Youtube in Regards to Piracy
 

Youtube, as a website, is meant for ease of expressing and demonstrating ideas to the world via videos as a medium. Yet, it also effectively promotes theft of both ideas and original content, by releasing them to the world. Is Youtube properly controlling piracy while still maintaining the room for creativity and expression it first set out to provide? Or is it merely a breeding ground for piracy at this point?

It's a breeding ground for piracy, as I stated in the chat. Just because you own a CD, doesn't give you the right to rip the tracks and upload them to Youtube for other people to listen to for free. That, in my opinion, makes you a pirate. You're contributing to people illegally obtaining the music or videos. That makes you just as bad as the people who run torrents for music/games/software/etc.

And Youtube can do all they want to try and stop it, but it keeps happening. I could go over there right now, and download entire series of something for free if I wanted to...and there's nothing that could be done to stop it.

Probably a piracy breeding ground.

Er.... Um.... I could make my point in words, but I'm trying this thing where I instead use hyperdata. ...For instance:

http://www.youtube.com/user/raocow
http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesNintendoNerd
http://www.youtube.com/user/cat333pokemon
http://www.youtube.com/user/CloneCharizard
http://www.youtube.com/user/VEVO?blend=1&ob=5
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheWebbyAwards
http://www.youtube.com/user/whitehouse
http://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorJohnMcCain
http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPAN
http://www.youtube.com/user/lockergnome
http://www.youtube.com/user/E3?blend=2&ob=5
http://www.youtube.com/user/machinima
http://www.youtube.com/user/ubisoft
http://www.youtube.com/user/G4TV
http://www.youtube.com/user/huluDotCom
http://www.youtube.com/user/collegehumor
http://www.youtube.com/user/IGNentertainment
http://www.youtube.com/user/The1UPNetwork
http://www.youtube.com/user/smbctheater
http://www.youtube.com/user/PokeRemi...o?blend=1&ob=5

...Should I really go on? Oh, counterpoint:
16 & Pregnant
Jackass
Jersey Shore
How I Met Your Mother



Semi-rhetoric aside, Youtube doesn't promote, condone, or can even be seen a viable means of performing piracy. They autotag all uploads with video identification technology, if the video is copyrighted and licensds you get ads and money goes to the owners and if not it will likely be removed almost immediately. I saw this first-hand with a recent science video thingy, and I must say I was impressed.

My view on music and movies and other related entertainment content is that it is a form of culture before it is a form of copyright. Copyright itself only exists for the purpose of offerring someone(creator, contractor) exclusive rights in order to profit off their work, and even that has a limit(70 or 100 years) until inevitably it passes into our collective culture to be shared freely and without bound. Free, unrestricted sharing of culture has existed before copyright, has been a crucial step in our development as a civilization, and exists uncontrolled even in the presence of copyright laws.

I am more of a view that creators are bred by our current, rich culture, that took us centuries to build - a privilege for them - and that their creation of content is the way they pay their debt to it. While systems for financiar praise should be in place and I fully support additional rewarding with wealth and fame aswell as understand the costs required to create some of this content, I believe continuing to treat it as a product, that you can either buy or steal, is fundamentally flawed. I would much rather plead for physical products, concerts, and theatres as VOLUNTARY systems of payment combined with some tax that goes to our creative pioneers. Don't like taxes? Better than the ongoing piracy war and witch hunts I'd say.