http://tags.library.upenn.edu/project/34855/napster+lawsuit PennTags Feed http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/35487 http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/35487 <p><br />Mark Cuban, creator of Broadcast.com and outspoken opponent of Youtube, directly compares Youtube to the original Napster website in this blog entry. He attributes Youtube&rsquo;s quick success to two specific sources: &ldquo;Free Hosting from any 3rd Party Site&rdquo; and &ldquo;Copyrighted music and video.&rdquo; He goes on to make direct comparisons between Grokster, Napster, and Youtube. Napster was &ldquo;the first to tell you it [pirating] wasn&rsquo;t illegal.&rdquo; He argues that the only reason Youtube hasn&rsquo;t been brought to court multiple times already is that the studios are not sure what having so many clips available illegally means for them financially. Similarly to Napster, once the lawsuits begin, they will not stop until the service is forced to shut down. He observes that Youtube is remarkably similar to Napster, because users can simply open as many Youtube pages containing copyrighted songs as they want, and then listen to the songs as they would on Napster. Youtube will be hurt not just by lawsuits, but also by the wide availability of copyrighted content in legal online channels, such as NBC making clips available on its own site. Cuban states that as soon as Youtube is sued by copyright holders, it will be forced to find and remove all infringing content. This will leave the site, he argues, devoid of most appealing content.</p> <p><br />While Cuban is correct in noting that there is a large amount of copyrighted material available on Youtube, he fails to take into account several key details. First, he states that Youtube will be sued for inducing others to commit infringement, just as Napster and Grokster were sued. Unlike Youtube, however, Napster and Youtube advertised themselves as sites which allowed users to download any music they wanted. They actually did induce users to visit the site for the purpose of downloading infringing material, whereas Youtube encourages users to visit its site to host user-generated content, evident from its slogan of &ldquo;Broadcast Yourself.&rdquo; Cuban also suggests that after copyrighted material such as TV shows is widely available in other locations and once copyright holders begin ordering their content to be removed, Youtube would be devoid of any content to set it apart from competitors. However, sites like Hulu, Joost, and services run by major Television studios have been online for over a year and Youtube is as popular as ever. This debunks the argument that Youtube would be unappealing once its copyright material was removed and other legal video-viewing services were established. Rather, users still visit the site for non-copyrighted material, and it continues to thrive, having just signed several deals itself with major content creators and TV Studios. Cuban&rsquo;s main oversight is in the DMCA. He completely fails to take into account the fact that the DMCA Safe Harbor law removes Youtube from direct liability for any infringing videos that are posted on its service, so long as it removes them upon request of the copyright holder.</p>