The Recording Industry Association of America certainly knows how not to make friends. Project Opus reports that the organization responsible for suing scores of unsuspecting teenagers for illegally
downloading music from Internet file-sharing sites is now lashing out at harmless YouTube users for posting video of themselves lip-syncing to copyrighted music on the homemade video-sharing site. In
other words, when there may be money to be made, and technology isn't allowing that to happen, you can expect that someone's going to receive a court order from the RIAA. And it's not just
YouTube--these music videos are popping up on Google Video and Yahoo Video, too. It's unclear whether the sites themselves are safe from the RIAA's wrath; many deploy a self-policing system in which
users flag copyrighted material. But amateur dancers hamming it up on camera? Come on, who cares? The RIAA is dead serious, though: some YouTube users have already received cease and desist letters
from the organization, according to the report. YouTube, meanwhile, is confident that its copyright policy is clear, and is always willing to pull material upon request from the copyright holder.
Read the whole story at Project Opus »
