Google 'stole my videos', says film-maker Philip Bloom | Hacker News Reader

Google 'stole my videos', says film-maker Philip Bloom

bbc.co.uk

169 pointsventuris_voice117 comments

If Phillip Bloom uploaded these videos to Youtube, didn't he consent to a broad TOS on the usage of these videos for internal company purposes?

I'd be surprised if he had a case, which may be why he's taking his grievance to the media instead.

Bingo.

https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms&gl=US

From section 6c:

"For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels."

Heh, Facebook has(had?) a similar clause which pretty much drove the photography community away to Flickr and the like.

I thought the photography community was driven to flickr because they were offering higher resolution and better quality.

Instagram has the same clause too

So does the free photo backup hosting which comes with Amazon Prime, iirc.

A friend who's a (mostly) retired semi-pro photographer has all his photos automatically uploaded there, so that clause worried me a bit.

If he is a British/still EU citizen, this part of "terms" might be worth the value of white noise.

Citizenship doesn't affect things. Place of residence does. If he lived in the US (or other non-EU country), then there's no way to claim any EU jurisdiction. (In this specific case: it looks like he does live in the UK.)

Similarly for GDPR, it's not much use for anyone living in the US, even if they have EU citizenship, if they sign up for services while in the US.

That is highly dependent on the law. For example the United States will prosecute citizens that have sex with child prostitutes in other countries, even if that is where they reside full time. Other laws like the GPDR you mentioned are dependent on the physical location of the activity

In both the UK and the US, the legal systems have a strong presumption against that interpretation for laws which don't say otherwise.

The example you give is one where Congress made clear they intended it to apply to citizens abroad, so the courts honor that.

(As for the US Constitution, it is held to protect the rights of US citizens abroad in relation to the US government, to the extent the US government knows or should know of their citizenship.)

>Citizenship doesn't affect things. Place of residence does

This depends. E.g. IRS and tax laws that apply if you're a US citizen regardless of residence.

But that's beside the point, because when the parent said UK/EU citizen above, he implied residence as well, which is the case for 95% of them, he wasn't addressing every specific case.

So, basically you retain your ownership rights, but grant YouTube all rights that (co-)ownership would grant?

Not quite because they can't transfer those rights to others.

I've got no problem with the Youtube rights. They need to be able to store and distribute the content you upload on a variety of media, through a variety of formats and to all sorts of end user devices and services in perpetuity, many of which haven't even been invented yet. Any thing less than these rights they reserve would almost inevitably lead to them breaching those terms eventually.

That's why the rights should be granted for the purpose of performing the service, and nothing else.

In other words, take "in connection with the Service and YouTube's business", and cut everything from the "and" on.

The grant is "sublicenseable and transferable".

This is why I didn't let Google index my podcast. Other sites just ship your RSS, Google insists on hosting your podcasts and granting itself a license to them.

That does not seem relevant? You are certainly not giving them a license to do whatever they want to do with your content just by hosting an RSS index of mp3 files on the web.

iTunes merely directs users to your podcast RSS feed and lets people download podcasts from your servers. As far as I can tell, they do not require you agree to any licensing terms, and as an RSS reader that simply lets users pull the podcast from your servers, they never "perform" the audio work or modify it in any way.

Google, on the other hand, hosts your podcast, and requires you to agree to this:

Podcast Creator grants to Google all rights necessary to use the Podcast Content in connection with Google Play, in search results and in Google Now in accordance with these Podcast Terms, including, without limitation, a worldwide, non-exclusive right and license to (a) make copies, transcode, download and store on Google’s servers or servers controlled by Google all such copies of the Podcast Content, including any files that are linked to or referenced by the RSS Feed that is provided by the Podcast Creator and as may be required to distribute the Podcast Content to users as described herein, (b) reproduce and distribute Podcast Content to Google Play users, including via download to a user’s device and as a part of a subscription; (c) encode, transcode, stream, make publicly available, publicly perform and distribute copies of the Podcast Content, including the right to provide continued access to any Podcast Content to any users who previously downloaded a copy of that Podcast Content even if the content has been removed from the RSS Feed, in order to facilitate that user’s permanent ability to access the Podcast Content as authorized by these Podcast Terms; (d) analyze, extract and process content and Metadata from the Podcast Content in order to distribute such content on Google Play and (e) use the Podcast Content for internal research, development and copyright measures such as content identification.

