7 ms·

VEVO Execs Must Face Criminal Charges For Copyright Infringement

162 points by ed 15y ago

PeterisP 15y ago
The message is very simple - if the content industry does manage to push their legislation wishlist through congress, then every single one of the content middlemen guys should better watch out for all their personal actions every single second for the remainder of their lives. Because we will be watching. If they manage to criminalize what they're doing themselves, then they must reap what they sow. And they will. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget.
- vijayr 15y ago
  what prevents the labels from having a secret agreement, that will exclude their employees/execs/subsidiaries etc from these lawsuits? "If you get caught playing my music, I'll make sure you don't get punished. you do the same for me. but let's sue everyone else" kinda thing?
  - rcfox 15y ago
    Stories like this, and laws against collusion?
    - anamax 15y ago
      > Stories like this, and laws against collusion? What laws are those? Be as specific as you can. (Anti-trust doesn't apply here.)
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
  - dedward 15y ago
    perhaps nothing? perhaps the artists wont sign such acontract? if it were anentire industry doing it it would be anantitrust issue......
- phuff 15y ago
  I try really hard to make sure all my music is bought and paid for, or obtained for free legally (promotional CDs, etc.). I don't download movies illegally (a really great public library makes that easy). But I disagree with the way the content industries have tried to pursue an agenda of making it illegal to use things you've bought and paid for however you'd like. That being said, I sure hope we do forgive and forget as a matter of policy. Being abrasive (like Michael Arrington is trying to be) isn't going to teach these people a lesson anymore than it teaches those who continue to get access to music and other content through piracy. The way to sway public policy is the same way things worked when SOPA was tabled a few weeks ago: through public action, using the legislative process. Lawrence Lessig's Remix is a great intellectual treatise on why we should consider changing our copyright laws to reinforce the fair use rights we should have; sending copies of it to these people and asking them to read it seems like it might do a whole lot more good than some kind of draconian punishment regime.
  - dedward 15y ago
    pointing out that the people lobbying the hardest and spendingthe most resources against joe average, throwing grandma in jail for using a torrent can just as easily break the same laws and be obviously guilty of the same crimes is great. if hey can fine joe for everything he has becavuse he downloaded some movies, and seize entire domainsfor merely linking, why SHOULDNT there be some backlash when they are caught doing the same thing. oh, they didntknow, the tech guy did it? didnt work with all those lawsuits did it, so eat it i say.
- Zev 15y ago
  We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. I never got this. It sounds catchy, but, holding a grudge forever sounds like a horrific way to live.
  - tux1968 15y ago
    Agreed. It also sounds juvenile and a bit detached from reality.
    - Karunamon 15y ago
      And also completely wrong. Anonymous being a hivemind, they "forget" the moment they stop being entertained by the actions of their target. Target of an anon raid? Ignore them completely. They will go away.
    - mkramlich 15y ago
      "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth..." "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..."
  - reinhardt 15y ago
    I don't take this to imply "forever" necessarily. The grudge can end when the (alleged) wrongdoer pays for his deeds. Regardless of its actual effectiveness, it's a useful deterrent, along the lines of massive retaliation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_retaliation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_retaliation).
  - icebraining 15y ago
    "We" means the collective consciousness/memory, not any single person. As long as some number of members remembers the event, Anonymous doesn't forget, even if those members change with time.
  - gcb 15y ago
    This is about millions of bored people. One individual will forget 2days later. But the online mob will carry on
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
cookiecaper 15y ago
"The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." Apparently said by Lincoln, though I remembered the attribution going to Theodore Roosevelt.
ethank 15y ago
Vevo is not a label. It is a JV that includes YouTube among labels.
- Natsu 15y ago
  Has the article been edited? The headline over there is different and the first sentence calls Vevo a "music label joint venture." EDIT: Also, what is YouTube's involvement, exactly? It appears to be run mostly by ex-big label guys (and one person from MySpace), then they host on YouTube and share advertising revenue. Or something like that. There are few details about this on Wikipedia[2], but you're the kind of person who probably knows more about them than most of us. [1] http://www.vevo.com/About/OurTeam http://www.vevo.com/About/OurTeam [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vevo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vevo
  - mitchellhislop 15y ago
    I remember some recent rumors that Vevo was thinking of moving to Facebook for the hosting part of their venture.
za 15y ago
Original Article: http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/09/music-labels-joint-venture-vevo-shows-pirated-espn-game-at-sundance/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/09/music-labels-joint-venture-... Update, 2/10:: ESPN says it will not be pursuing legal action. A spokesperson gave us the following statement: “We’re disappointed the exhibitor took this route, especially at a festival for an industry whose jobs are most at risk if we are not able to curtail stolen content.”
naner 15y ago
