This headline from a blog post on CNet sums up well what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately: The state of copyright law ensures that an emergent business which is not on unquestionable legal ground must endure a great deal of pressure from content owners.
What do I mean by the state of copyright law? Currently, service providers are granted immunity from copyright as long as they take down infringing material at an owner’s request (DMCA). YouTube could arguably fit in this category because they don’t monitor what individuals upload until they receive one of these letters (which they obviously follow through on). Yet, on the other hand, if one makes a ‘business model’ out of infringement (Grokster), there is liability for the infringement of users.
The legislation and case law in this case has created a situation which (as is common in copyright) is far from clear for owners, providers, or users. The result: if YouTube chooses to fight, may be a trip to court which would resolve the issue–but in what way? Will the courts create a threshold of how much infringement a business model could allow? This could create further complications for other providers in the future.
As copying becomes easier and managing control becomes more complicated, simpler rules will serve business and users the best because of a decrease in litigation. From what I can tell (at a very quick glance), the Copyright Modernization Act proposes to add greater complexity to this very issue.
I’ll try to post more about the Act and the pending WIPO treaty sometime soon.
Other Sources:
Copyright Axe To Fall On YouTube? (Slashdot), YouTube in Copyright Cross Hairs? (Reuters/Wired)