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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has posted a video from the recent ETech conference in which [Marc Cuban][1] debates the EFF's [Fred von Lohmann][2] about YouTube and the future of copyright (video after the jump -- via YouTube of course).
The debate over YouTube and copyright infringement continues with lawsuits rolling in from Viacom and others and Cuban contends that Google is willfully infringing on copyright by failing to filter YouTube.
The crux of Cuban's argument revolves around the fact that because YouTube does more than just host the videos (i.e. it converts them from a variety of formats into the Flash videos on the site) it does not qualify for the DMCA's safe harbor protections.
While the exact interpretations of the DMCA's safe harbor provisions are something that the courts are still debating, Cuban does make a compelling argument from a strictly legal point of view.
However, when he drifts off into sweeping generalizations, as Cuban is prone to do, he makes decidedly less sense. For instance, at one point Cuban seems to say YouTube would basically disappear were not for the infringing content it (perhaps) unwittingly hosts, which is I think a dead horse that's been beaten long enough. All one needs to do is check the most viewed videos on the site to realize that simply isn't true -- the vast majority of the most viewed videos are user created.
But as with all things involving the outspoken Cuban, the video is at least entertaining.
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[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Cuban "Wikipedia: Marc Cuban"
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_von_Lohmann "Fred von Lohmann"
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