Google closes bug as WONTFIX over Creative Commons license violations
code.google.com
code.google.com
(I support making it easier to save copies of things, but I'm not sure about the license compliance theory.)
A CC license doesn't give you the right to award Google all the rights it demands in Section 8 of the YouTube TOS. To try to do so violates the CC license, terminating your original agreement. Yeah, breaking a license term makes you liable.
Just to restate it, it is illegal to upload content to YouTube under a CC license because it's instantly an infringement. Of course if you have separate permission (or its yours) that's okay but that's not a CC license, that's a dual-license to you.
This is really common with user-submitted-content sites. Equally common is users not understanding this fact. Or caring.
Google has safe harbour. This is their users actions... But they {c,sh}ould be doing more to interrogate uploaders about the material source and licenses. Instead they just seem happy to let the DMCA do its work.
5. Your Use of Content
...
> You shall not download any Content unless you see a “download” or similar link displayed by YouTube on the Service for that Content.
Which seems contradictory with CC, and what is the next sentence:
> You shall not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of YouTube or the respective licensors of the Content.
(I'm not a lawyer and whatnot.)
"You may not offer or impose any additional or different terms or conditions on, or apply any Effective Technological Measures to, the Licensed Material if doing so restricts exercise of the Licensed Rights by any recipient of the Licensed Material."
Perhaps the YouTube ToS provision against downloading could be viewed as "additional or different terms or conditions".
For the second sentence you quoted, I'd expect that YouTube users already have the "prior written consent of [...] the respective licensors" expressed in the CC license itself, because "[e]very recipient of the Licensed Material automatically receives an offer from the Licensor to exercise the Licensed Rights under the terms and conditions of this Public License".
It's hard to see that someone can hold YouTube liable for this violation; presumably YouTube is protected by §512 of the DMCA for uploads that violate Creative Commons licenses just as much as it is in other copyright disputes. A copyright holder in a CC-licensed work that someone else uploaded to YouTube could file a DMCA takedown notice or seek damages from the uploader.
YouTube has produced a bunch of educational material about copyrights and how to avoid violating people's copyright. I think a super awesome outcome would be if YouTube started prominently publishing educational materials that made clear that YouTube is too restrictive a place to host third-party CC-licensed videos, and that users should upload them elsewhere to avoid violating the CC licenses.
You could claim that there's a difference between holding the data in RAM and holding it on disk, but all modern consumer operating systems support virtual memory, which means they can use the hard drive as an extension of RAM if needed. That would mean that it violates the terms of service to watch a video while doing something memory intensive, which could cause portions of the video to be automatically transferred to disk.
I'm not a lawyer, but I question whether this term could be enforceable.
4. C) You agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Service itself, the Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate.
and
5. C)You agree not to circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with security-related features of the Service or features that prevent or restrict use or copying of any Content or enforce limitations on use of the Service or the Content therein.
2. As commenter #8 points out, if you care about this sort of thing, use a different platform. For example, Vimeo makes it incredibly easy to download videos.
2. The argument is that Youtube shouldn't be using the CC name and licenses at all if they are not going to adhere to the spirit of said licenses.
If downloading videos violates YouTube's TOS, but YouTube is violating the Creative Commons license by enforcing this aspect of their TOS, is this restriction enforceable?
It's odd to me that TOS can dictate to which folder a file is downloaded.
In case it gets modded it was "Google closes bug as WONTFIX over Creative Commons license violations"
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
It's not clear to me whether YouTube's policy definitely conflicts with that section, but it seems plausible!
I think this is analogous to the way that distributing third-party GPL-licensed software in the iTunes App Store may violate the GPL, which I think is because of the provision that "[y]ou may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein", which the App Store's policies do.
It doesn't matter. If you upload a video to youtube, you're doing it under youtube's terms of service, not under whatever license you may use for distributing the video to other people. If I release a video publicly under a license which says "if you distribute this video, you must pay me a million dollars" and then upload it to youtube, it just means that there are now two licenses -- not that youtube owes me a million dollars.
Edit: (which doesn't mean YouTube is bound by the provisions of the CC license, but does mean it doesn't have valid permission from the uploader or copyright holder to display the works)
If allowing use of CC licensed content helped advertisers, it would implemented post-haste.
If the creator really cared about a redistribution friendly distributor, they should have used one. YouTube ain't it, and never was.
I can publish a book in dead tree format that's under CC, but I don't have to provide it to you in whatever format you want just because you want it.
So while there may not be a technical violation, some might argue there is a moral one.
Whether or not Youtube (or others) see it that way is another matter.
> You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
To my understanding, this is felt to be in conflict with the restriction on downloading in YouTube's Terms of Service. I'm not an expert on open-source licenses, but I think that's where the violation is believed to lie.
But the linked thread never says anything about the terms of service. It seems odd to add a new point to an argument solely in the title of a HN post, when the thing it links to never makes that point.