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| YouTube in copyright licensing negotiations | | Print | |
| Lightbulb (Dilanchian IP blog) | |||||||||
| Written by Noric Dilanchian | |||||||||
| Tuesday, 16 January 2007 | |||||||||
 The New York Times 15 January 2007 issue has a story by Laura M. Holson confirming YouTube's current copyright licensing negotiations with major film and television studios. It quotes an email by Chris Maxcy, vice president of business development for YouTube writing: "In fact, we’re now in discussions with several studios to create both content partnerships and revenue-sharing opportunities.”
YouTube operates on an advertising-supported business model. Videos are served free-of-charge and advertising appears on adjacent screen panels. In a recent Lightbulb IP law blog post I included a BlueFreeway graphic illustrating the increasing level of online advertising in Australia as we move deeper into 2007 - see Online advertising, shaken not stirred.
Copyright contracts signed
Some copyright catalogue or copyright library rights owners or controllers have already finalised negotiations with YouTube. They apparently include CBS and NBC, evidence for which one YouTube user has noted seems to result in YouTube having a bias for CBS on its most viewed listings. There are channels in YouTube from CBS, NBC and PBS. The story also reports that several major music companies, including Universal Music Group, now owned by Vivendi, have forged agreements with YouTube.
Copyright contracts under negotiation and YouTube's legal options
The quote in the opening paragraph of this post confirms that several copyright licences are currently under negotiation at YouTube. It's a question of deal making. Given the armoury of copyright and other law in place in the U.S., Australia and elsewhere, YouTube would be foolish to have an all out copyright lawsuit against it. It would lose, badly. Instead its options include those below.
As The New York Times story notes:
Legal issues for mashups and sampling
The story also briefly mentions the legal complexity for mashups, including the concerns of members of The Directors Guild of America. Mashups are visual media's equivalent to sampling in music. User-generated mashups appear frequently in YouTube. In Australia mashups and sampling are exposed to legal claims by copyright owners or copyright controllers under copyright law, moral rights law and trade practices law.
------------------------------------------------------------- Further Reading: In Lightbulb we have previously written about YouTube's copyright issues in Person of the Year caught in copyright scandal and section 4 of Recent IP law for hackers, spammers, editors and rippers. As practical assistance, you'll find six legal components for compliance with law in online ventures in Build trust for success online in 2007.
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