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/09/music-labels-joint-venture-vevo-shows-pirated-espn-game-at-sundance/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/09/music-labels-joint-venture-... Update, 2/10:: ESPN says it will not be pursuing legal action. A spokesperson gave us the following statement: “We’re disappointed the exhibitor took this route, especially at a festival for an industry whose jobs are most at risk if we are not able to curtail stolen content.”
- schiffern 15y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong (and IANAL), but I believe it doesn't matter if the injured party does or does not want to pursue criminal charges. That matters for civil charges, but not criminal charges. Those are made at the discretion of the District Attorney. The injured party can influence the DA's decision of course, but ultimately it's his/her call.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jakeonthemove 15y ago
These guys probably have no idea what piracy is... They must've been very surprised when they learned that streaming a game is pirating content. Hopefully, they'll start thinking about it more and come up with better solutions (like, you know, making the damn paid content available anytime, anywhere, for anyone)...
darxius 15y ago
Can a citizen seek legal action in regards to an event which didn't directly involve them? For example, you saw a crime and want to sue because no one else will? This can't just "go away".
- waiwai933 15y ago
  Private prosecution in the US only appears to be permitted in the state of Virginia, and although IANAL, I think that even there, it would only apply to state statues and not federal ones. But you could petition the Attorney General's office to prosecute, and/or write to your Senators/Representative to ask them to advocate for a criminal prosecution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution
snowwrestler 15y ago
Not to be pedantic, but Vevo would not face criminal charges for showing one stream to a few people at a bar. To create criminal liability they would need to be infringing on a commercial scale--like Frontrow.tv and TuTele.tv do by hosting the streams with ads next to them. Vevo would be open to civil liability but it is up the copyright holder to decide whether it's worth pursuing.
- darxius 15y ago
  I don't think this is correct. When you share/download torrents you aren't paying the user at the receiving end. Yet it is still illegal. By your logic, I could stay in Times Square giving out copies of Avatar and Inception as long as I give it for free.
  - ljf 15y ago
    I (believe) the main issue with torrents has been the fact that you are also distributing when you download. This is why (AFAIK) very few people have been fined for streaming or downloading from services like Rapidshare.
  - snowwrestler 15y ago
    It's not just a question of legal/illegal. Some things that are illegal are not criminal--they create civil liability instead. If you lose, you owe money but you don't go to jail or have a criminal record. Have any individuals been criminally prosecuted for their personal BitTorrent use? I've read a lot of stories of people being sued, but I can't remember a story of criminal prosecution. I guess it would be possible if the prosecutor could make the case that BitTorrent is a form of distribution, and the amount meets the criteria in the law: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506 http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506
    - sunchild 15y ago
      There is a whole bunch of legal jurisprudence in just about every country that deals with intentional infringement of copyrights. In the US: Operation Gridlock, Operation D-Elite, etc., etc. Look it up.
grellas 15y ago
VEVO Execs Must Face Criminal Charges For Copyright Infringement Criminal charges are a serious business and I don't think it promotes healthy debate to sling around loose statements suggesting that they be pursued recklessly by the authorities, no matter how unattractive the party involved in the wrongdoing. No self-respecting prosecutor would even consider bringing charges where only a one-time incident is involved and where the alleged perpetrator claims (as here) that the incident was inadvertent (however lacking in credibility this may be, it is a classic "plausible deniability" excuse). Do we really want our government devoting substantial resources toward trying to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in such a case? And does anyone seriously want this to be the standard by which criminal prosecutions for alleged copyright infringement are brought? Since I would assume the answer to these questions is no, then the only point of this piece is to use an absurdly overstated headline to draw attention to itself. I am against hypocrisy as much as the next guy, and I have no particular sympathy for the musical labels (or even for the sort of glitzy events at which this incident occurred), but it does not advance the cause of attaining sane copyright legislation to make "off with his head" demands that have no basis in reality. Music industry hypocrisy is fair game for advocating against draconian copyright enforcement and in itself makes for a potent argument. The effect is much diluted, however, when the argument cannot be taken seriously. If instead this is not intended to be taken seriously but is rather a form of street theater intended to dramatize a point, then it is (in my view) just lame and ineffective. This is a case of infringement by which the copyright holder can choose to take civil action or not as suits its purposes. If a cost-benefit legal analysis suggests that little damage in fact occurred and that the incident is non-recurring or plausibly explainable, then there is likely nothing worth pursuing. What the incident boils down to, then, is a horrible embarrassment for the music industry execs involved and, at the level, it does carry a sting. The rest is fluff.
- sunchild 15y ago
  Intentional infringement = criminal penalties. Sorry, but that's the rule of law, i.e., the very bed they made for themselves. Everyone knows the Superbowl is proprietary. The NFL says so during the broadcast.
  - 15y ago

