4 ms·

What about facebook, reddit, twitter, etc? One of my favorite subreddits /r/listentothis is mostly links to youtube videos of copyrighted music. Reddit is def

by blhack 16y ago

What about facebook, reddit, twitter, etc? One of my favorite subreddits /r/listentothis is mostly links to youtube videos of copyrighted music. Reddit is definitely profiting from this, so is facebook (I used to share youtube links to music videos on my facebook page all the time.) Obviously, the purpose of the website this guy was running was pretty specific, but according to what you posted, facebook would be liable as well.

hugh3 16y ago
Obviously, the purpose of the website this guy was running was pretty specific, but according to what you posted, facebook would be liable as well. If such a case ever actually got to court, it would no doubt come down to an issue of whether facebook was itself posting links to copyrighted content, or whether facebook was merely providing a forum in which others posted such things. It's the old geeks-trying-to-understand-law problem. The geek says "Well if A is illegal then B must also be illegal. And if B is illegal then C must also be illegal." And so on until you've reducito-ad-absurdumed your way to the conclusion that Z must be illegal, but nobody would ever think Z is illegal, therefore A can't be illegal. Since nobody ever gets fined for travelling 0.01 mph above the speed limit, it must be okay to drive at 120mph down Main Street. The courts don't work that way, however. They apply fuzzy tests and arbitrarily declare that A through D are illegal but E and onwards are okay.
sdkmvx 16y ago
Not a lawyer, but: Facebook is not profiting off the YouTube links. They profit primarily off your desire to see what your friends post. A few of your friends posting YouTube videos is incidental. The subreddit mentioned does seem more like direct profit. Even then I'm sure they could argue their way out of it (they profit off the community, not the 'stuff'), but it's harder. This is why (hopefully competent) courts are necessary to interpret this stuff.

by blhack 16y ago

hugh3 16y ago

Obviously, the purpose of the website this guy was running was pretty specific, but according to what you posted, facebook would be liable as well. If such a case ever actually got to court, it would no doubt come down to an issue of whether facebook was itself posting links to copyrighted content, or whether facebook was merely providing a forum in which others posted such things. It's the old geeks-trying-to-understand-law problem. The geek says "Well if A is illegal then B must also be illegal. And if B is illegal then C must also be illegal." And so on until you've reducito-ad-absurdumed your way to the conclusion that Z must be illegal, but nobody would ever think Z is illegal, therefore A can't be illegal. Since nobody ever gets fined for travelling 0.01 mph above the speed limit, it must be okay to drive at 120mph down Main Street. The courts don't work that way, however. They apply fuzzy tests and arbitrarily declare that A through D are illegal but E and onwards are okay.

sdkmvx 16y ago

Not a lawyer, but: Facebook is not profiting off the YouTube links. They profit primarily off your desire to see what your friends post. A few of your friends posting YouTube videos is incidental. The subreddit mentioned does seem more like direct profit. Even then I'm sure they could argue their way out of it (they profit off the community, not the 'stuff'), but it's harder. This is why (hopefully competent) courts are necessary to interpret this stuff.