Facebook's video plan? Grow like hell, deal with copyright later; Forbes, 7/10/15

Jeff John Roberts, Forbes; Facebook's video plan? Grow like hell, deal with copyright later:

"The challenge of chasing down copyright infringers has led content owners, in general, to claim the safe harbor rules are too lax, and that platforms like YouTube should do more to take down unauthorized videos. Studios have filed a spate of lawsuits to argue that more websites should be liable under a “red flag” provision in the copyright law, which can strip a site’s legal immunity in the event they obviously should have known about the infringement, or if they are directly making money from it.

But so far those lawsuits, including a long-running one against YouTube, have not really changed websites’ responsibilities when it comes to copyright, according to Lothar Determann, a copyright lawyer with Baker & McKenzie in San Francisco. He added more broadly that the law’s larger goal of protecting tech platforms still applies, and courts will not order websites to conduct copyright investigations.

The freebooter issue for Facebook, then, appears to be less of a legal problem than a moral one. Video owners may come to blame Facebook – safe harbors notwithstanding – for using their content to get rich while flouting their copyright concerns. Such claims, whether fair or not, have dogged Google and YouTube for years, and led to legal and political headaches."