Research On Video-sharing Websites’ Copyright Infringement

With the development of Internet technology, video-sharing websites have made greatcontributions to the spreading and broadcasting of videos. However, on the other side, video-sharingwebsites are always involved in copyright disputes as a result of its enabling of uploading infringingvideos to the websites. In order to make a balance between the copyright protection and video-sharingwebsites’ healthy development, it is of great importance to better understand the copyright law.Meanwhile, the judges should also accurately take video-sharing websites’ legal liabilities into accountwhen making the decisions.Through the comparative analysis between American and Chinese copyright law, and explanationof typical cases, this thesis elaborates on video-sharing websites’ copyright infringement in four parts.The first part: This part introduces the concept of video-sharing websites and defines the scope ofthis paper, then analyzes the reasons of video-sharing websites’ being accused and the necessity ofintroducing video-sharing websites’ general business model.The second part: This part defines the criterion of video-sharing websites’ direct infringementliability and indirect infringement liability.The third part: This part is the most important part of this paper, which introduces criterion ofjudging video-sharing websites’ fault in copyright infringements. Since China’s legislations concerningthe video-sharing websites’ copyright infringements mainly draw lessons from the provision of Section512(c) of DMCA, this part make a better understanding of the criterion of “red flag” and“Notification--Delete” system by comparing the articles between DMCA and China’s legislations.The forth part: This part introduces the concept of “safe harbor rules”, which plays a significantrole in determining video-sharing websites’ copyright infringement liabilities.By research on video-sharing websites’ copyright infringement, this paper intends to clarify thedisputes of accurately defining video-sharing websites’ fault and infringement liabilities, to make aproper balance between the copyright protection and video-sharing websites’ healthy development.