What do you mean, requires you to agree to something?

I don't get how this applies to something you self-publish on the internet.

Perhaps you can clarify what's confusing to you? Generally speaking, if you want people to find your podcast, you list it in say, iTunes, or Google Play, so people can find it in their app of choice.

iTunes does not require terms, Google Play does.

IANAL but I'm not sure that clause applies to this case. From the article it wasn't a Youtube executive who used the footage but someone from Google's research division.

Also that clause appears to apply to Youtube using content from the site to promote Youtube's service(s) and not for content entirely unrelated to Youtube but to Google's wider interests.

I think that's the catch, and Google (or their lawyers) are trying to interpret it more broadly than it appears to be. I also took it as Youtube could use the videos for promoting the Youtube service, but other Alphabet properties don't fall under that ToS.

Then again I'm not a lawyer so I could be completely wrong. Hopefully this gets sorted and the guy gets properly compensated. It's not like Google can't afford it, and it would be positive publicity for them. Of course, it could also set a precedent and they would face lawsuits from other content creators, so I can understand their desire to fight it.

> Also that clause appears to apply to Youtube using content from the site to promote Youtube's service

I'm not sure about that. The preceding statement of "including without limitation" to the mention of promotion seems like Youtube et al can use your content for literally anything they want. However, if that's the case then why bother including the mention of promotion and redistribution at all?

Looks like it's kinda up to the courts how to interpret it, but, also, it looks like your logic is valid with it being more restrictive than permissive.

"First, some courts have held that an item only falls within the preceding noun if it falls within one of the items in the list. The thinking is that if the preceding noun were being used to convey its unrestricted meaning, referring to subcategories of that word would serve no purpose. See, e.g., Application of Central Airlines, 185 P.2d 919 (Okla. 1947) (holding, with respect to use of the word including, that “if the lawmakers had intended the general words to be used in their unrestricted sense they would have made no mention of the particular classes”)." [1]

[1]: http://www.adamsdrafting.com/including-without-limitation/

Well, ToS are rarely to be taken at full value. It obviously differs between countries, but in many countries, ToS cannot override the law, or might even already be invalid, if they contain things that a customer can not reasonably expect to be in there. So, no selling of souls through ToS.

Similarly, it is perfectly valid to take your grievance to the media, if the ToS contain such bullshit. Almost no one reads the ToS, so a company asking you to sign off your rights in it, is an asshole company that deserves shaming.

A casual home user sure, but this is a professional commercial film producer. This can hardly have been the first time he'd had to deal with contractual distribution rights. If anyone should have been able to understand the consequences of that EULA, he's clearly one of them. However it does seem this usage was not covered by the EULA.

I suspect this is more of a PR issue than a legal one. Google might not want too many youtube users than necessary realizing what they lose by posting their videos on youtube (you kind of still own it, but we can use your video pretty much any way we want, too). Too many unhappy users invites regulation

As another example, many record companies upload very popular music artists to youtube. Also large media companies such as disney upload their songs and animations. If google turned around and started selling these for a profit, we would all conclude google was getting a bit ridiculous.

In fact, you could say that the lawyers from these companies quite rightly determined that google's TOS are legally unenforcable and go against the spirit of the law.

Wow. Philip Bloom is a pretty well known and revered figure, especially in indie film making scene. He has a huge following. If Google is smart they will settle this quickly.

I had never heard of the chap until today. Just watched a couple of youtubes, and yes, I'm very impressed (perhaps being on the BBC front page for a bit will boost the ratings).

Not exactly in the indie film making scene (he's no Cassavetes, or Gus Van Sant or whoever is the indie equivalent today).

Bloom was an old British (BBC?) cameraman/video journalist, who came into web prominence with his "DSLR for video" posts and reviews.

For a while he/his was one of the few goto persons/websites for this niche. So his audience has indie film-makers, but also ad people, wedding shooters, and generally people interested in DSLRs and digital video for news/ads/wedding/documentary/fiction in general. Himself does various ads/documentary/tv gigs (e.g. he worked on CNN's travel series).

