French court slaps poor man's YouTube France's answer to YouTube has been found guilty of copyright infringement. As the Google-owned YouTube faces a U.S. lawsuit from movie and TV behemoth Viacom, a French high court has ruled against the Paris-based video-sharing site Dailymotion, holding it liable for a copyrighted film posted by its users. Earlier this summer, …
@Jags: Gee!! I thought that years after the War on Irak fiasco, the anti-French jihad would phase down, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
It's a real pity that dailymotion got themselves in trouble, because they make it easier to find quality non-english content. YouTube is actually trying to catch up (eg. with http://fr.youtube.com/ in beta), but lags behind on that front
"The Parisian judges held that DailyMotion was aware that illegal videos were put online on its site, and that it must therefore be held liable for the acts of copyright infringement, since it deliberately furnished the users with the means to commit the acts of infringement."
Let's change a few words and names, but keep the same overall meaning...
"The Parisian judges held that [Car Manufacturer] was aware that illegal speeds were capable in its cars, and that it must therefore be held liable for the acts of speed restriction infringement, since it deliberately furnished the users with the means to commit the acts of infringement."
"The Parisian judges held that [Knife Manufacturer] was aware that illegal stabbings were occuring with its knives, and that it must therefore be held liable for the acts of stabbing, since it deliberately furnished the users with the means to commit the act of stabbing."
Phenomenal.
Altrough I don't support the MPAA etc... at all, the main point here is that apparently Dailymotion received a request from the movie owner to remove the movie and didn't comply. I think that web sites such as youtube and dailymotion shouldn't be held responsible for the content they host UNTIL they get a notice from the copyright owner requesting the removal of the movie. From the point they recieve such a request they should check out the movie and remove it if needed.
This is necessary for 2 reasons:
- First the french movie industry doesn't usually have Hollywood sized budgets, and usually appeals to a much more restricted population than US movies, so damaging the sales in the main market (france here) can seriously compromise future production. Altrough I don't really bite into this argument for big international productions backed by a major studio, it's something else when we're talking about a local independant filmaker.
- Second removing the comercial clips would give more space for amateurs and small publishers that actually want to put movies on there. Part of the whole idea of youtube & Co was to allow individuals, amateurs and small productions to reach a worldwide audience, but that won't really be a success if these sites are crowded by comercial movies.
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