Thursday, February 01, 2007

How can I report a Youtube violation?

I’d like to report a violation on Youtube: copyright violation. As a user, I’m aloud to report graphic violence, hate speech and sexual content, but reporting copyright violation is left to the copyright holders.
Why can’t I do it as a concerned citizen? I really think its just wrong for people to steal TV. Scrubs recently had a big hit with their musical episode, that they chose to give a scene of to youtube.com for free. They also have two additional video clips of the episode on their website, if you want to see it. I also suspect that you can watch it on nbcvideo.com if you go there within the week. If you want to see it past one week, you can buy the episode for $1.99 on itunes, which is a pretty fair price. But that’s not enough for some people. Rather than watching the episode, being sure to log onto the site within a week of when it’s released or paying a measly 2 dollars on itunes, they’ll just go to youtube and watch it there. About 3 people have for some reason (they probably think they are being charitable in spreading this great episode and making it accessible to thousands more people when in fact, it hurts NBC much more than it helps it).
That is perfectly reasonable, and insures that the people who made the episode: the artists themselves, get the money. It insures that they get the necessary support so that they can stay on the air. That’s what’s at stake: the videos themselves that you’re stealing. They won’t have the financial support to produce them much longer if you keep stealing them and if you weren’t so selfish to only think about your short-term gratification, you’d see that it doesn’t benefit you in the long-run to post videos on youtube and to watch those videos in place of their actual sources. I think video and audio piracy shows America at its worst.
I really don’t think youtube cares about copyright infringement either. According to Time’s Man of the Year article on youtube, “Youtube says federal law requires only that it remove videos when copyright holders complain-not to pre-emptively monitor the site for infringements, which would destroy its spontenaity.” The problem is that youtube overflows with copyright infringements left and right, too many for networks to spot and the time in between when its posted and when someone from the network stops it, is a time when people will have seen it for free and the value of the work is devalued. The Scrubs Musical episode is losing money on itunes and hits on their NBC website, by all the people who saw it on itunes for free instead, and even if NBC stopped the posters who currently posted it, others could repost it and there could be a rotating door of people who perform it. I really do hope that the owners of the intellectual property catch the culprits. And what exactly is so great about the spontenaity, anyway? Spontenaity basically means a bunch of crap gets on the internet, because a lot of people impulsively decide that something like them bobbing their head or dancing to music or commenting on something they saw on youtube is worthy of a national audience, without taking some time to think “um, is this really something that anyone outside my immediate family will benefit from?” I really don’t think it would hurt youtube if they screened things a little so they can screen for copyright infringement. I thought I’d do my duty as a citizen and report the three jerks who posted the entire Scrubs musical episode on itunes to NBC themselves, but I went on their website and could not find a place to contact the network about it and I couldn’t even find a way to contact the network period. Maybe someone else knows and can direct me.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh brother!

Anonymous said...

Ya, I posted a video on youtube yesterday, and it was stolen today!!!

WOW, that amazes me! It was a bad video, too...

Here's the URL for the reuploaded(stolen) video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6JiSXvcTqLU&session=sV1_xJ6MVS3yV2wp3awcx4yqtoKgB8yS3_UYyYiy-PitKRrpB9UExHKI6t-YuiddVNG5Z1ZZ83niRtn6MrozU9TYzzATPMKaV_sn4ysE0M8yRNQpWTrzopNAJhDtAxjcjAGLmkR_TJrzZLPtYjdUkJm02OXbjxyj4L7l67vwclPn3aZH_f-D7RCmL9AcZ20PyLa98EK4DcdDYxOpWqQCyckt3_wa4CXdFhqTLUBmJ4bl0_ihw_0zm3_q7XNagDUeMX5rm4fEKQuC9qm7qmELchuA9szwXPjO1iIMMXR_ovgvPU7Hmhb6kQRQkQ20oULFd6sexHwL1ylyloXvg6CjDgkuacIAxvPl

and here's mine:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=x_WZ_Ai8inI&feature=related

Unknown said...

I posted an original true video of my dying horse which I filmed. I then added edit telling the TRUE story- who sold him to me with this disease, what i paid, and how she has avoided contacting me. All the facts were 100% true!! Well the facts were there and when she saw it, she reported a false violation claim and next day my videos are removed- no inquiry no explanation- just took this seller's word as gospel. When in fact, every word i wrote was 100% true and I had a lawful right and purpose for posting the video! yet YouTube has failed to respond yet to my dozens of emails, faxes and letters. Seems like it is ok to steal copyright, post violent sexual videos, but a true story with no violence, no threats, just a sad and true story is taken off when the seller got embarrassed that what she had done was posted!!!! YouTube seems to have anointed themselves Supreme Court justices!!! Wow!