Copyright Infringement
Imagine you're a small time
videographer that is trying to make it big on YouTube. You constantly put up
original idea videos hoping people will end up seeing it and enjoying it. Now
imagine that one or more of those video ideas someone saw and took, making it
their own and getting the money that you should get from it. Sadly there isn't
much you can do to prove they took your idea due to the copyright infringement
laws. This is just one general scenario of what is wrong with YouTube and the
governments current copyright infringement laws.
Copyright is a form of protection
that is grounded in the United States Constitution that is granted by law for
original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression that
protects original works of authorship. It protects and covers both published
and unpublished works the moment it is created. And with YouTube becoming more
and more popular as time goes on and more people trying to become online
entrepreneurs, one thing that must be adjusted is YouTube's current copyright
policies. Currently many people on YouTube have experienced theft of an idea
from work they uploaded online, but there isn't much we can currently do to
prove it was stolen. The United States Code
Service, consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and
permanent laws in the United States, suggest that you register your work within
three months of uploading it onto the internet [1], which may be nice for
directors who have a big project they want to protect, but isn't beneficial for
many YouTubers who upload each week and are trying to stay relevant. Ashlee
Knuckey is an associate in Lock Lord's (an American law firm) Business
Litigation and Arbitration practice group and represents client in state and
federal court. Knuckey has focused her practices on complex litigation and
arbitration and also handles matters that involve fraudulent business
practices, state taxation issues, breach of commercial contracts, loss
sensitive insurance programs, regulatory and government enforcement issues, and
Medicare reimbursement issues. In the article YouTube--The Next Generation of Infringing on Creative Works: What Can
Be Done to Protect the Screenwriters? Knuckey talks about the copyright
policies and how registering a video/idea within the three months before
uploading it will make that person eligible to sue for any sort of damages,
but "even if they register
their work within the three-month period, they would not be eligible to recover
damages for any infringement taking place prior to the copyright
registration." [2]. Meaning that even if someone was to register one of
their works that was stolen in the past, they would be protected, but couldn't
do anything about that incident since it was before the registration. And the
United States Code Services on Title 17, Copyrights Chapter 4 on Copyright
Notice, Deposit, and Registration it talks about the fact that with registering content, there
is a registration fee and yearly renewal that shall also cost money. And Knuckey
says even if content is registered, "
Direct proof of copying is often impossible for the plaintiff to show; thus,
copying must often be inferred from proof that the defendant had access to the
plaintiff's work, as well as that there are "substantial
similarities" between the two works."
So what could be done to help protect YouTubers from theft of
content? One thing that many people have talked about is that YouTube and
Google (since Google now is a parent company that bought out YouTube) should
look at is adjusting their privacy setting on their websites. From before I
brought up that the direct proof courts need to decide whether the content was
stolen and does indeed belong to the plaintiff, if YouTube and Google adjusted
their privacy settings, making it easier to see who viewed your video and when
they viewed it, the plaintiff would have a time frame of when the defendant saw
their video in comparison to when the defendant made their content. This being
solid evidence that could be used in the court room. And now with YouTube's new
software called Content ID it makes it easier to find copyright materials in
use. The system makes it so copyright holders can have choices on how their
content is showed on YouTube. The copyright holder gives YouTube copies of
their songs and/or videos they want YouTube to look for and YouTube puts it in
their system as reference files. So every time a new video is being uploaded to
YouTube, it goes through all of their reference files to make sure they don't
have any copyright materials in their video. But ContentID does not always work
100% of the time. Youtube took down NASA's own footage from the Mars rover
landing a few hours after it landed because of copyright claims from a private
news service. NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Communications, Bob
Jacobs, says, "The good thing about automation is that you don't have to
involve real people to make decisions. The bad thing about automation is that
you don't have to involve real people to make decisions." [7].
