Copyright in the Age of YouTube, ABA Journal, February 2009 Issue

Via ABA Journal: Copyright in the Age of YouTube, As user-generated sites flourish, copyright law struggles to keep up:

"“The entertainment industry wants to change the law to protect their existing business models,” he says, “rather than change their business models to adapt to new technology.”

Protectionist behavior by copyright owners is nothing new. “There’s a recurrent pattern whenever a new technology crops up,” [Jessica] Litman says. “Existing content industries insist that the new technology must play by the old copyright rules. ... The new companies say that the old rules fit your technology and business models, but they don’t fit our technology and business models. Some­times the older companies impose restrictions that try to stop the new technology, but in the end, the old and new companies reach some compromise.”

This time, however, copyright owners may need to compromise with more than just the new online businesses. Content owners may need to reach an understanding with tens of millions of U.S. Internet users.

“History tells us that unless the [copyright] rules will accommodate their interests, there will be no stability,” Litman says. “If the public does not see the rules as legitimate, they won’t obey them.”

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/copyright_in_the_age_of_youtube

In Defense of Piracy - Wall Street Journal, 10/11/08

In Defense of Piracy:

"In early February 2007, Stephanie Lenz's 13-month-old son started dancing. Pushing a walker across her kitchen floor, Holden Lenz started moving to the distinctive beat of a song by Prince, "Let's Go Crazy." He had heard the song before. The beat had obviously stuck. So when Holden heard the song again, he did what any sensible 13-month-old would do -- he accepted Prince's invitation and went "crazy" to the beat. Holden's mom grabbed her camcorder and, for 29 seconds, captured the priceless image of Holden dancing, with the barely discernible Prince playing on a CD player somewhere in the background...

She uploaded the file to YouTube and sent her relatives and friends the link...

Sometime over the next four months, however, someone from Universal Music Group also watched Holden dance. Universal manages the copyrights of Prince. It fired off a letter to YouTube demanding that it remove the unauthorized "performance" of Prince's music. YouTube, to avoid liability itself, complied."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122367645363324303.html?mod=googlenews_wsj