YouTube and Copyrights

We all know that YouTube, the world's most popular video sharing website, has copyrighted content on it. In fact, it has countless numbers of videos that have been recorded from radio, TV, and other mediums and posted on YouTube without the content owner's permission. That, however, is not all. They have hundreds of millions of creative, original, and unique videos that have been posted by up-and-coming directors, indie producers, and just average people. YouTube certainly is a great tool; however, it's coming under fire.

Content creators and copyright holders (*cough* *cough* Viacom) have begun to demand that YouTube remove their content that has been posted without their permission. While Google, YouTube's parent company insists that it immediately complies with these requests, it simply isn't enough for the TV networks. They have proceeded to sue YouTube and critisize it in public forums.

So, having been pressured by many a content creator, they've finally decided to take a real step towards eliminating this copyrighted content. This article, written by The Associated Press and displayed in The New York Times, explains how the California-based comapny is working on high-tech, sophisticated software that will eliminate these copyrighted videos within minutes by using a detection method entitled, "video fingerprinting."

As much as I'm compelled to respond to this atrosity brought on by the TV networks, another part of me tells me simply to sit back and watch. As soon as this software is activated (around September), the TV companies will feel it. They'll taste the fruits of the labors: failure. When these copyrighted videos are taken off YouTube, the popularity of TV shows as well as the enthusiasm of the viewers will rapidly decrease. Eventually, I predict that the TV networks will end up posting shows and parodies up on YouTube and other popular video sharing sites themselves in order to regain their once-enjoyed popularity.

Some TV networks have started to move forward by allowing free access to viewing their TV shows online. This access, however, is not unfettered and usually does not allow the user to download the TV show to their own computer. As an example, FOX has set up a Myspace page for themselves (Link) where they display links to the respective Myspace pages for many of their popular shows. On these profiles, nearly every episode of these select shows can be viewed at any time. Don't get me wrong, this situation isn't perfect, considering FOX and Myspace are owned by the same company and therefore FOX maintains control of their videos. However, it is a step in the right direction. Companies like Viacom will eventually learn from their own mistakes and from the success of others and will change their ways to become a more open, viewer-friendly network.