Numerous copyright notifications displayed by YouTube

Jun 4, 2007 19:11 GMT  ·  By

YouTube is scared. This is probably a better title than the one above because it describes the numerous copyright alerts displayed by the online video sharing service better. YouTube was often affected by an impressive number of copyright lawsuits that sent the parent company Google to the judge periodically. The title "YouTube sued for copyright infringement" is probably one of the most popular phrases on the Internet. However, the Mountain View company wants to do something about it and tries to inform users about the risks of publishing copyrighted clips just from the upload process.

"Copyright Notice: Do not upload copyrighted material for which you don't own the rights or have permission from the owner," YouTube alerts when you're preparing to write down the information about the clip. A different notification is displayed on the second video upload step that informs us about the prohibited material on YouTube. "Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts, or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself. By clicking "Upload Video," you are representing that this video does not violate YouTube's Terms of Use and that you own all copyrights in this video or have express permission from all copyright owners to upload it," it is mentioned.

The most famous anti-YouTube lawsuit was surely the one filed by Viacom, the owner of MTV and Comedy Central that sued Google for copyright infringement. More than that, Viacom demanded $1 billion in damages after it first requested the removal of 100.000 clips from the page. Meanwhile, News.com sustains that Google CEO Eric Schmidt described the lawsuit with Viacom in a simple phrase: "It was probably just a mistake". YouTube is continuously sustaining that the online video sharing service is protected by the DMCA that brings the entire responsibility of uploading clips onto the users to the company which cannot be blamed for the content published on the page.