The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this last week that embedding videos, or watching embedded videos, on a website or blog does not count as copyright infringement. The ruling came from the case Flava Works, Inc. v. Gunter, in which Flava Works, an adult video production company, sued video bookmarking website myVidster for copyright infringement. myVidster had been allowing its users to bypass a pay wall and view Flava Works videos under a myVidster web frame.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this last week that embedding videos, or watching embedded videos, on a website or blog does not count as copyright infringement. The ruling came from the case Flava Works, Inc. v. Gunter, in which Flava Works, an adult video production company, sued video bookmarking website myVidster for copyright infringement. myVidster had been allowing its users to bypass a pay wall and view Flava Works videos under a myVidster web frame.
The decision means that only the original uploader of the video is breaking copyright law. This makes sense and at first glance seems to be the “fair” decision. After all, how odd would it be if a digital marketing agency were sued for copyright infringement for embedding a video on their website that contained copyrighted music? However, there are many loopholes that can be taken advantage of if this line of thought is followed.
Many video sites thrive on the ability to “aggregate” videos taken from other locations. Footytube is an example of a completely legitimate website that embeds soccer replays from other websites. Although the videos are not the only part of the site, it contributes to a large percentage of the traffic that visits the site. The website is supported by ads and its disclaimer, located at the bottom of every embedded video, reads “This video is provided and hosted from a 3rd party server. Our search functionality is helping you discover publicly available websites & their content. Footytube as a search engine does not host or upload this material and is not responsible for the content.”
Call it taking advantage of the system, or call it a smart business opportunity, the fact of the matter is that Footytube is not breaking any laws, even though many of the videos it is embedding are infringing on someone’s copyrights. There are websites out there that offer a similar service, but with movies and TV shows. And remember – the people who run the site are making money off of embedding copyrighted videos. I do not think that embedding videos should count as copyright infringement, but there are a couple of bad apples out there that could still potentially ruin it for the rest of us.
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