Now a days nothing is original. With
the amount of people that have been on this Earth and the amount of ideas and
works that have been created, everything is inspired from something else, works
now are a imitation of something before that we adjust to make our own. But how
can we tell the difference between something that is inspired from something
else compared to something that is appropriated. One thing to look at is Marvin
Gaye vs. blurred lines case. A case where Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams
were accused of copyright infringement towards Marvin Gaye's song "Got to
Give it Up" because their hit single "Blurred Lines" sounded too
much like Gaye's song. When listening to the two songs, the melodies are
somewhat similar but the two songs differ greatly. Williams and Thicke ended up
having to pay $7.4 million to Gaye's family. I personally feel that the two
songs differ substantially, but this raises many questions with copyright
infringement. Music inspires more music, authors inspire more authors, movies
inspire more movies, and youtubers inspire more youtubers. So when does
inspiration and an homage to a certain work cross the line of copyright
infringement? What makes a certain work cross the line of having copy written
work? And with this trial will this open the door to more lawsuits that aren't
valid towards big hits, but will just end up being paid away. Then there is
Michelle Phan, a makeup tutorial youtuber with over 7.5 million subscribers,
who was sued for copyright infringement back in 2014 for using popular EDM
songs by artist such as Deadmau5, Kaskade, and Calvin Harris in her tutorial
videos without permission. But the problem isn't that Michelle Phan was using
these EDM artist's songs, the problem is that many people who make YouTube
videos use music all the time in videos without permission from artist or
record label and it goes unnoticed. The only time it becomes noticed is when
money and fame is involved. This goes for majority of all copyright
infringement suits, people only seem to get involved when someone else is
gaining money and/or fame for something that is "not theirs". The one
case that does not meet this expectation was an incident with YouTube and
NyanCat. NyanCat was posted back in April 5, 2011 and at the time earned more
that 89 million views. But one thing many people forget is YouTube took down
NyanCat in late June 2011 for copyright infringement. Why? Because YouTube ran
the video through their ContentID and cited a copyright claim saying the owner
of the NyanCat video is not the owner of NyanCat, which was true. The real
owner is Torres, the artist who originally created the pop-tart cat gif. The
artist wrote on his blog saying he did not file the copyright complaint to try
and stop the hate mail he was receiving for the video coming down. After Torres
coming out saying this, YouTube realized it's mistake and put the video back
up. Torres now has a partnership with Sara Reihani, the woman who owns the well
know "NyaNyaNya" song in all the NyanCat videos and says "To me,
it's less about cashing in and more about keeping it classy." [7]. If more
copyright owners had the same thinking as Torres, many copyright infringement
cases would be a lot less messy.
In our current generation anything
you see and hear whether you are looking at a logo in a store, looking at memes
online, deciding what brand of cereal to get, or even listening to a song on
the radio, somebody somewhere owns that. Everything is owned by someone now a
days. Somebody owns the copyrights to the first "Hey Girl" Ryan
Gosling meme other than Ryan Gosling, which does seem weird the idea of
somebody having copyrights over a photo of you. With how big things can get on
the internet now a days, it is important to file for copyright and trademark of
your work. Torres, the owner of NyanCat, talks about how when he got around to trying
to file for copyright and trademark of his icon he found out many other people
have already try to file for copyright of his creation. This making the process
way harder than it should be to prove he is the creator and owner of NyanCat.
But it is important to have copyright ownership of your product so you do get
all the rights that come along with it. With every person that has copyright
over something (a logo, image, song, book, etc.) they have five different legal
rights. The Right to Reproduce the Work makes it so the owner has the right
to reproduce, copy, duplicate, and/or
transcribe their work in any form. The Right to Derivative Works gives the
owner the right to modify their work to create something new, a new work that
is based upon their existing work is a "derivative work". The Right
to Distribution makes it so they have the right to distribute their work to the
public by sale, rental, lease, or lending. The Public Display Right gives them
the right to show a copy of their work directly to the public by displaying it
on a website, putting it in a film, hanging a copy in a public place, or and
other way of transmitting it to the public. And last is the Public Performance
Right, the right to recite, dance, act, show, or play their work at a public
place or transmit it to the public. Each of these rights helps the owner make
sure they have full custody over their product, and if any of these rights are
broken by an outside person without the copyright owners consent than it then
can file for copyright infringement. And that's what it all comes down to when
it comes to copyright infringement, if there isn't consent then it is copyright
infringement. But how can we tell when someone is breaking someone else
copyright rights? Not all cases that involve copyright infringement are black
and white, majority of these cases fall in the grey area where it is unsure if
someone is taking from someone else's idea.