That said, content-wise he has jumped the shark the last 1-2 years.

Right you are sir. I haven't actually followed him since I got out of the DSLR filming (rigs, follow focus, all that jazz) nearly a decade (7?8 years?) ago. I just remember that on dvinfo and similar venues he was a force to be reckoned with along with Vincent Laforet. People would follow his travel schedule almost religiously.

Reminds me of a video I watched yesterday by some photographers that successfully sued a company for using one of their images on an iPhone case product. The company wound up having to pay 40k for their use of the photo [1], which seems a little mind boggling. The photographers were willing to settle for less, but the company kept making excuses and tried avoiding them.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUEbi4r8Pg0 (video title says 60k because they're estimating what the other side paid for their lawyers)

I think the "internal use" argument is interesting because of its bearing to question what rights do employees have to internal software that is based on copyleft software?

Like for example should Google employees have right to redistribute their internal patched Linux (that I'm certain they have) code without repercussions (ie getting fired)? How would one even enforce such thing?

As I understand it, Linux is GPLv2 and you're allowed to make private modifications without publishing the source code, just as long as you don't release your modified version anywhere public. Once you do that, you have to share the source code modifications.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePos...

The "internal use" argument for not needing to license the video is more like "I don't need to buy a license of Windows as long as I only use this computer in the office and nobody tells Microsoft about it."

To clarify this, there is nothing in the GPL that forces you to distribute to anyone. E.g. you can make a highly modified GIMP for internal use in your company and keep it closed source and internal.

The only condition is that IF you distribute your program, you must also distribute the source code.

Or you must make the source code available to anyone that you distributed to if/when they ask for it.

Employees have no rights to internally modified GPL software. The software has not been 'distributed' to the employee.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#InternalDistrib...

Are there any good examples of copyright hypocrites? That is, companies which have spent great effort pursuing copyright infringement while infringing on copyright themselves.

I don't consider Google to be largely this sort of company, as they've fought to expand access (when it's in their interest, at least). Companies like Disney come to mind, but they're not exactly the same. They often adapt works where the copyright has expired, while lobbying to prevent their own works from having their copyright expire. That is definitely unfair, but not quite the same.

>I don't consider Google to be largely this sort of company, as they've fought to expand access

They have fought to expand access to other people’s protected property but make sure theirs is locked behind paywall.

Think of all the copywrite violations on YouTube, from movies, tv shows, copywrite broadcasts of sporting events.

Now try to watch episode 3 or beyond of YouTube Red (Premium) series Cobra Kai without signing up for the service and giving them your credit card.

Do as I say, not as I do.

There's also the scraping of third party sites to use as in-search cards within Google search, whilst having extensive scraping defenses for their own searches and charging for programmatic access to Google search...

Third party sites only get scraped if they want, Google Search obeys robots.txt. There's nothing hypocritical about it.

What I hear from photographers is that movie and music companies/bands often take photos from the internet and use them without permission.

Universal argued in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. RKO General, Inc. that King Kong's plot and characters are in the public domain and therefore they could freely use them in their remake of King Kong (the original being made by RKO Pictures).

Then, in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., they sued Nintendo claiming that Donkey Kong is too similar to their character King Kong. Nintendo was successfully defended by the lawyer John Kirby and named one of their characters in his honor.

It was actually a trademark case, not copyright, but still pretty hypocritical.

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_City_Studios,_Inc._v....

Musicians seems to be really bad at this.

Red Jumpsuit Apparatus jumps to mind. They used a photo without permission, then proceeded to insult the photographer and tried to blackball him from being a concert photographer, then tried to insult him publicly on Twitter. The photographers main site is down, so this article will have to do: https://petapixel.com/2014/04/21/band-responds-worst-way-pos...

Film studios also. I recall reading a whole lot of stories about indie bands who have had their music used in films without authorisation or licensing, and have a hard time getting recourse. Pretty bad look given how rabidly the film studios go against even individuals downloading their movies.

Basically, I think when it comes down to intellectual property, many people are hypocrites (especially the ones who feel they’re big enough to not get seriously punished)

It's not really hypocrisy, so much as an expression of a value system that is essentially opportunistic and amoral.

