YouTube and Censorship

By: Rachel Blank

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act

The law was created in response to increasing infringement on copyrights prompted by the ease of the accessibility of the internet. (Napster...)

The Act inserted new laws into the copyright statutes to discourage copying of copyrighted materials.

This law allowed YouTube developers to relax, as individual users, not the host, committed these crimes.

YouTube Claims To Be Self-regulatedUsers are required to sign a contract before they open an account with YouTube.

They take down works that infringe upon copyrights, as well as hate speech, and pornography.

There are no distinct laws detailing allowable content.

Censorship is based on changing opinions from YouTube's authorities.

Other Forms of Censorship

YouTube adhere's to differing nations' laws wherever they employ staff.

It is well know that YouTube's current Parent company, Google, obeys China's laws in censoring content.

Thailand in Turkey have both made headlines when they have demanded the removal of certain videos.

...

Users have the ability to censor content in YouTube.

The peer viewer is able to flag the video

Flagging a video does not require a carefully constructed complaint.

If the video is slightly capable of going against any rule of YouTube's terms of service, it is most likely going to be taken down.

Usually accompanied with a threat of suspension from access to the site, depending on the severity of the situation

Effects of User Censorship 

Users are becoming the silent, yet ever-present “curators of YouTube”.

And curatorial direction isoften minimal or nonexistent

The curators confuse the other users by constantly removing content.

Metadata provided by the users is often nonexistent, misinformed, and presented in a non-standardized way.

How Else Can Censoring Happen?

This censoring takes place through the ordering of search results

YouTube is notdemocratic. Its architecture supports thepopular.

This censoring feature can beadjusted if you adjust your filtersettings which are as follows; Upload date, View Count, and Rating.

Corporations And YouTube

Media based companies have hired private companies that specialize in tracking down infringing content

A prominent company of this type is named Web Sheriff.

One of Web Sheriff’s tasks is called internet auditing, in which they analyze the entire internet in relation to a client's IP portfolio.

The private companies alert the authorities at YouTube.

This action prompts YouTube to send the infringing user an email that explains that a third party user is responsible for the action of removing the video from the web.

Differs From Other Accepted Censoring Methods

For Instance, YouTube does not comply with the laws regarding obscenity and indecency that apply to television networks..

In order to distinguish between the indecent in the obscene you have to consider:

whether the average person find that the work appealing solely to the prurient interest.

must describe sexual conduct in an offensive way the video must lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific

value.

Why do they Censor Our Stuff? The site runs on advertising

revenues and they need attractive content to draw traffic

YouTube needs advertising, to attract advertisers the site the content to be both inoffensive and non-infringing.

"The more controversial your ideas or methods, the quicker your demise."

Can We Do Anything To Stop This?

The user is allowed to appeal the ruling by following the appeal process listed on the site.

Strongest appeals are based in Fair Use Doctrine

My friend appealed and they never responded. They just left the video on the site.

Do they even look at the appeals?

Copyright Law in Cyberspace?

  Coding and digitized programming render the infringed materials to bein a different tangible form

Digital Coding and processing allows the video to become a new product

Film is Film. It's not digital.

Even if it was born digitally, YouTube compresses and degrades the quality of the clip.

... By creating a substandard version of the original product, the

YouTube user who infringes on the copyright holder's work, really has not done anything to harm the copyright and could be considered safe under the Fair Use doctrine.

In fact, these poorly presented works generate more interest about the actual video, and propel users to go out and pay the copyright holder by seeing their film in theaters, or by buying the DVD.

How Are Users Trying To Avoid the Censorship?

Some users will create multiple accounts.

Create fake titles for their uploaded works.

YouTube users make the process of locating a clip stressful, as the metadata is purposefully tampered with.

The only way to locate these, sometimes well sought after clips, is to browse through other media-based websites

The users whom engage in tactics which limit the archive's access are hindering the user's ability to consume the content

They are preserving the content for themselves.

What Has YouTube Become?

The archive has become a home for nostalgia.

Only certain works that users think are important can last the test of time in the database.

The archive continues to skew the representation of our popular and media based history.

SO WHAT IS YOUTUBE?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGOIzsNZaPQ&fmt=18

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