The court case that will change the internet.

Sexy Beast

Sexy Beast

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Well the time has come ladies and gentleman the copyright case that just may change the face of the internet itself.

Google recently lost a court case to the ASCAP(The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), which is basically the group that handle royalty distribution to those who are it's members. As of right now Google has to pay 1.6m, but it looks like more maybe coming.

The most interesting aspect of the recent case: It appears that by embedding music videos from youtube on to your website; would mean that you own the artist royalties. That's right you can get sued for embedding.

So hold onto your hats....it's going to be one hell of a ride.

Source: http://gawker.com/5310339/embedding-a-youtube-video-may-cost-you-a-bundle-in-ascap-bills
 
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To be honest, 1.6M is nothing to Google. I would've thought they would have to pay a lot more.
 
Sharpe said:
Agreed.

And We can get sued for that?? That's messed up...
Click to expand...

Sorry to clarify: The owner of the site would owe ASCAP. So judging by how many videos are embedded on eGO....it would be a hefty bill
 
Sexy Beast said:
Sorry to clarify: The owner of the site would owe ASCAP. So judging by how many videos are embedded on eGO....it would be a hefty bill
Click to expand...

This is pretty sad...it's like a gigantic leap back for a freeware internet. It also seems like this is going to be unbelieveably hard to actually enforce, since the bulk of YouTube is random amateur videos often hosted through multiple accounts. Is each of those random 12 year old kids gonna get royalties too? Oy, what a trainwreck...
 
no. All they would have to do is turn off the ability to embed the video's. Only youtube would be liable.
 
This is not the copyright change I'm worried about. I'm worried about the one that says companies can use our stuff - our creations, commercially without having to pay us a dime or even notify us, so long as they're able to claim they'd searched sufficiently for the owner of the material and didn't find them.

...we'd all do well to learn watermarking, and other such tactics.
 
Everyone will learn a new tactic, torrent embedding! Hide your embedding from those pesky ASCAP users! Try seeding other embeddings for maximum viewage!
 
Wow thats horrible
But while we are waiting I'll just embed this video here..

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8[/ame]
 
this craps been happening for a while. you all should watch "Good Copy Bad Copy" which is a documentary on the topic. then there "Remix Manifesto" which is more of a call to action / documentary.

and also you can look at bands like Dispatch that came up as Napster was dying and were pretty much fighting to keep file sharing alive and legal.
 
but I'm kinda surprised that the ASCAP is doing this because they've been the one that been hanging low compared to the RIAA and MPAA.

but most of these copy right and royalty issues aren't really as much about the piracy it's self but more about the whole business model around media is changing and all of the big players in the old model are not willing to change with the flow and are trying to force the past status-quo on society.
 
frap said:
Wow thats horrible
But while we are waiting I'll just embed this video here..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8
Click to expand...

How Ironic. When I clicked the video it said Embedding disabled by request :mellow:
Or was that deliberate. I really don't have a clue...

But anyway, would this mean that anyone on youtube hosting videos with music in could be fined because of it?
 
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Well that sucks, I have to pay them 1.6 Mil. I'm kidding, but if Google does go down... :scared:
Well, hopefully the AARC or something goes bankrupt:biggrin:
 
@Goolgle

Google cant go down becuase of this all ASCAP will be is a small money drain on google which 1.6 m they can make way more than that in just the amount of time it takes to settle the case.
 
Google said:
Well that sucks, I have to pay them 1.6 Mil. I'm kidding, but if Google does go down... :scared:
Well, hopefully the AARC or something goes bankrupt:biggrin:
Click to expand...

I don't think ASCAP was as worried about the amount of the settlement as they were establishing precedence. Considering Google's net worth is easily in the multi-billion dollar range, 1.6 million is just like getting bit by a gnat. Annoying, not fatal.
 
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