News: The WSJ has a terrific article today discussing the problem of “Guerilla Web Sites” that offer full length streamed copies of TV shows and movies — all reportedly without permission of the copyright holders.
The guerilla sites include: YouTVPC.com, peekvid.com, Alluc.com, and southparkzone.com. According to the article (which is online only by subscription), some of the sites claim not to be breaking copyright law because they don’t store the copies of the shows on their servers (at least not in the U.S.), they only provide links to videos stored in foreign countries.
Analysis: I haven’t studied these sites, so I will just take it on faith they are as bad as described in the WSJ article. The argument that these sites are not infringing copyrights is pretty frivolous. Even one of the founders of YouTVPC.com, Sam Martinez, admits that “in any court of law I’m sure we’d be found guilty.” At least he’s right on one point.
I’m struck by how egregious these sites are. As far as I can tell from the article, though, they have not been sued. Instead, Viacom sues YouTube, which looks like a patron saint for copyrights after reading the WSJ article. Viacom’s allegation that YouTube’s business model is built on copyright infringement rings even more hollow after the WSJ article.
Posted by utubeblog 
Posted by utubeblog 
Posted by utubeblog 
