The rights stuff.Google Inc. snapped up YouTube Inc. for a tidy $1.65 billion last week, but a gazillion-dollar question still hangs over the acquisition: Will they pay copyright owners to use material or not? Santa Monica-based intellectual property attorney Lawrence Iser, of Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump and Aldisert LLP LLP - Lower Layer Protocol , sums up the issue neatly. "Are you going to derive revenue from licensing or are you going to derive revenue from litigation An action brought in court to enforce a particular right. The act or process of bringing a lawsuit in and of itself; a judicial contest; any dispute. When a person begins a civil lawsuit, the person enters into a process called litigation. ?" Iser asks. Iser points out that You Tube was extremely adroit in announcing newly crafted rights deals with Los Angeles-based Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Inc. is the result of a 50/50 joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment (part of Sony) and BMG Entertainment (part of Bertelsmann) completed on August 5, 2004. Music Entertainment and CBS (Cell Broadcast Service) See cell broadcast. moments before it announced its Google deal. Iser believes the timing was no accident. "Google is pretty smart," he said. "Basically, it means that You Tube is following the copyright laws." He was referring specifically to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law which implements two 1996 WIPO treaties. It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services that are used to measures that control access to copyrighted works (commonly , which Congress enacted to protect new Internet service providers. It provides the right for a provider like You Tube to legally post a video or a song that it doesn't have rights to. If the material's creator or rights holder wants them to take the site down, they need only ask. Iser's former partner, Aaron Moss, who remains a copyright attorney for Los Angeles-based Greenberg and Glusker, points out that the copyright act, otherwise known as the Safe Harbor Safe Harbor 1. A legal provision to reduce or eliminate liability as long as good faith is demonstrated. 2. A form of shark repellent implemented by a target company acquiring a business that is so poorly regulated that the target itself is less attractive. Act, will not protect YouTube or Google if it profits from the material, and make no mistake, the plan is to make money. There's some irony in YouTube, which made its name in part because of its ad-free presentation, merging with the most aggressive of the Internet giants when it comes to advertising. "I expect it will be a great channel for advertising," said Sergey Brin, Google's cofounder co·found tr.v. co·found·ed, co·found·ing, co·founds To establish or found in concert with another or others. co·found at the conference call announcing the deal. Google said it could insert ads inside the videos as well as serve up text-based ads based on YouTube's search function. YouTube's Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said that the Google deal "is an exciting next step in terms of our thinking of the evolution of Internet and video." And copyrights, he might have added. |
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