The bottom line is there is only one true form of copyright infringement, which is what the concept of copyrighting was created for. It goes hand in hand with the idea of pirating content. Unless you are makeing money or creating a negative effect on the copyright-holder’s profit from the material, you are not infringing on anything. Copyright means “I made this, only I can profit from it and you can’t copy me because it was my idea”. The same goes for pirating. If I give a copy of a CD to my friend, but I don’t take any money for it, I am not stealing any profit from the artist or the record label. In fact, I am helping them by exposing their work to an individual who most likely would not be purchased it. If the person likes it, they will most likely develop an interest in that particular artist’s work and buy future releases. I just created a customer for them. If they don’t like it then it doesn’t matter anyway. Many people have to be lured in, with a taste first. However, if I make copies of that same CD and sell them to my friends at even a fraction of the cost, then I am a media pirate. The only exception would be if I accept reimbursement for the cost of the discs, only. As long as I don’t make a profit (in any way), and I don’t steal their profit, I am not pirating nor infringing on anything. And I don’t care who agrees with me on this, nor if it is the official standing of the law, but this is true based simply on logic, common sense, and the very definition of these terms.
Now as far as YouTube goes, you know what really grinds my gears? I throw together a 30 second footage montage of something and it gets rejected before it ever goes live. No one has had access to it and there is already a complaint? BULL**** Meanwhile other members post straight content (no modifications) of known copyrighted material (from the same company/studio) and there is no problem. And yes, some members have gone so far as to post whole episodes of TV shows with no problems. You’ve seen them, part 1, part 2, part 3, and so on. That 10 minute thing doesn’t do anything but speed up the upload time. You can still get all of the episode, and without the commercials. And the whole don’t ask don’t tell does not make them Guilt-Free. Don’t ask-don’t tell only applies if you don’t already know about something. They know, they expect it. Morally you cannot create an arena for something (for profit) that creates a huge opportunity for wrong-doing and not police the actions of said arena, and everytime someone does something wrong just look sheepishly and say “Oops, sorry about that, I told them not to do that”. Oh, and by the way, all the while making MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. Truthfully the only ones that can be accused of copyright infringement is YOUTUBE, not the members. The members aren’t making any money, YouTube is. And they’re also making coin on all of the original stuff. Thankfully there is alot of original content, but I would hazard a guess that at least 80-90% of everything on YouTube is copyrighted by someone other than the member that uploaded it.
Whew! My fingers are tired now. Well thanks for listening. You can start disagreeing with me now.