@dirk83 and I have been researching and discussing an application on the SAFE Network which involves video content. This app should be open for everyone to upload their videos and share/stream them with whoever they want.
But of course we don’t want to be liable for possible copyright infringements and the illegal content people will upload. How does the community here think we (and potential other app builders) should handle this?
Please don’t say: stay anonymous! it’s too late for that
If you are worried about the whole copyright thing you may as well not do it.
You can put a bunch of rules on the site stating it’s not allowed to post illegal / copyrighted content and such. But of course people will be ignoring that (since anonymous and all).
So then you can choose to make the site in a way where you are able to delete videos or at least not have them shown on your site. This would mean you would have to deal with removal requests which would cost you shitloads of time.
If you choose not to make it possible to delete the files then you are screwed anyways because you stated you wanted to comply with the whole copyright thing.
So only way to do this is by not caring about the whole copyright thing.
I didn’t say anything about my stance on copyright infringements, I only said I didn’t want to be kept responsible for possible copyright infringements.
Let’s say your site becomes big and a lot of (copyrighted/illegal) videos are shown on it. If you are known as the owner and copyright agencies know who you are then they will surely find you. Unless you make loads of cash from the site you probably won’t be able to deal with the load of legal stuff they will throw at you.
Not saying that is what will be happening, but they wouldn’t mind making an example of someone to deter people from running sites like that.
They are not anonymous at all but also don’t monetize from that endeavor. It’s gotten them a lot of attention but hasn’t seemed to land them any real trouble
Actually, they don’t. popcorn is based on bittorrent and so users are helping with the distribution of copyright infringements which results in written warnings to some users. The only thing that keeps you safe from these is using a VPN service or a proxy.
Did some very quick searching on popcorntime and found this article:
But the team “probably should contact a lawyer,” according to professor Jim Gibson, director of the Intellectual Property Institute at the University of Richmond law school.
“Their biggest legal problem is that they appear to be encouraging users to stream movies illegally,” Gibson told Business Insider.
Uploading or posting unlicensed content online is illegal — even if it’s free, according to Gibson. “That’s the most basic part of copyright — protection of your work. When someone uploads a video online, they’re literally making a copy,” he said.
Online streaming sites and apps like Popcorn Time try to avoid copyright infringement by not hosting their own content. (Read more about that process here ») Instead, these sites act as search engines for links to streamed content.
“Popcorn Time is not hosting anything. Popcorn Time serves only information. And it’s not forbidden to collect and serve public, open-for-all, information. You can look for the same information on Google,” the Time4Popcorn team told BI via email.
In technological copyright cases, however, legal liability can be determined using a test known as the “inducement rule,” which holds companies or websites accountable for distributing unlicensed content if they clearly encourage users to infringe copyright. The company would also be considered illegal if it provides access only to infringing content and no other legal content.
Normally users of streaming site are not targeted for copyright infringement, since they’re “only” consuming illegal content. With bittorrent they’re helping to distribute the file (the nature of torrents), which is completely different in the eyes of the lawyers.
My guess is the same principal will apply to SAFE (at least for data that is public), but I’m not 100% sure on that.
Create the platform/template then entrust it to the community. The more video sites the better. Your site could just act as an aggregator like google but for videos. Listing thumbnails/gifs of videos a user searches for with intuitive controls and great aesthetics. There, now you shouldn’t be liable. Same way google shouldn’t be liable for presenting a link to a site that shares copyrighted material. I might be wrong so do your research.
Whatever is done it will have to be as good as the seemingly inevitable popcorn time on SAFE with optional micro tips. A revolution is happening, the law will have to adjust globally. The point of content and info is not profit, the profit censor is being removed.
how about no registration and no ads? So the uploader can’t make money with the upload. Will there be something to kill multiple uploads of the same video?
Not sure if I understand your questions correctly.
I specified the question regarding creators of an application which don’t want to be kept responsible for the possible ‘illegal’ content on their application.
I meant it more like: If you can’t tell who (no registration) uploaded the file can you be responsible ? If the uploader of the illegal content doesn’t make money (no ads) with the upload, would they upload the content?
We’d be the only persons who can be kept responsible this way , because we’d be the only persons tight to the app. It’s not that I’m against uploading anonymous, and this should be possible but it doesn’t make us not responsible for the content shown in the application (not thinking in a legal way here, but just my own common sense. And trying to see/prevent every possible liability).
One way we were thinking is to let users show their content on their own websites, so we’d only create an application with which you can build your own video channel on your own website, but without a “”““central””“” platform like YouTube has for example.
Formulate and publish solid copyright policy and then “Push SAFE To The Limits”. Copyright infringement has many different flavors and the “fair use” doctrine may in some cases play into the SAFE Network. For now I vote to only consider and somewhat prepare for the consequences of what “might” happen but not let those considerations or preparations impede the growth of the SAFE Network. And remember, all news about the SAFE Network is good news.
I think that is wise, basically be an aggregator! Make your site seem like a great place to share home videos with family or funny home videos with the public etc and as an “oversight” of not being able to censor your users copyrighted content or whatever can be uploaded. Have to be clever to pull off and have a very functional site for the end user though. Hopefully you catch my drift, I don’t feel like I’m explaining it all that well