With everything humans have created
so far and everything being a recreation of something else, how can we tell
when someone is stealing something? The rights that come with being a copyright
owner tells you all about what you can legally do with your product and what
others can not do with it, but no where does it say how to determine whether or
not someone is taking your idea/creation. With the Blurred Lines vs. Marvin
Gaye trial, a court had to decide whether or not Blurred Lines was just a
recreation of Gaye's song Got to Give it Up. And even after the trial said it
was, many people disagree saying they are two different songs. This situation
does not only happen with songs, in 2014 Disney and Deadmau5 had a similar
situation. Joel Zimmerman a.k.a Deadmau5 was filing for his trademark in the United States
of his well known Deadmau5 symbol. A trademark is made to protect words,
phrases, symbols, or designs identifying
the source of the goods or services of one party and distinguishing them
from others. Copyright only protects original works of authorship. The problem
was Disney was preventing him from doing so, their argument being that it was
too similar to the Mickey Mouse icon (similar to Blurred Lines vs. Marvin Gaye).
Yes the two are both mouse icons, but the two are both greatly different from
one another. Just because it is a mouse, doesn't mean that it is a copy of
Mickey Mouse. This theory following many situations in the copyright
infringement world, just because two things have similar qualities does not
always mean one thing is copying another. Many copyright owners must understand
that before filing against someone for copyright infringement, if it is a grey
area situation (blurred lines vs. Marvin Gaye), that everything is inspired
from something else. Even their creation was inspired from something else and
for new ideas and creations to exist, old ones can not hold a grasp on
advancement.
Work Cited
1. "§ 411. Registration and Civil Infringement
Actions." UNITED STATES CODE SERVICE, 19 Dec. 2014. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.
2. Knuckey, Ashlee M. "YouTube--The Next
Generation of Infringing on Creative Works: What Can Be Done to Protect the
Screenwriters?"LexisNexis Academic. N.p., 2009. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.
3. "TITLE
17. COPYRIGHTS CHAPTER 4. COPYRIGHT NOTICE, DEPOSIT, AND REGISTRATION."
Http://www.lexisnexis.com.ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/lnacui2api/results/pubTreeViewDoc.do?nodeId=TAARAAFAAJ&pubTreeWidth=325.
UNITED STATES CODE SERVICE, 19 Dec. 2014. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.
4. K, Nicole. "Robin Thicke & Pharrell Sued
For $7 Million Over Blurred Lines."SourceFed. N.p., 11 Mar. 2015.
Web. 14 Mar. 2015.
5. "How Content ID Works." - YouTube Help. Google, n.d.
Web. 14 Mar. 2015.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797370?hl=en
6. Welch, Chris. "YouTube Star Sued for Copyright
Infringement over Music in Her Videos." The
Verge. N.p., 21 July 2014. Web. 14 Mar. 2015.
7. Considine, Austin. "Copycats, Takedowns, and
Ass Rainbows: What Does Copyright Mean for Internet Memes?" Motherboard. Vice, 7 Dec. 2012.
Web. 05 Apr. 2015.
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/copycats-takedowns-and-ass-rainbows-what-does-copyright-mean-for-internet-memes0.
8. "Copyright Law of the United States of America." U.S. Copyright Office.
N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2015. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html
9. Rosenbaum, Murray. "Deadmau5 vs.
Disney." The Huffington
Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 Sept. 2014. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.0
