
Attorney at Law
Cell: (303) 809-3613
Email: patrick@fairusetube.org

I sent another email asking what court cases those were and another email asking if I could quote him and he said

Sure you can quote me. Here’s an article talking about that court ruling: techdirt.com/articles/20120803/05165019928/judge-posner-embedding-infringing-videos-is-not-copyright-infringement-neither-is-watching-them.shtml

Patrick McKay
 
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