Is It Copyright Infringement To Embed An Infringing YouTube Video On Your Blog?
from the questions,-questions,-questions dept — While there has been a great deal of discussion (and a few lawsuits) concerning the legality of YouTube hosting infringing videos, one question where we haven't seen …
Context & Ripple Effects
The copyright fight over YouTube has so far been framed around the host: a Viacom lawyer argued in March 2007 that YouTube knows it violates copyrights, and back in November 2006 even YouTube sent TechCrunch a cease-and-desist over posted clips, showing how aggressively takedown demands were already flying. Critics had questioned the model itself since early 2006, when Jason Calacanis called building a business on infringement a bad idea.
This piece pushes the question one layer down the distribution chain. With YouTube drawing record US traffic through mid-2007 and embedding being a default feature across blogs, the article asks whether the millions of sites that display YouTube's player share liability for what plays inside it — an unresolved question the existing lawsuits have not yet answered.
First-order effects
- Bloggers and small publishers who embed YouTube clips face immediate legal ambiguity: their standard publishing practice could be recast as direct infringement depending on how courts treat the embed code versus the hosted copy.
- YouTube's embed feature becomes a live legal variable in the Viacom confrontation — every third-party page displaying its player potentially widens the exposure both sides are arguing about.
Second-order effects
- If embedders are held liable, platforms like YouTube would come under pressure to restrict or condition embedding, breaking the viral distribution that drove the site's traffic growth, while rights holders such as Viacom gain a second enforcement front aimed at distributors rather than the host alone.
- Legal commentators and lawyer-bloggers get a definable practice area out of the confusion, as sites seek guidance or indemnification before continuing to embed.
Third-order effects
- A ruling either way would help define intermediary liability for the web era: whether pointing at content — via embed codes, frames, or hotlinks — carries the same weight as hosting it, a distinction that shapes every future video and media-sharing service.
- If the pattern holds, enforcement migrates from a handful of large hosts toward every node in the distribution chain, raising the cost of user-generated media platforms and pushing them toward licensing deals or heavier filtering.
The trend: Copyright enforcement in online video is expanding from the hosting platform outward to every party that distributes or displays content, forcing courts to decide whether embedding is publication or mere reference.