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I read this article dated from 2012 that basically said that as long as the youtube videos you're embedding don't contain any copyright violations themselves, you can embed youtube videos on your site.
It's a short article if you want to read it and share your opinion with me.
But I have two questions pertaining to this:
The first one I could probably find out by just reading youtube's latest term of service concerning what users can do with uploaded videos.
The second is concerned with if the rules of fair use still apply if the introduction of youtube's terms of service basically grant a user cart Blanche to do with the videos whatever they want. Does this mean you do not have to stick to the rules of fair use and can basically embed most youtube videos on your cite without commentary? Fair use usually means for purposes of commentary, criticism or education, etc. Does that still apply given the clause in the youtube terms?
I have a wordpress blog and I am wondering if I can use a plugin to automatically embed youtube channels without my commentary on my site to supplement content. Based on youtube's terms and what is said in the article, would this still be a copyright violation?
I ask because the more I think about it and research it, the more confusing it gets. Especially since I see youtube videos posted on forums across the internet without the requisite commentary outlined by fair use.
What do you think?
Last edited by Shankapotomus; 07-20-2014 at 05:25 AM..
I've never heard of anyone being sued becsue a video they embedded that was uploaded by someone else, I'm not lawyer but AFAIK and all the research I've done says the responsibility lies with the uploader and Youtube since the copyrighted material resides on their server. Matter of fact I never heard of anyone that uploaded a video to youtube being sued but I'm sure that has happened.
Honestly I wouldn't be concerned about it. Nearly all the major copyrighted content on Youtube is allowed to exist by the content owner. They have a choice where they can either DMCA it or come to an agreement with Youtube and collect on the advertising dollars it generates.
There is no precise definition of "fair use" and ultimately it's up to a judge. Fair use will never apply to an entire work so assuming you will be using the entire work (like a complete song) it's not even debatable.
I've never heard of anyone being sued becsue a video they embedded that was uploaded by someone else, I'm not lawyer but AFAIK and all the research I've done says the responsibility lies with the uploader and Youtube since the copyrighted material resides on their server. Matter of fact I never heard of anyone that uploaded a video to youtube being sued but I'm sure that has happened.
Honestly I wouldn't be concerned about it. Nearly all the major copyrighted content on Youtube is allowed to exist by the content owner. They have a choice where they can either DMCA it or come to an agreement with Youtube and collect on the advertising dollars it generates.
There is no precise definition of "fair use" and ultimately it's up to a judge. Fair use will never apply to an entire work so assuming you will be using the entire work (like a complete song) it's not even debatable.
Thanks for your reply. I seem to recall that you and I don't see see eye to eye on environmental issues but it's good of you to set that aside for this thread. I will too, of course.
Anyway, I wouldn't be more happier if you were proven correct but I have been hesitant to draw the same conclusion as you because it seems almost too easy to generate traffic and buzz around my site by just incorporating other people's videos from YouTube on my site. I actually tried it for about a week and my traffic just shot up but I deactivated it because I started to second guess the legality of it. I wasn't adding my own commentary to the video which I was embedding automatically in chunks and it was basically mirroring the content of channels on youtube including descriptions. That can't be legal otherwise everybody would be doing it.
Any search penalties Google could have imposed (if they had discovered the videos on my site) for a site with duplicate content would have easily been negated by the sheer attractiveness of my site. So getting penalized by Google wasn't an issue for me. The questionable legality was. And besides, would Google punish a site that was embedding content from another site it now owns anyway?
I don't know if you're going to get any answers. There is no examples of people being sued that I'm aware of for embedding YouTube videos on their site. It's one of these deals where the law is uncertain and could go anyway in court. For example there is exceptions in copyright for making copies of audio and software* you own but there is none for video. Making a copy of DVD you own even if it's for personal use like a backup is illegal, note I'm referring to the copy itself (see below). No one has ever been sued for it so the law has never been tested so it's an open question as to whether that would stand.
*This assumes there is no DRM, on that the law is quite clear. You cannot break copy protection systems to make copies. That is one of the reasons video has never come up in court, there is no gain for the industry because the act of breaking the encryption is illegal. They already have a sledghammer in their hand without addressing whether the actual copy is infringement.
It's a similar situation here, there was a court ruling regarding inline images which is basically the same thing as embedding a YouTube video.
The court also agreed that including an inline link is not the same as hosting the material yourself. So in the case of framing, while it may "appear" that Google was hosting infringing material, it was only hosting a link to the material which the browser interpreted should appear in a certain way.
An inline link in this case is actually a hotlink. There is still the possibility of contributory damages blah, blah blah...
Bottom line is I wouldn't concern myself about it.
The advertising YouTube puts into copyrighted videos and the fact that Google shares that ad revenue with copyright owners is what has almost eliminated this as a problem.
The advertising YouTube puts into copyrighted videos and the fact that Google shares that ad revenue with copyright owners is what has almost eliminated this as a problem.
Youtube could make it so easy to distinguish who's content can be used with or without commentary if they just provided content providers with a box they could tick off that tells content users how the content could be used.
If you are a content creator on youtube reading this thread, please consider adding some text in your "about" section outlining exactly how your content can be used to make it easier for publishers to determine what they can use and how they may use it. It's not rocket science and there will be a lot less confusion and possible conflict. Thanks.
Youtube could make it so easy to distinguish who's content can be used with or without commentary if they just provided content providers with a box they could tick off that tells content users how the content could be used.
If you are a content creator on youtube reading this thread, please consider adding some text in your "about" section outlining exactly how your content can be used to make it easier for publishers to determine what they can use and how they may use it. It's not rocket science and there will be a lot less confusion and possible conflict. Thanks.
If the content creators took that suggestion, I think you'd find they'd say they're happy to let a video be played anywhere and everywhere, because they get a share of the ad revenue for each and every play.
Youtube could make it so easy to distinguish who's content can be used with or without commentary if they just provided content providers with a box they could tick off that tells content users how the content could be used.
I know. But there have been cases where even when a YouTube channel has had the embed code enabled, they have tried to sue people for embedding their videos on their website.
There needs to be a more explicit indicator of what each YouTube channel expects and allows from users of its videos. I think half the problem is they don't express their intentions publicly. If your video content is free to use without conditions, just say so. If not, explain the conditions.
It's not difficult and much easier than emailing every YouTube channel you like asking them if you can use their videos.
As a matter of fact, I'm going to add that to my YouTube channel right now. No conditions.
If the content creators took that suggestion, I think you'd find they'd say they're happy to let a video be played anywhere and everywhere, because they get a share of the ad revenue for each and every play.
So are you saying you would put up a video news aggregation site with embedded youtube videos and wouldn't worry about being sued?
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