Digital Home Thoughts: YouTube and Copyright Issues

"The Force is with Star Wars fan parodies, many of which were just yanked from popular video-sharing site YouTube. StarWars.com has just explained that we can go on about our business, because there's nothing to see here. Apparently, the Star Wars people were unhappy about some StarWars.com material that had made its way onto YouTube and they asked for it to be taken down. YouTube, always worried about the copyright case which could put an end to its Internet party, responded by taking down other Star Wars-related material. George Lucas and company have no problem with such material, however, and have asked the site to reinstate it. While this has been hailed in some quarters as a corporate about-face, it's worth pointing out that Lucas' company still wants their copyrighted material kept off of YouTube. Though the issue did not escalate into litigation, it underscores the continuing legal uncertainty surrounding some of YouTube's practices."

As it turns out, under the DMCA, YouTube has "safe harbor" from copyright infringement accusations so long as it does not upload the videos in question and removes them when requested by copyright holders. So long as users are contributing infringing material, YouTube is in the clear. Thus the whole Star Wars saga. Of course, YouTube could/should not be financially benefiting from such videos otherwise it gets into trouble. What are your thoughts on this issue, especially in the context of this article?