Google, YouTube, Copyright, and Privacy
Information Today, Vol. 24, No. 4, p. 15, April 2007
3 Pages Posted: 10 Jul 2010
Date Written: April 2007
Abstract
It was not that long ago that Napster emerged as an incredibly popular mechanism for accessing and exchanging music for free. That popularity also contributed to its eventual destruction as it rapidly became a mechanism for the exchange of copyrighted music. Napster’s replacements, Grokster, KaZaa, LimeWire, et al., allowed the exchange of not only copyrighted music, but other copyrighted content including videos and movies. These services and their users have also been extensively sued for their role in facilitating the exchange of copyrighted content.
Rising in the wake of Napster and Grokster are the newest generation of video exchange platforms, primarily YouTube and similar services run by Yahoo, AOL, and others. Late last year Google purchased YouTube for over $1.6 billion dollars. Given Google’s existing copyright challenges with is Google Book Search program, many commentators wondered if Google wasn’t buying itself a whole new copyright headache.
Keywords: copyright law, lawsuits, infringement, privacy, Google, Napster, Grokster, YouTube, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, music, videos, movies, file streaming, market effect
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