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YouTube Threatens Legal Action Over Copyright Infringement

This is rich: YouTube's lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to TechCrunch purveyor Michael Arrington earlier this week, accusing the company of violating YouTube's Terms of Use, of "tortious interference of a business relationship, and in fact, many business relationships," of committing an "unfair business practice," and "false advertising."

What did TechCrunch do? They created a tool that lets people download YouTube clips to their hard drives. Arrington claims that TechCrunch carefully reviewed YouTube's Terms of Use, which says nothing about disallowing users from downloading videos. "YouTube takes the position that everything uploaded to the site is licensed for use by viewers," says Arrington, "so there should be no legal rights to protect."

This must be the most blatant example of the pot calling the kettle black in recent Web history. YouTube accusing someone else of copyright infringement? Remember, it takes the stance that it's not responsible for the content uploaded by its users, or what those users do with it. We do, however, see why YouTube wouldn't want a tool like this widely distributed. By the way, similar tools are available across the Web.

Read the whole story at TechCrunch »

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