NO. 11-3190
United States Court Of Appeals For The Seventh Circuit
Flava Works, Inc., V. Marques Rondale Gunter d/b/a/myVIDSTER.com and SalsaIndy, LLC

http://www.scribd.com/FlavaWorks/d/7...-Appellants-Ma

Quote:

[T]he Motion Picture Association of America is squaring off against a coalition of Internet giants and public interest groups over the key question of whether it's possible to directly infringe copyright by embedding an image or video hosted by a third party. A federal judge took that position last July, prompting a chorus of criticism. Two briefs—one by Google and Facebook, the other by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge—attacked the decision as contrary to past precedents and potentially disruptive to the Internet economy. They asked the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn it. Last week, the MPAA joined the fray with a brief in support of Illinois federal judge John F. Grady's ruling. It urged the Seventh Circuit not to draw a legal distinction between hosting content and embedding it. In the MPAA's view, both actions should carry the risk of liability for direct copyright infringement. ... http://ia600506.us.archive.org/3/ite...48465.77.0.pdf

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...ng-a-video.ars

http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-joins-g...battle-120409/

I think it will center on this finding;

Quote:

p 24 (1: ) [i]t should Moreover, the second sentence is unnecessary be understood from this opinion that, in plaintiff’s words, the “fact that a video is available publicly on the [i]nternet shall not be reason for [Gunter’s] abdication of [his] responsibility to make a determination as to whether or not a video is copyrighted.” ... 10-6517.112-JCD July 27, 2011

» The thinking that a copyrighted material that has become in general public domain unlawfully does not relieve the publisher of responsibility for embedding copyright material even if the material is hosted on a remote server.

Depending on the ruling of the US Appeals Court, with the MPAA, Google, Facebook and the EFF all filing briefs, this has the appearance of being a major ruling but it should be pointed out that only USA entities or entities with USA hosting will be affected in whatever outcome of this US Appellant case.

Read the links -- this is a complex issue ...

I see this possibly applying to the USA entity or hosted (or some USA controlled gTLD name space [.com .net etc.]) "feeder tubes" embedding the "mother ship tubes'" copyright infringing content.

Covered in the case are the responsibilities under the DMCA to assert safe harbor so this may become an important ruling ...

Now I haven't had the opportunity to read the brief filed by Google but by this part of the TSO it was not motivated by the embedding of the errant youtube user posting ... There are parallels to Google Images here ... Facebook's issue should be obvious.

Trusting a Court to make common sense rulings I have found from experience often to be wishful thinking -- especially the lower courts.

This whole subject caught my own interest as we have just launched a mainstream social media mobile video sharing website. I would like to find the Facebook "friend of the court" brief as it might be somewhat relevant to our situation -- notwithstanding our domicile and the location of our servers (not in USA Territory). However, a US Court ruling might influence the Dutch Court's opinion on these matters and that would be of concern to us.