162 points by ed 15y ago

The message is very simple - if the content industry does manage to push their legislation wishlist through congress, then every single one of the content middlemen guys should better watch out for all their personal actions every single second for the remainder of their lives. Because we will be watching. If they manage to criminalize what they're doing themselves, then they must reap what they sow. And they will. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget.

vijayr 15y ago
what prevents the labels from having a secret agreement, that will exclude their employees/execs/subsidiaries etc from these lawsuits? "If you get caught playing my music, I'll make sure you don't get punished. you do the same for me. but let's sue everyone else" kinda thing?
- rcfox 15y ago
  Stories like this, and laws against collusion?
  - anamax 15y ago
    > Stories like this, and laws against collusion? What laws are those? Be as specific as you can. (Anti-trust doesn't apply here.)
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
- dedward 15y ago
  perhaps nothing? perhaps the artists wont sign such acontract? if it were anentire industry doing it it would be anantitrust issue......
phuff 15y ago
I try really hard to make sure all my music is bought and paid for, or obtained for free legally (promotional CDs, etc.). I don't download movies illegally (a really great public library makes that easy). But I disagree with the way the content industries have tried to pursue an agenda of making it illegal to use things you've bought and paid for however you'd like. That being said, I sure hope we do forgive and forget as a matter of policy. Being abrasive (like Michael Arrington is trying to be) isn't going to teach these people a lesson anymore than it teaches those who continue to get access to music and other content through piracy. The way to sway public policy is the same way things worked when SOPA was tabled a few weeks ago: through public action, using the legislative process. Lawrence Lessig's Remix is a great intellectual treatise on why we should consider changing our copyright laws to reinforce the fair use rights we should have; sending copies of it to these people and asking them to read it seems like it might do a whole lot more good than some kind of draconian punishment regime.
- dedward 15y ago
  pointing out that the people lobbying the hardest and spendingthe most resources against joe average, throwing grandma in jail for using a torrent can just as easily break the same laws and be obviously guilty of the same crimes is great. if hey can fine joe for everything he has becavuse he downloaded some movies, and seize entire domainsfor merely linking, why SHOULDNT there be some backlash when they are caught doing the same thing. oh, they didntknow, the tech guy did it? didnt work with all those lawsuits did it, so eat it i say.
Zev 15y ago
We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. I never got this. It sounds catchy, but, holding a grudge forever sounds like a horrific way to live.
- tux1968 15y ago
  Agreed. It also sounds juvenile and a bit detached from reality.
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    And also completely wrong. Anonymous being a hivemind, they "forget" the moment they stop being entertained by the actions of their target. Target of an anon raid? Ignore them completely. They will go away.
  - mkramlich 15y ago
    "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth..." "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..."
- reinhardt 15y ago
  I don't take this to imply "forever" necessarily. The grudge can end when the (alleged) wrongdoer pays for his deeds. Regardless of its actual effectiveness, it's a useful deterrent, along the lines of massive retaliation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_retaliation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_retaliation).
- icebraining 15y ago
  "We" means the collective consciousness/memory, not any single person. As long as some number of members remembers the event, Anonymous doesn't forget, even if those members change with time.
- gcb 15y ago
  This is about millions of bored people. One individual will forget 2days later. But the online mob will carry on

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

cookiecaper 15y ago

"The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." Apparently said by Lincoln, though I remembered the attribution going to Theodore Roosevelt.

ethank 15y ago

Vevo is not a label. It is a JV that includes YouTube among labels.

Natsu 15y ago
Has the article been edited? The headline over there is different and the first sentence calls Vevo a "music label joint venture." EDIT: Also, what is YouTube's involvement, exactly? It appears to be run mostly by ex-big label guys (and one person from MySpace), then they host on YouTube and share advertising revenue. Or something like that. There are few details about this on Wikipedia[2], but you're the kind of person who probably knows more about them than most of us. [1] http://www.vevo.com/About/OurTeam http://www.vevo.com/About/OurTeam [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vevo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vevo
- mitchellhislop 15y ago
  I remember some recent rumors that Vevo was thinking of moving to Facebook for the hosting part of their venture.

za 15y ago

Original Article: http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/09/music-labels-joint-venture-vevo-shows-pirated-espn-game-at-sundance/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/09/music-labels-joint-venture-... Update, 2/10:: ESPN says it will not be pursuing legal action. A spokesperson gave us the following statement: “We’re disappointed the exhibitor took this route, especially at a festival for an industry whose jobs are most at risk if we are not able to curtail stolen content.”

