In recent years, thousands of Internet users have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America, also known as the RIAA. The charges: copyright infringement. With widespread accessibility of high speed connections, it has become more and more handy for people to just download their favorite music, music video or movies or simply create their own internet radio playlists. Over the years, this trend has become such a common practice that the filmmaking and music industries eventually noticed drastic decline in their sales. This observation compelled the RIAA to sue Internet users who had been identified downloading copyrighted materials.
RIAA Lawsuits
When the counter measures against these downloaders did not deliver the desired outcomes, the RIAA adjusted their techniques a bit. Instead of going after the downloaders, the RIA is now after individuals that upload more than a thousand files in a certain timeframe. Internet Service Providers have been put on notice that they need to control their customers; it almost seems that the RIAA is trying to place the burden of ensuring the copyright law is revered by Internet users on the backs of the user’s respective ISPs. In a way it makes sense: you upload illegal files, you lose your Internet connection, you suddenly have no means of sharing files for unlawful distribution.
YouTube Copyright problems
The same ideas apply to YouTube, the third most popular website on the Internet (as per Alexa ranking). YouTube dealt with several controversies even prior to became the number one video sharing site. First, its name was controversial: another website that sounded like YouTube filed a lawsuit when their site became overloaded with traffic from users searching for YouTube. In the following years, several companies sued them for allegedly failing to encourage adiquate copyright protections by permitting its users share copyrighted materials, accusations for which YouTube is most likely responsible. What’s intriguing about this is that anyone with an internet connection can enjoy Free Online Music without having to pay a subscription or other fees.
YouTube’s Stand
YouTube’s primary defense is its terms of service, which prompt users not to upload any materials that is owned by someone else without the permission of the latter. Because YouTube doesn’t have the regulation and the ability to filter the videos uploaded by its users, many unauthorized clips of copyrighted materials are being shared every day.
YouTube states on its web page that the burden of ensuring copyright protection is left up to copyright holders. There is a (DMCA) form and instructions on the same page that allow copyright holders to notify YouTube of copyright infringement.
YouTube’s latest approach to enforcing copyright protection is aimedat video clips that contain copyrighted audio as a soundtrack. They have devised a sound-scanning system that queries soundtracks for copyrighted music during processing. Then, based on which recording company holds the copyright, YouTube either prevents the sound from playing or plays ads to enable YouTube to pay royalty fees to the copyright holder.
The verdict: music and other copyrighted content on YouTube is not going away; YouTube has shown aptitude for solving any issues that pop up before, and there’s little doubt that they’ll find a way to work with recording companies and other copyright holders to be able to continue exhibiting the content that everyone wants to see.
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