A 'YouTube' question for Justin Santiago


Justin, you are doing good work. Your blog adds immense value for the man-on-the-street. Expect some bureaucratic nonsense from some bar-council uptight about advertising limitations and such but for our sakes, please stay the course.

I have a question about YouTube and copyright infringement. At what point does Satriani relinquish control of his work! His live performance at Anaheim 2006 is ‘downloadable’ from YouTube not only via Websatch, his YouTube page, but also through accounts of his fans.

It is reasonable to assume that it is illegal to take and use what you have not paid for or what you do not have permission from the owner to take. For all intent, it is ‘theft’ - synonymously known as ‘download’ in the digital platform.

The video depicts One Robot’s Dream, a track I ‘stole’ via the relevant algorithm in Safari’s Activity Window. Safari is one browser that makes the algorithm route possible but that is another issue.

Observe the quality of the video. All tracks of his LIVE album are ‘viewable’ in such clarity. Point is, they are ‘downloadable’ as well, given one could stitch and use the whole album without permission from the artist or copyright owners.

You mentioned the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that protects web services by limiting liability when clientele are found guilty of copyright violation, but does DMCA or any legislation address the niggle - Without express permission of owners, is YouTube abetting theft by hosting copyrights and then enabling downloads of its content?

Easter cheers, Tommy

Joe Satriani - performing One Robot's Dream© at The Grove, Anaheim (2006)

Comments

  1. Hi Tom I've tried to answer your question here at
    http://justin-santiago.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Justin, thank you for your response "..In conclusion downloading is to be viewed synonymously with theft if the object of the download was to usurp the rights of the copyright owner. Artists like Satriani and his record company are forced to accept the fact that sites like YouTube are a means to reach an audience as wide as possible but at the same time allow for easy downloading, a feature that can be easily disabled by YouTube.."

    The mock download was indeed done to usurp, to take and use without permission, to steal without paying. YouTube abets by not disabling the 'take and use' feature. At this point, with the 'safe harbor' helping out, owners have to toss between marketing their product and loss through theft.

    Cheers, Tommy

    ReplyDelete

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