Would this be a copyright violation?

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  • If I advertised a service that updated for website publishers a daily video feed on their site that used videos from YouTube, would this qualify as illegal "commercial use" or a copyright infringment?

    For clarification, I don't want to sell the videos (which are already freely available on YouTube for embeding on websites), I would only like to sell the service of updating a video feed with videos from YouTube on a subscriber's site.
  • Even though videos on YouTube are freely available, you cannot copy them and sell them to others--they are not yours to sell. Even ignoring the fact that many of the videos on YouTube are not owned by the posters and are already in violation of copyright law, your proposal doesn't seem viable. You say you are not selling the videos, but in fact this is what it happening. If you read the terms of use on the YouTube website, you will see that this is not allowed. http://www.youtube.com/t/terms.
    I do not believe this would be a legal activity.
  • I kind of figured the same thing but...it never hurts to get a second opinion. :) Thanks.
  • Given his idea violates copyright violations, who would be legally held responsible? mike951, the creator of the application, or the website owner(s)? or would both?
  • Any and all can be sued--it would be up to the courts to decide who would take the fall. If the website owner could prove that they were unaware that Mike was violating copyright law, they might be dismissed, but ignorance is usually no defense.

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