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Fox bites Youtube
• 20th Century Fox demands YouTube reveal identify of user who illegal uploaded episodes of 24 and The Simpsons
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 On the Web |
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By
The Minx , Muisc News editor
Friday,
26 January, 2007
20th Century Fox recently served YouTube with a subpoena demanding the company reveal the identity of a user who "uploaded copies of entire recent episodes of primetime series 24 and The Simpsons".
The subpoena - filed on 18 January on the basis of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act - was granted by the US District Court for the Northern District of California. It relates in part to episodes of 24 which "actually appeared on YouTube prior to their primetime 14 January premiere on the Fox broadcast network".
The user in question is identified as "ECOtotal", although his or her account has now been suspended. Whether the offending material has been removed is unclear, Reuters notes. A spokesman for YouTube "declined comment", the agency adds.
The current action by Fox, however, ups the ante by putting the onus on YouTube to join the battle against its own illegal posters. If successful, which legal opinion so far appears to believe it will be, the Fox lawsuit could spell the beginning of the end of the anarchic nature of YouTube video posting, which has enabled users all over the world to see entire seasons of TV programs before they go to air.
As many programs get aired in the US before their release in other countries, quite often entire seasons of popular programs such as Lost and Heroes are posted on YouTube, enabling viewers outside the US to see them before they hit their local TV networks.
The question that the lawsuit does not address, however, is how did ECOtotal get hold of the episodes prior to their release in the US. The unknown answer raises the possibility that TV studios may have to do some internal policing of their own to prevent further leaks of their content
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