Responsibility Of Copyright Infringement American Video Sharing Site

With the development of the information society, the video sharing websites has beenwidely applied within the scope of the world. Meanwhile, the rapid expansion of the videosharing websites could give rise to the copyrights infringement. The main problemtherefrom is that a great deal of unauthorized works, including motion pictures, films, TVshow and recordings are uploaded to the video sharing websites, which will cause disputeson the copyright infringement. What stipulated in the17U.S.C. and DMCA about theliability on copyright infringements is divided into two kinds, that is, direct liability andsecondary liability. The latter one is classified by contributory liability, vicarious liabilityand inducement liability. Articles20-23from Regulations on the Protection of the Right ofCommunication through Information Network in China have also classified by fivevarious situations, which are the exceptions of those liabilities. However, the similarstipulations lead to different judgments between the two countries, which are revealed inthe examples of VIACOM V.YOUTUBE and the “Tudou websites” case in Shanghai.Pursuant t the section C, article512DMCA, YouTube not liable for the copyrightinfringements based on user-generated content while Tudou was judged to take theliability in China. The main reason for the different judgments results from the differentoperation systems of the two countries. Study on the copyright infringement liability incase law will be benefit to the development of our country to reduce the occurrence ofthese cases.The first chapter of the thesis shows the development progress of video sharingwebsites and the types of disputes on copyrights related to. The following chapter is aboutthe key elements of different liabilities. The chapter III explains the direct liability andsecondary liability with the illustration of fair use and safe harbor clause. The last chaptercompares the copyright infringements of video sharing websites between American law and Chinese law. This chapter also gives suggestions on the further development of videosharing website in China.