YouTube and Copyright

One cannot deny, the huge success of YouTube. The Internet video sharing service has been nothing short of phenomenal. In fact, many thousands of video clips are uploaded each day and it shows no sign of slowing. How Youtube are managing to store this vast amount of ever increasing information is beyond the likes of me, but I'm guessing the place is rather large.

So... what kind of videos are being watched and uploaded? Well... just about anything really.

If you've ever uploaded anything onto YouTube, you would have seen the message,

"Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself. The Copyright Tips page and the Community Guidelines can help you determine whether your video infringes someone Else's copyright."

Now... I don't want to come across as hypocritical here, as I have just used YouTube to watch the whole first series of a popular TV show. Arguably, the makers could say they have lost revenue as I will not now buy it in the shops. Well... they are correct in some cases. I wouldn't have bought it though and even then the quality on the YouTube upload is not as good as the released DVDs would have been. True fans would buy the DVD box sets regardless. Even so, I'm not sure this is something I should be further exploiting as just simply watching the material could legally be problematic.

I agree with the copyright laws to protect the rights of the individual makers, but YouTube is so large and the amount of videos being uploaded so vast, it perhaps makes the task virtually impossible to police.

Major infringers of Copyright which are reported, YouTube are quick to remove. But for each video or account that is taken down, another one appears in its place just a little later if not immediately. The TV series I watched has been on show for about 5 months now. It will get noticed at some point and the account will probably be suspended. Whether legal action will be taken, I don't know. The video I watched has now been viewd over 17,000 times.

This is an ongoing problem for YouTube and for sure, any network which allows video upload. With the technology still being relatively new, it will be interesting to see how this Copyright battle develops into the future.

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

Youtube

About a month ago, I started uploading a few videos to the site, Youtube. Nothing special, just a few old computer game clips and some tribute shorts. I had been a watcher of the content on the site for some time and was interested to take part.

Naturally when looking for Videos to watch, I often clicked on the first that would come up in the searches. This now leads me to a disturbing discovery. The Videos that are ranked at the top are the ones that have been viewed or rated the highest by the viewer. This is fine, the best videos should be at the top...

BUT...............

It has become quickly apparent that people are viewing and rating their own videos to get them higher up in the searches. Often I would see a new video jump to about 200 views in half an hour, do nothing for a few days, then jump up by another huge margin. Hardly what you would call a natural pattern. Not only is this cheating, but I find it rather sad. It's kind of like, releasing a Pop Song, nobody buys it, so you buy all the copies yourself to get it to number one in the charts. The position is false, your Song is rubbish! What is the point?

Another thing I noticed is that some people would download a popular video that has maybe had a few Million views, re upload it to their own account and claim it as their own work. Pretty bad behaviour.

Well there it is. When Searching for something, don't necessarily click on just the top results you find.

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www.jenkin7.co.uk