Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Understanding the Cablevision DVR lawsuit

  While I agree with Mark Cuban that the lawsuit is a mistake , I thought it was worth discussing why - from a legal perspective - the network DVR is an issue. Copyright gives the owner a limited monopoly over a few aspects, most notably the ability to reproduce and distribute the work. In a "normal" DVR, there are two points where these rights come into play: a reproduction and distribution in the initial broadcast, and a reproduction when saving to the hard drive. (Under current case law, even taking a digital file and loading it into memory to play is technically a "reproduction", fixed for purposes of copyright). The former is obviously licensed by the copyright holder. What allows the latter is a concept known as fair use . (Remember, I said it was a limited monopoly). There are four factors to determining whether something qualifies as fair use: the purpose and character of the use the nature of the work the amount used the effect on the market for the work None of these factors are... Posted Apr 11 2007, 08:25 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Intellectual Property, Gadgets, Copyright, Video, Law

• What is YouTube worth?

  YouTube is apparently for sale - that is, if someone is willing to pay at least $1.5 billion. Yahoo! is reportedly the front runner (not sure how I feel about this as a shareholder). Jason Calacanis said on the latest Gillmor Gang that he would quit if AOL bought them. He just feels wrong seeing entrepreneurs get rich off of stolen content and suggested that "70%" of their content is infringing works. I'd like to point out again that while Lazy Sunday may have put them on the map, 86 of their top 100 videos were user generated in July. Mark Cuban, who I don't always agree with but as Jason says is right more often than not, says YouTube is damned . On the copyright side of things, I don't think there are no issues, but I do think they're going to be fine. Grokster gave us a pretty good test that looks at intention , not strictly whether someone profits from a third party’s infringing use. The test considers things such as their encouragement of infringing use, how the service is marketed... Posted Sep 26 2006, 04:30 AM by Tim with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Copyright, Web 2.0, YouTube, Video

• YouTube isn't all about copyright infringement

  The conventional wisdom has been that YouTube is the new Napster, a business based on copyright infringement . Back in February, Jason Calacanis said it was not a real business but just a "haven for pirates". Fred disagreed , saying the real issue is user-generated content and that "YouTube has captured the hearts and minds of the people as the place they go to post videos and find videos". Six months later, it turns out Fred was mostly right. The "Lazy Sundays" clip may have put YouTube on the map, but user-generated content is driving the site. Last month, 86 of the top 100 videos were user-generated content ( via Waxy.org ). Now if they can just figure out how to make money (I'll update when the article link is actually available), they'll get rich like that Digg guy . Posted Aug 11 2006, 08:17 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Copyright, Web 2.0, YouTube, Video