naner 15y ago

http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/09/music-labels-joint-venture-vevo-shows-pirated-espn-game-at-sundance/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/09/music-labels-joint-venture-... Update, 2/10:: ESPN says it will not be pursuing legal action. A spokesperson gave us the following statement: “We’re disappointed the exhibitor took this route, especially at a festival for an industry whose jobs are most at risk if we are not able to curtail stolen content.”

schiffern 15y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong (and IANAL), but I believe it doesn't matter if the injured party does or does not want to pursue criminal charges. That matters for civil charges, but not criminal charges. Those are made at the discretion of the District Attorney. The injured party can influence the DA's decision of course, but ultimately it's his/her call.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

jakeonthemove 15y ago

These guys probably have no idea what piracy is... They must've been very surprised when they learned that streaming a game is pirating content. Hopefully, they'll start thinking about it more and come up with better solutions (like, you know, making the damn paid content available anytime, anywhere, for anyone)...

darxius 15y ago

Can a citizen seek legal action in regards to an event which didn't directly involve them? For example, you saw a crime and want to sue because no one else will? This can't just "go away".

waiwai933 15y ago
Private prosecution in the US only appears to be permitted in the state of Virginia, and although IANAL, I think that even there, it would only apply to state statues and not federal ones. But you could petition the Attorney General's office to prosecute, and/or write to your Senators/Representative to ask them to advocate for a criminal prosecution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution

snowwrestler 15y ago

Not to be pedantic, but Vevo would not face criminal charges for showing one stream to a few people at a bar. To create criminal liability they would need to be infringing on a commercial scale--like Frontrow.tv and TuTele.tv do by hosting the streams with ads next to them. Vevo would be open to civil liability but it is up the copyright holder to decide whether it's worth pursuing.

darxius 15y ago
I don't think this is correct. When you share/download torrents you aren't paying the user at the receiving end. Yet it is still illegal. By your logic, I could stay in Times Square giving out copies of Avatar and Inception as long as I give it for free.
- ljf 15y ago
  I (believe) the main issue with torrents has been the fact that you are also distributing when you download. This is why (AFAIK) very few people have been fined for streaming or downloading from services like Rapidshare.
- snowwrestler 15y ago
  It's not just a question of legal/illegal. Some things that are illegal are not criminal--they create civil liability instead. If you lose, you owe money but you don't go to jail or have a criminal record. Have any individuals been criminally prosecuted for their personal BitTorrent use? I've read a lot of stories of people being sued, but I can't remember a story of criminal prosecution. I guess it would be possible if the prosecutor could make the case that BitTorrent is a form of distribution, and the amount meets the criteria in the law: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506 http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506
  - sunchild 15y ago
    There is a whole bunch of legal jurisprudence in just about every country that deals with intentional infringement of copyrights. In the US: Operation Gridlock, Operation D-Elite, etc., etc. Look it up.

grellas 15y ago

VEVO Execs Must Face Criminal Charges For Copyright Infringement Criminal charges are a serious business and I don't think it promotes healthy debate to sling around loose statements suggesting that they be pursued recklessly by the authorities, no matter how unattractive the party involved in the wrongdoing. No self-respecting prosecutor would even consider bringing charges where only a one-time incident is involved and where the alleged perpetrator claims (as here) that the incident was inadvertent (however lacking in credibility this may be, it is a classic "plausible deniability" excuse). Do we really want our government devoting substantial resources toward trying to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in such a case? And does anyone seriously want this to be the standard by which criminal prosecutions for alleged copyright infringement are brought? Since I would assume the answer to these questions is no, then the only point of this piece is to use an absurdly overstated headline to draw attention to itself. I am against hypocrisy as much as the next guy, and I have no particular sympathy for the musical labels (or even for the sort of glitzy events at which this incident occurred), but it does not advance the cause of attaining sane copyright legislation to make "off with his head" demands that have no basis in reality. Music industry hypocrisy is fair game for advocating against draconian copyright enforcement and in itself makes for a potent argument. The effect is much diluted, however, when the argument cannot be taken seriously. If instead this is not intended to be taken seriously but is rather a form of street theater intended to dramatize a point, then it is (in my view) just lame and ineffective. This is a case of infringement by which the copyright holder can choose to take civil action or not as suits its purposes. If a cost-benefit legal analysis suggests that little damage in fact occurred and that the incident is non-recurring or plausibly explainable, then there is likely nothing worth pursuing. What the incident boils down to, then, is a horrible embarrassment for the music industry execs involved and, at the level, it does carry a sting. The rest is fluff.

sunchild 15y ago
Intentional infringement = criminal penalties. Sorry, but that's the rule of law, i.e., the very bed they made for themselves. Everyone knows the Superbowl is proprietary. The NFL says so during the broadcast.
- 15y ago