The true morality is greed-driven - make as much money as possible, unless/until some more powerful entity stops you.

IP laws have been shaped by that morality. It has pulled them far away from their original intent, which was to reward creators.

Large corporations regularly take advantage of their size and power to make sure that they, not the creators, receive value from the work.

So if you're surprised that corporate lawyers can appear to contradict their own positions, it's possible you may not have understood what motivates corporate culture.

they've fought to expand access (when it's in their interest, at least)

Google is attempting to build a world in which the only way to monetise creative work is to put an ad on it. In this world only works that Google deems to be ad-friendly (and/or a good source of personal data) will be commercially viable. There is nothing altruistic about “expanding access”.

Google is attempting to build a world in which the only way to monetise creative work is to put an ad on it.

Then why come out with YouTube Premium, and even buy a bunch of exclusive shows for it? Why does Google Play include paid music, books, shows and films?

About 10 years ago there was a widely publicized case of a small town policitician in the US, who had posted a nutty campaign video to his own website, and which later got picked up by a TV program (like AFV or somesuch). He thought it was great that his video was on TV, so he posted a video of it being shown on the program, something like 5 seconds of their introduction followed by 60 seconds of his own material.

The TV network promptly sued him for infringing their copyright, and (I believe) lost. There would have been a fair amount of backlash as well.

Unfortunately I cannot remember the names or places involved, so I'm getting nowhere with Google. Perhaps someone else will recognize this description and chime in.

That sounds like a textbook example of fair use: a small excerpt for the purpose of reporting. Interested to hear if you do have the details.

I found the story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Knight_(filmmaker)

http://www.dmlp.org/threats/viacom-v-knight

Thanks. Tldr: he pointed out it was fair use and they dropped their DMCA claim.

A Dutch anti-piracy group infringed on copyright in one of their campaign videos: https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-corruption-scandal-surrou...

Question for the HN community. What if you take some copyrighted picture and make it a meme and put it on /r/AdviceAnimals, should the person submitting that post or Reddit be liable? Even if the intended purpose of posting that content was a joke/satire of some kind? I don't know what the right path forward here is. I do feel that if the intended purpose of using the copyright material was to make money then I do feel that legal action is required. I don't see that is the case here though.

Using copyrighted material for commentary or satire, even to make money, even if the original was commercial, should be heavily protected.

Isn't Weird Al Yankovic a great example of this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Weird_Al%22_Yankovic

Not exactly, because he always gets explicit permission from the original artists to parody a song.

A great example would be someone who doesn't get such permission.

Weird Al always gets explicit permission from artists whose songs he releases parodies of on his albums. He's got an additional repertoire of songs he only performs but never records, some of which I believe he was denied permission for.

It's still legal.

> I do feel that if the intended purpose of using the copyright material was to make money then I do feel that legal action is required. I don't see that is the case here though.

Keep in mind that not intending to make money doesn't make it any better or more legal. By using someone else's material you're preventing them from making money.

Are you asking a legal question or ethical one (if legal, in what jurisdiction?). I think either way, derivative works for purposes of satire or commentary are protected (i.e. not copyright violations) even if for commercial purposes.

"Fun" fact: There is a copyright on the "socially awkward penguin" image. I don't know how reddit and imgur deal with this, but people who put it on a private site have gotten take down notice. [0]

[0] https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3cf12c58-370f...

I think it's covered by fair use and those takedown notices can be forwarded to trashbin. IANAL though.

Is fair use not only a US thing?

Does fair use [0] apply to this at all?

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

no. use of his clips probably isnt transformative enough.

And the “Purpose and character of the use” is strictly commercial (even if internal to the company).

If it was just some rando on the Internet being accused of clipping someone's youtube for a yoga video or whatever, sure. But this is HN and the perp is Google, so they must burn.

Using for yoga unlikely falls under fair use

Presumably because HN understands the difference between a private citizen and a huge multinational corporation.

There is no such distinction in Fair Use.

FWIW, Philip Bloom appears to be British and we don’t have “fair use” per se. We have “fair dealing”, which is more limited.

