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Copyright and Embedding Youtube Video

2 Comments

Steve asks: I embedded a video I liked from Youtube on my website. The owner of the video is now contacting me threatening a lawsuit for putting his video on my site. He claims I’m making money from it? What is your advice or thoughts on this?

Answer: When you upload a video to Youtube (or any other video sharing site) and enable embedding, an implied license is immediately created. This person obviously did not take any steps to prevent usage – which means they are granting an implied license for the use of their content and have no right to badger people who decide to copy the code for embedding the video that they blatantly enabled.

If embedding IS enabled, it is ok to put the video wherever you want, but the implied license more or less ends there.

Obviously, the owner of the video gave you a clear indication that they don’t wish to have their content used. In this case, the actual license takes priority over the implied license which means the video should be removed and NOT used on your site.

You should then remind them to disable embedding if they didn’t want their content to be shared in the first place.

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2 Comments »

  • Thomas said:

    Furthermore, if they instantly mail threatening legal action, personally I would suggest replying a little rudely saying that that kind of nature of email is unnecessary and that they could have politely asked in the first place rather than being mean (for want of a ruder word) to start off with. People are so unnecessary…

  • Alberto said:

    Thanks! I find this question and answer regarding the use of podcasts taken from file sharing sites (YouTube) very useful. However, I think that the answer could have been written more precisely and clearly. In other words, “To the Point,”.
    When it comes to confusing legal matters, the last thing one wants to read is something that looks like written in legalese.

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