How is YouTube not shut down?

YouTube has copyrighted media all over it. Why have they not been shut down?

Its not YouTube in a matter of speaking... but those who use it and post things on it.

I think they must be actively removing stuff where copyright holders have complained. I watched a music vid on there the other week, and know it's gone. I reckon a lot of copyright holders aren't bothered about it, though. Watching a low grade vid in a little window is hardly going to do them any harm - it may even help them.

And the disclaimer you have to agree to before you post something.

Yah, they've been slowly removing music videos that i've been trying to watch....dammit...

Blaming legal violations on the users didn't help Napster, neither did the argument that they were trading a low-quality version of the data. If you type in any major movie, you can watch scenes and sometimes the whole movie.

Well If ya pay tax's on something like that I think you would like to know were it is and who's using it.

YouTube will slowly die once its novelty runs out.

If copyright infringment doesn't kill it, lack of interest will.

I've downloaded a massive amount of the music videos on it already. I've enough to start my own site.

Hahaha, that's a joke...right?

People are still watching reality TV, American Idol, etc etc. I don't think their interest in YouTube will wane anytime soon.

As long as Mentos and diet cola react, YouTube will have a place in society.

I'd just feel sorry for whatever company does actually manage to shutdown YouTube if they tried.....

Just seen a news report on bbc world, google are aparently in deep s(poop)t over it.

In short. TV companies like You-tube because vids that show clips of shows are like free adverts for the show. Music videos are also advertisments that MTV and VH1 get to play for free.

There aren't a lot of entire shows, and there are no or almost no entire movies.

Napster died cause the music industry is brain-dead. Youtube will survive because the movie and TV industries are NOT brain dead. They know a good thing when they see it, regardless of it's legality.

Frankly, it isn't illegal unless the owners protest, at which point, they remove the media. It is perfectly legal to allow your creative work to be used for free.

" Just seen a news report on bbc world, google are aparently in deep s(poop)t over it."

I thought hi was short for hello?

I agree but only when you have given permission.

If you haven't and some 4 eyed nerd posts your IP on a site accessed by lots of people then I doubt you will like it.

> Frankly, it isn't illegal unless the owners protest

It's illegal if permission was not obtained beforehand, of course if the owners do not protest then it is a moot point.

I've just watched all of season one of Dead Like Me (tv series) on YouTube. Reckon that can't be legal.

No adverts though...

Well. not "Legal" but if you liked Dead Like Me, then you are more likely to watch the next season live. At least that is their theory... They really don't care if you watch it -after- it aired... At least.. The big networks don't, since they make all the big money on the initial airing. So, if you catch up on the old one on you-tube, or saw it there first... You might actually watch it live.

They realized that you aren't going to go buy the DVD if they shut down you-tube. And if it isn't going to make anyone buy into their products to end it, and it might actually be bringing in people? Then they shouldn't worry about it.

The problem with that is that they could easily offer the content themselves and then reap the benefits of selling ad-space but that's a no go if Youtube is hosting it (and, stealing any potential ad revenue in the process)

Many places still do that. And they get plenty of business cause they say "Go to fox.com to watch 'House' online." and 600,000 noobs will piss over to their site on their shiney new Alienware PC they use to play Bejewled and send e-mails over yahoo and to brute-force through the spyware.

They more actively pursue copyright violations on the site than Napster ever did. Also note YouTube is planning to provide revenue to those who have videos hosted on there. So maybe those media companies don't want to alienate a potential future revenue source?

None of the reasons here provided make sense to me. My guess is it's still going because Google has lots of lawyers. I think if an unknown company were running the site, it would be shut down much more quickly.

Well, wasn't YouTube hosted by an "unknown company" for a good year or so before Google bought the thing?