The Google video: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/17/17344250/google-x-selfish...

What's to settle? Google's INTERNAL use of copyrighted material is within the legal bounds.

For instance, you are free to add a copyrighted song to a family vacation slideshow only intended/accessible to your family offline. IF your son leaks the said video,are you to blame?

Nope it's not.

By that logic, are you free to show copyrighted films you torrented to all your friends and family as long as the event is not open to the general public?

Legally? No. In practice? Yes. The MPAA et. al don't seem to be prosecuting simple downloaders anymore.

No, but you are allowed to show copyrighted films you bought to your family and friends as long as the event is not open to the general public.

Doesn't this hinge around if Google legally acquired the film in the first place? Assuming they did that, wouldn't the only other violation be if it was distributed?

Those blu-ray discs come with a license specifically calling out that you're allowed "home use" -- the videographer in the news story did not give Google a "home use" license.

No, because the torrenting means you took part in public distribution of protected material.

The act of showing it privately, on the other hand, is fine.

That seems a little odd. Google can show copyrighted material to tens of thousands of employees because it's "internal"? Can Walmart employees share material to their hundreds of thousands coworkers?

And if it was truly okay, why did they need to "remind the executive of their copyright policy" (never mind the law...)?

No, technically you need a license for every single copy made; it's just almost never enforced.

You also need a license to play music at the workplace, and the PRS or equivalent will chase you endlessly about it.

This is local copyright law in Sweden but its very likely similar to the US since its all based on common international agreements.

Here you are allowed to show owned copyright material to family and close friends[0]. Schools are not allowed show bought copyrighted meterial to students, a bar can not play bought songs to customers, and indeed a company can not play bought music to employees. Its goes even beyond this in that the same goes to play public radio in speakers, and its demanded that companies pay "public performance royalties" if they do. Its general known that restaurants and stores really do pay this cost, through large companies with many employees has been reluctant. Schools are also so cash striped that teachers often openly claim that they could not do their job if they had to stay within the legal constraint of copyright.

During the direct connect ages, some groups claimed that they were within the legal line because they stayed small enough to be within the "family and close friends" exception, through I doubt any such group actually succeeded in that defense.

[0]close friends are undefined in law but usually agreed as less than 5 people.

I was part of a summer program (USA) in the early 90's and the university lawyer told us that under no circumstances may we show any movies to the children (e.g. Movie Night) without prior approval and some sort of payment. Dances were actually easier because the DJ knew what was needed for the public performance.

There is a whole business around clearinghouses for licensing content for public performance. DJs obviously already have all their ducks in line, generally.

As an example, if you're a church and you want to be able to play movies, you can go through CVLI: http://us.cvli.com/

Google was making commercial use of copyright material without the correct permissions. That's a pretty clear infringement, and the rights holder can sue for losses.

> you are free to add a copyrighted song to a family vacation slideshow only intended/accessible to your family offline.

I'd question whether you can in fact do this. Obviously the rights holders aren't going to sue, but even so the law probably doesn't allow this. (It doesn't in the UK, even if we ignore the format-shifting).

Is it the commercial part that makes it infringement, or does that just make it clear infringement? I was under the impression as long as it's non-commercial use it's mostly allowed, but I'm not sure how that works out if for example I play something on a large screen in a public park. Is that infringing? If so, is it because it's shown to a lot of people, or because the reputational benefit of doing so may have some commercial ramifications and it's argued under that aspect?

Interestingly, this article on performing rights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performing_rights seems to suggest "public" performance is any amount of people outside your close circle of family and friends.

Which would seem to suggest that any internal workplace transmission would constitute a "public" performance of a copyrighted work.

My CEO said my company is a family.

Yep - CEOs misleading employees is about as common as copyright infringement on YouTube...

To a first approximation, copyright law covers the rights you have to copy other people's work.

There are some extremely limited exceptions based on your reasons for copying it (things like parody, commentary, new reporting), these are very tightly defined exceptions called "fair use".

There are no blanket exceptions for "non commercial" use.

Keep in mind, the creation/ownership of the work gives the copyright holder unlimited authority to ban _any_ use of the work. If I write a song or make a video, I 100% have the right to say "Nobody can use this for any purpose" - then the _only_ legal uses other people can make of it are those tightly defined exceptions permitted by copyright law.

