Copyright, Leeching, Weblogs Inc and YouTube

An interesting difference of viewpoints on the NBC DMCA takedown notice handed to YouTube from Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing, and Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc.

Jardin casually skips over the fact that YouTube, as a host, is breaking copyright. Irrespective of personal views held on copyright, YouTube is breaking the law. And while Boing Boing has a long (and in many eyes, noble) tradition of pointing out the absurdity of copyright law, it is still the law. And it’s being broken. If this came to a court case, would Boing Boing stand alongside YouTube and this breach of copyright?

On the other hand Jason Calacanis called this infringement and was almost prescient in his timing of his warning blog post. And by the strict letter of the law, he is right in the view that YouTube is hiding behind flimsy excuses to host and exploit other people’s content. What raises my eyebrow is the phrase that the Weblogs Inc blogs (such as Engadget) generate their own content, while YouTube leeches. Is that true? Again, strictly it is, but Calacanis should never lose site that although events such as CES allow them to go out reporting, their day to day content is simply linking and summarising content from other sites. In many case summarising that content to such an extent that there is no need for a reader to actually click through to the original content.

There’s a fine line between Weblogs inc .and YouTube’s presentation of other people’s content. Both of them require other people to generate content that the sites subsequently leverage to attract readers to their own websites so they can earn money. Calacanis might want to step back and consider the balance of links vs true content in Weblogs inc. before coming out all guns blazing.