Of Course I Didn't Mean It!

It seems people these days are more copyright savvy. Or at least they think they are. Whether it be Ellen DeGeneres and her TV show stating they won't pay for licenses because they "don't roll that way,"1 or people like person I am about to tell you all about.

One day I happened to scanning my Facebook news feed, when I saw a friend of mine had posted a YouTube video on to their wall. If all this Facebook-speak is confusing, bear with me for a minute. The video they had posted included, in all caps in the description "NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED."

Seriously.

First off, I will say the video in question was almost definitely copyrighted. Second, if you didn't intend copyright infringement, WHY DID YOU DO IT? To be clear, my friend did not write the description, they merely reposted a video. My real thoughts are directed at to the person who uploaded the video with the caveat of "I didn't intend to infringe your copyright (whoever you are)."

In my book, if you're "savvy" enough to put a notice like that on something you're posting online, you're intending it. A disclaimer such as that suggests you're aware you probably shouldn't be posting it online, in violation of the Copyright Act.2 Unfortunately for Mr. Clever on YouTube, Section 501 doesn't require you to 'intend' anything.3 It becomes a question of "did you do it or did you not?"

By the fact that I can find this video (both on YouTube and Facebook) suggests Mr. Clever (as I'm calling the original poster of the video) is in fact a copyright infringer. Whoops.


1: Travis Loller, 'Ellen' Sued for Thousands of Copyright Infringements, HUFFINGTON POST (Sept. 11, 2009), available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/10/ellen-sued-for-thousands-_n_282861.html.
2: 17 U.S.C. §§ 106, 501 (2006).
3: 17 U.S.C. § 501(a) ("Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 122 [ . . . ], is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be.").


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