"Fair use" _is_ a legal right to use copyrighted work without permission, but it's possibly one of the least understood and most violated laws in existence... And no - it does not give you any rights to "play something on a large screen in a public park"...

> IF your son leaks the said video,are you to blame?

Yes. That's the whole point.

> Google's INTERNAL use of copyrighted material is within the legal bounds.

No, there is no such exception in US copyright law. Internal use of material falls under the same rules as anything public facing.

> you are free to add a copyrighted song to a family vacation slideshow only intended/accessible to your family offline

That's murky. It is not automatically legal. It is probably illegal if you're including your extended family and intend for them to copy & save your slideshow.

> IF your son leaks the said video,are you to blame?

Yes, if your son is less than 18 years old, you are legally responsible for his copyright violations. You can get sued for it, and some people have been. Maybe you missed the rash of RIAA lawsuits a few years ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_group_efforts_against_fi...

Next you're going to tell us that singing Happy Birthday to your child is legally murky and probably unwise.

Hehe, well I might have, but Happy Birthday is now pretty safe, the US copyright was successfully challenged in court and the EU copyright expired. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You#Copyrigh...

It isn't anymore, if it ever was. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/happy-birthday-i...

Happy Birthday is in the public domain now. As of a few years ago though, it was indeed legally murky though perhaps not unwise as long as performed in your basement with the lights out, and all in attendance are trusted and sworn to secrecy.

> No, there is no such exception in US copyright law. Internal use of material falls under the same rules as anything public facing.

Internal vs. external use will in most cases materially impact at least one of the fair use criteria (effect on market for the protected work), so while it's true the same rules apply, it's not true that those rules necessarily produce the same results if that is the only element that changes.

> Yes, if your son is less than 18 years old, you are legally responsible for his copyright violations.

As a parent as such, probably not; neither copyright law nor general federal law on civil liability has a parental liability provision which would have this effect. State tort-law parental liability provisions generally aren't expansive enough to cover most (or in many cases any) copyright claims, though something like Hawaii’s particularly expansive parental liability rules might, if they applied to the act in question.

> Maybe you missed the rash of RIAA lawsuits a few years ago?

Maybe you can cite even one where a court upheld the parental liability theory you articulate; none of those referred to in your source seem to (the only one that mentions a minor infringer seems to mention the amount minor’s direct liability, but not any parental liability.)

> Internal vs. external use will in most cases materially impact at least one of the fair use criteria (effect on market for the protected work)

But the creator says: "A fair amount of my footage has been licensed for internal use only"

Doesn't this mean that this violation does impact that market?

> while it's true the same rules apply, it's not true that those rules necessarily produce the same results if that is the only element that changes.

Right, and I was only talking about the legality. It's not any more legal for Google to infringe copyright internally, even if the material impact might be less.

> neither copyright law nor general federal law on civil liability has a parental liability provision which would have this effect. State tort-law parental liability provisions generally aren't expansive enough to cover most (or in many cases any) copyright claims

Federal and state issues of parental liability are discussed a few places. You're right that it's not super clear cut, though many states do have general parental liability laws that hold parents accountable for damage.

https://www.newmediarights.org/copyright/are_parents_liable_...

https://www.eff.org/document/parental-liability-copyright-in...

https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/parental-...

Worth mentioning that in some cases the RIAA filed suits against minors directly. Also worth noting that many families settled before any ruling on liability or even guilt. Being sued under plausible sounding rules can be damaging even if there's no actual law to back it.

Regardless of the technicalities here, @mankash666's question wasn't necessarily a legal one. The real answer to that question is that you are at least partially to blame for files being shared if you make videos using unlicensed music and share it with your son who then shares it online. Even if you don't get caught or fined, it's still kinda your fault.

Actually because internal distribution at companies is generally considered to not be distribution because it's the legal entity that is the company that's using it. The internal employees actually watching/changing the content are simply acting as the agents of that legal entity.

Therefore only the legal entity that is the company needs to have rights to the content, not the employees.

For instance, you can install windows on computers at work (which definitely is distribution), without the rights to do so. Only the company needs said rights.

