Research On The Video Sharing Websites’ Liability For Copyright Infringement

With the development of video transmission technology on the internet, the video sharing sites are becoming an emerging industry. Under the environment of virtual network, based on the business model as the core of User Generated Content, video sharing sites have broad market space, while the huge risk of copyright infringement was taken, the development of whole industry was in legal troubles, the frequent occurrence of copyright infringement is not only an impediment to the video sharing site, but also a huge challenge for the rights of copyright owners. Compared to the regime of indirect infringement of copyrights abroad, there are many dispute and divergent ideas about this issue. It is of great significance to understand and clarify relevant issues correctlyThis article consists of five chapters. In chapter 1 I will introduce you the conception and the feature of video sharing websites. Since the biggest obstacle for the development of video sharing sites is copyright infringement,it is also important to analyze the legal relationship by giving some examples of typical cases. The second chapter is mainly a comparative study for tort liability system of internet service providers. Firstly,I introduce the status of domestic legislation and judicial practice involving this issues. Then I present relevant legislation and judicial precedent of America especially. In chapter 3 I present some controversies among domestics scholars about this issue. These controversies are mainly about the principle of video sharing websites’tort liability,the standard of subjective fault and the theoretical-basies of video sharing websites’joint liability. In chapter 4,I will express my point of view on those controversies. In chapter 5,I try to give some suggestions to both video sharing websites and copyright owners to avoid the risk of the infringement.