Youtube is a popular site to view unreliable, low-quality streaming versions of unlawfully shared videos. Nobody thinks Youtube is a substitute for (say) a Hulu+ or Amazon Prime subscription.
People also shared legitimate content on Napster. Once in a blue moon, someone will use BitTorrent to transfer a Linux kernel. But we all know why those services were or are popular.
Nerds appreciate good hacks, and are also infuriated by how fuzzy and nondeterministic the legal system is. So they tend to vigorously adhere to arguments like "how can you prove a DVDRIP of The Muppets wasn't a lawfully-created backup of a purchased DVD stored for entirely legitimate reasons", or, "how can you claim a service like MegaUpload is a gigantic scam that milks millions of dollars out of piracy when people obviously do use it to store Linux kernels". If the legal system worked the way nerds want it to, these arguments would be totally convincing: if you can't prove as if to a programming language runtime that something is criminal, well, you shouldn't even be able to get an indictment.
Of course, that's not how the legal system works. A gigantic portion of almost every criminal case hinges on the question of intent, which involves proving to a jury what someone was thinking. That's a head-explodey concept, because you can't write a computer program to evaluate it. But it's also the basis for many centuries of western law.
Similarly, if you find some awesome, clever scheme by which you can profit from piracy without ever touching pirated content, the law is not going to evaluate your culpability simply from the bits on your hard drive. The totality of the circumstances involved in your scheme will be used to make a case as to your interest in and promotion of piracy, much of which will involve trying to read your mind based on tea leaves like "what sites did you choose to run your ads on".
Similarly, the DoJ is required to spend their time on cases they believe they can win. It can be considered unethical for them to prosecute cases they don't have a reasonable shot at. So as audibly as the pattern engine in the nerd cortex may ring with recognition at the similarities between Youtube and MegaUpload, they fact that Youtube isn't being prosecuted is irrelevant. The DoJ will start with the cases it can win.
Youtube is a popular site to view unreliable, low-quality streaming versions of unlawfully shared videos. Nobody thinks Youtube is a substitute for (say) a Hulu+ or Amazon Prime subscription.
Maybe not, but for many people it is a replacement for MP3 downloading services like iTunes. Sure, it doesn't offer all the same features (neither did MU), but it offers enough.
People also shared legitimate content on Napster. Once in a blue moon, someone will use BitTorrent to transfer a Linux kernel. But we all know why those services were or are popular.
In my (anecdotal, yes) experience of watching people use it, that's exactly why Youtube is popular too. User created content is an exception.
There's a distinction to be drawn between copyrighted content and copyrighted content of such quality that serves as a market substitute for the legitimate product.
In either case, the DoJ has huge discretion about what cases it brings. A major component of that discretion is its belief that it can win the case (much harder against Youtube); another component is "what offender is so weak that we're likely to maximize the precedential value of the case"; another is "how much of a message will this send".
> Once in a blue moon, someone will use BitTorrent to transfer a Linux kernel
I use it a lot to download ISO images of operating systems (Linux, *BSDs, OpenSolaris-derived - no Windows) for testing and/or deployment. Very handy and helps conserve bandwidth on the file servers.
People also shared legitimate content on Napster. Once in a blue moon, someone will use BitTorrent to transfer a Linux kernel. But we all know why those services were or are popular.
Nerds appreciate good hacks, and are also infuriated by how fuzzy and nondeterministic the legal system is. So they tend to vigorously adhere to arguments like "how can you prove a DVDRIP of The Muppets wasn't a lawfully-created backup of a purchased DVD stored for entirely legitimate reasons", or, "how can you claim a service like MegaUpload is a gigantic scam that milks millions of dollars out of piracy when people obviously do use it to store Linux kernels". If the legal system worked the way nerds want it to, these arguments would be totally convincing: if you can't prove as if to a programming language runtime that something is criminal, well, you shouldn't even be able to get an indictment.
Of course, that's not how the legal system works. A gigantic portion of almost every criminal case hinges on the question of intent, which involves proving to a jury what someone was thinking. That's a head-explodey concept, because you can't write a computer program to evaluate it. But it's also the basis for many centuries of western law.
Similarly, if you find some awesome, clever scheme by which you can profit from piracy without ever touching pirated content, the law is not going to evaluate your culpability simply from the bits on your hard drive. The totality of the circumstances involved in your scheme will be used to make a case as to your interest in and promotion of piracy, much of which will involve trying to read your mind based on tea leaves like "what sites did you choose to run your ads on".
Similarly, the DoJ is required to spend their time on cases they believe they can win. It can be considered unethical for them to prosecute cases they don't have a reasonable shot at. So as audibly as the pattern engine in the nerd cortex may ring with recognition at the similarities between Youtube and MegaUpload, they fact that Youtube isn't being prosecuted is irrelevant. The DoJ will start with the cases it can win.