That's why "the rules are different" for companies. They're not different, they just apply to different legal entities.

> Actually because internal distribution at companies is generally considered to not be distribution

This is not true. Copying material internally to a company is distribution. If you (person or company) don’t have the rights to copy, then it is illegal. If you do have a license, then it's legal distribution.

It seems like you’re conflating copyright rules with licenses. The copyright rules are not different for companies than for individuals; without the right to copy, no entity, person or company, other than the copyright holder and license holders, can do so legally. It’s fairly simple.

> That's why "the rules are different" for companies. They're not different, they just apply to different legal entities.

Also not true. Copyrights belong to the author/creator of a work, they protect the author, they grant the author exclusive right to copy the work. This protection does not differentiate or change based on who wants to copy the work.

Licenses are what apply differently to different legal entities.

> The internal employees actually watching/changing the content are simply acting as the agents of that legal entity.

That’s only true when the content has been licensed to the company for company-wide internal use. If the content was licensed to an individual and then distributed internally to a company, co-workers might not be allowed to consume that content, depending on the license. Furthermore, some content can be licensed to an individual at a company, such that the same individual is not allowed to use that content outside of work, and no other individuals at the company can use it either.

> This is not true. Copying material internally to a company is distribution. If you (person or company) don’t have the rights to copy, then it is illegal. If you do have a license, then it's legal distribution.

It's only distribution if access changes from one (legal) person to another. If a company gives access to employees acting as agents for that company, that's not distribution.

But yes, one would hope that there was a license for the thing being distributed, to the company, before this happened.

> That’s only true when the content has been ...

In the sense that licenses are contracts, and can contain any restrictions you want. On the other hand, if you buy a boxed copy of software at a store, and then regularly let whatever employee happens to be available actually use it (e.g. letting a copy of word get used by whichever secretary the temp agency sent this week) is perfectly legal, and very, very, very common.

> It’s only distribution if access changes from one (legal) person to another. If a company gives access to employees acting as agents for that company, that’s not distribution.

Again, the only way what you said is true is after the company is licensed to copy, and specifically for company wide use. Before the company is licensed, copying anything internally to any other employees, even agents of the company, is distribution, and illegal, always.

People are legal entities from the copyright law perspective, and the right to copy belongs to the author. So, it doesn’t matter if a person in a company is an agent or not, it’s a copyright violation when anyone else makes a copy of the work without permission, and it’s distribution and a copyright violation if that person shares with any other people inside their company. Being an agent of the company is irrelevant to a company that doesn’t have permission to copy.

> if you buy a boxed copy of software at a store, and then regularly let whatever employee happens to be available actually use it is perfectly legal

No, that’s not necessarily legal unless the software’s license explicitly allows sharing. If the software is copied to the other person’s computer, and multiple people use it simultaneously, then it is illegal. If you copy it to the network and let anyone use it any time, then it’s illegal. If you let someone use your copy on your computer, then that’s legal. If you loan it to someone else, and erase it off your own computer while they have the software, then it’s legal.

> and very, very, very common.

That might be true, has no bearing on the legality. Sharing of music and movies and software is incredibly common, and also illegal.

You're just repeating yourself so I'm not going to respond point for point, just allow me to state that you're confusing copyright law, first sale doctrine, and contract law (which is what governs licenses, NOT copyright law).

You should go through your claims, determine what they fall under, and how they are enabled (and limited) by the domain of law they fall under.

I’ll give you one last upvote for the discussion and a great attempt at backpedaling.

Since you requested it, I’ll oblige. Here are all the claims in this thread so far, and which of those three domains they fall under:

- Philip Bloom claims Google copied his films without having obtained a license, thus violating copyright law.

- @mankash666 claims internal distribution of material without a license is legal and does not violate copyright. Not true, falls under copyright law.

- I claim internal distribution of material without a license is illegal. I claim distribution of unlicensed music to extended family is illegal. Both of those are covered by copyright law.

- You claim that internal distribution is not distribution because people in a company are agents, so copying from one person to the next isn’t copying because it’s all one legal entity, the company. This is not true, and it falls under copyright law when the company is not licensed, and contract law when the company is licensed. It is not true that company agents are a single person for the purposes of determining copyright when the right to copy has not been attained. You also claimed incorrectly that only the company entity needs to attain a license, which depends entirely on the license, and is far from always true. You've confused both copyright law and contract law here.

May I add at this late stage you’ve also played fast and loose with the idea of legal entities and agents of a company. Employees of a company are not normally legal agents of the company. No people are ever equivalent to the company, but some may act on behalf of the company. There are different kinds of agents, but the kind of agent status you're talking about is usually reserved for lawyers and C-level managers, and may require a contract, registration with the state, power of attorney, etc.. Thus, your argument about distribution not applying to employees fails almost always, even when the company is licensed to copy some material. This is well beyond the scope of either copyright or contract law.

- I claim that copyrights belong to the author of a work, and they don’t differentiate between any kinds of legal entities, they grant rights to the author and deny rights to all other legal entities. This falls under copyright law.

- You claim that distribution is only distribution when the legal entity changes, not the person. That doesn't fall under any law because it's not true. You claim (again) that internal distribution is not distribution under copyright law. You confused copyrights with contracts here. Internal company copying is distribution under copyright, but under a license it may be legal to distribute. You claim that sharing boxed software is always legal, without specifying what kinds of use you’re talking about. This falls under both copyright and contract.

- I claim that agent status is irrelevant to copyright law, it only applies to contract law. I claim that copying boxed software internally to a company is not always legal. The first sale doctrine allows me to erase my copy and give the box to someone else, which I said above. The license may allow me to make a 2nd copy to share with someone else, that would fall under the license, or contract law. If the license doesn’t allow sharing, then sharing copies of the boxed software falls under copyright law, and it’s illegal both inside and outside of companies.

If you meant in any of your examples above that you intended “copying” to mean transferring software under the right of first sale, then I agree that’s legal. I didn’t see that anywhere. And having reviewed the entire thread, I can’t see a single claim you’ve made that is generally true, without needing qualification or assumption. Feel free to do the same exercise yourself and point out specifically where you think I confused copyright & first sale & contract. It’s entirely possible I’m wrong somewhere, but I don’t see it, and I’m not convinced.

How about I'll bite once more also. The terms of use of Youtube, which Philip Bloom must have agreed to to upload his videos in the first place, famously give all companies in the Alphabet group a license to do with his content, if he uploads it, as they wish, including even distributing it for profit. [1]

That's again, contract law, not copyright law, but oh well. I find it very hard to believe that what was done violates that incredibly broad license that Mr. Bloom granted them, because, well, it allows them to do pretty much whatever they want.

Let me add to the legal concepts you might want to look up: legal personhood, and perhaps incorporation laws (that a company defines a legal entity that counts as a person in all places in law that don't explicitly refer to a "natural" person)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms or if you prefer it digested http://tubularinsights.com/youtube-copyright-ownership/

>nternal vs. external use will in most cases materially impact at least one of the fair use criteria (effect on market for the protected work),

Go tell that to farmer Filburn.

Filburn wasn't a copyright case.

But it was argued by the government that producing and consuming a product entirely internally has an effect on the market. Same as pirating a video and using it internally to your company has an effect on the market.

It’s still a commercial usage

You don't seem to grasp the difference between personal and commercial use.

Can you point to a section of copyright law that makes that distinction?

"My footage is represented online by two major stock-footage companies. And I license it for all sorts of projects and uses, from commercials to broadcast to corporate films," said Mr Bloom. "A fair amount of my footage has been licensed for internal use only, so to hear Google not state that they will compensate me for its use is very surprising.

The footage was licensed for internal use, and Google has presumably paid for that.

The contention arises because the video was leaked; in the film maker’s view, he should be compensated because it is not internal anymore and thus breaks the usage agreement.

If Google has purposefully published the video, that’d be a very easy ruling to make in favor of the videographer; but the fact that it was leaked will make this an interesting case to follow.

> The footage was licensed for internal use, and Google has presumably paid for that.

That's a pretty far fetched interpretation in my opinion.

I'm 99.99% sure the article says/means "other people/companies have licensed footage for internal use from the appropriate online stock-footage agents, but Google has not".

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