Who is responsible for comments on YouTube? Who is responsible for comments which are posted on YouTube? The channel, YouTube or the poster? I am refering to defamation and copyright suits in India. As both YouTube and the video uploader have powers to delete comments, does this mean they have to search for infringing or defamatory comments and delete them? Also, if a notice is sent under s.79 of the Information Technology Act 2000 is it to be sent to YouTube or the video uploader?
Under U.S. law, Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230) limits liability for comments solely to the comment maker and not to the video uploader or YouTube. It basically says that there is no duty to moderate except for copyright upon a takedown notice. Normally takedown notices would be directed to YouTube which has a process that handles that, and not to the uploader, even though the uploader would have a limited able to comply if a comment if problematic. Since YouTube is U.S. based, Section 230 carries a lot of weight in both being law that is relevant to the platform and in setting norms about what is expected of participants in that platform, but it is not binding on other countries. Another country could impose liability on someone who has the ability to delete comments, even though U.S. law would not impose it. The section of the India IT Act referred to in the question states: Central Government Act Section 79 in The Information Technology Act, 2000 95 [ 79 Exemption from liability of intermediary in certain cases. - (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force but subject to the provisions of sub-sections (2) and (3), an intermediary shall not be liable for any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted by him. (2) The provisions of sub-section (1) shall apply if- (a) the function of the intermediary is limited to providing access to a communication system over which information made available by third parties is transmitted or temporarily stored or hosted; or (b) the intermediary does not- (i) initiate the transmission, (ii) select the receiver of the transmission, and (iii) select or modify the information contained in the transmission; (c) the intermediary observes due diligence while discharging his duties under this Act and also observes such other guidelines as the Central Government may prescribe in this behalf. (3) The provisions of sub-section (1) shall not apply if- (a) the intermediary has conspired or abetted or aided or induced, whether by threats or promise or othorise in the commission of the unlawful act; (b) upon receiving actual knowledge, or on being notified by the appropriate Government or its agency that any information, data or communication link residing in or connected to a computer resource, controlled by the intermediary is being used to commit the unlawful act, the intermediary fails to expeditiously remove or disable access to that material on that resource without vitiating the evidence in any manner. Explanation. -For the purpose of this section, the expression &quot;third party information&quot; means any information dealt with by an intermediary in his capacity as an intermediary. Section 79 of the India IT Act appears to be modeled on Section 230 under U.S. law. And, it would appear to be a fair reading that YouTube and not the uploader is the &quot;intermediary&quot; for purposes of Section 79, so the uploader might not have express immunity from liability under Section 79. But it also seems unlikely that the common law in India would impose liability on an uploader for failing to moderate comments that is not imposed upon YouTube which is statutorily absolved of the same liability. Since the uploader is probably not an intermediary, this also means that liability for failing to respond to a takedown notice under the India IT Act absent of court order, is probably also non-existent. Any common law action to impose liability (or a statutory action under copyright law) requires a showing of a prima facie case, which involves a showing of a legally recognized duty to act or to refrain from acting. I doubt that the law of India would find a legally recognized duty of a YouTube uploader to delete offending content from a YouTube run comment forum in which the uploader is given limited rights, even though Section 79 does not appear by its own terms to prohibit that liability from being imposed. For example, I think it is unlikely that a court in India would find that a comment made by a third-party to an uploaded post would constitute &quot;publication&quot; of a defamatory statement by the uploader (or of copyrighted material by an uploader), which is an element of defamation and copyright liability. But I wouldn't be surprised if the case law on point is thin or non-existent as this is a relatively new phenomena and it isn't an intuitively very natural way to apply pre-Internet law to these new circumstances.
The platform will get in trouble for copyright infringement. The disclaimer that you are not liable does not work, legally, since the person suing you hasn't agreed to the TOS on your webpage. You can be sued for &quot;secondary infringement&quot;, meaning that not only the uploader but also you the service provider are liable. The solution to this quandry is the &quot;DMCA safe harbor&quot;, a set of rules which, if you follow them, you won't be held liable. The specific piece of law is here. The essence of the rules is that you have to have a &quot;designated agent&quot; who receives takedown notices: if a copyright owner finds their stuff on your page, they officially notify you, then you take the material down – expeditiously (no dawdling). You notify the uploader, they either accept the takedown or file a counterclaim, you notify the rights-holder, there's a waiting period, then the rights holder can file a lawsuit, or not. If the rights-holder doesn't file suit, you can put the material back up. You cannot rely solely on the intricate DMCA notice / counter-notice dance, because under para (c)(1)(A)(ii) of §512, you also must not be &quot;aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent&quot;.
Without a jurisdiction, I'll just say that unless the comments made in the reviews and discussions were false, the individual is unlikely to have any claim, particularly given that you've stated that this occurred over the course of a year. However, the individual may be able to argue that they were not given sufficient notice of their performance, for example through performance evaluations, and given the length of time, it likely that one would have occurred. A company may be able to terminate an employee in spite of their overall contributions if they have breached policy - for instance, an otherwise outstanding employee who attracts negative customer reviews based in fact, and who is given ample opportunity and guidance to improve, may cause brand and reputational damage to the company; in this case, it is a commercial decision to retain or terminate the employee. As for what recourse the employee has, if the comments were factual, then it is likely that they will not have any, unless the employer has not adhered to procedural requirements - for instance, in Australia, you are required to provide an employee the opportunity to have a support person present at any meeting which may result in the employee's termination - or the employer broke some other law - for instance, discrimination, bullying or harassment law. Unfortunately, the contributions an employee makes does not necessarily negate the harm they do, and complaints based on an employee's performance are completely valid if factual.
I do not have the phone number, email, or anything else associated with the account. Well, neither do I - so it must be my account. Unfortunately, the fact that you appear in most or all of the pictures on that account does not prove that you own it. It could be the photographer's account. Do I have ANY options here Can you reactivate the email account associated with the Twitter account? Or the phone number? Either would allow you to reset the password and access the account. You can go to court (in California) and seek an injunction ordering Twitter to delete the photos or give you access. Of course, you have the same issues proving ownership here as you did with Twitter but the court may have different priorities (justice) than Twitter does (corporate protection). I had an idea. If you (or your husband) own the copyright in the photos (i.e. one of you was the photographer) you could issue a DCMA take-down notice because the poster (who, according to Twitter, isn’t you) does not have permission (even if they did at the time: permission can be revoked). Twitter would be unable to contact the account holder and would be required to remove the images when they got no response.of course, if the photographer was someone else, they could do it. Or you could break the law and say it was you, although I would never recommend this even with a near zero chance of being caught.
Assuming Chegg own the copyright, then they can restrict the activities that copyright protects The statement you quote is no more or less than the rights granted to them by copyright law. Basically, it's their stuff, they get to decide how you can use it. However, that does not necessarily mean that the uses that you have nominated are prohibited. For that, we would have to look at the specific fair use or fair dealing exemptions to copyright protection where you are. It's likely that both of your usage scenarios would meet fair use and probably fair dealing (which is harder to meet). You may also find that, buried somewhere in those massive terms of use, is something that deals with this directly.
Copyright law requires permission of the rights holder to e.g. post material. The terms of that permission could be very complicated, as seen in royalties contracts with publishers, but they can also be simple. If someone asks "can I post your video on my website" and you say "Sure, as long as you give me credit", then they can post the video on their site as long as that say something like "This video was made by Jake" or something like that. There is no exception to permission where permission is retroactively withdrawn just in case it turns out that one can make money off of the video. However: you gave That Guy permission, and that does not mean that the hundreds of Other Guys have permission. So you can pursue all of the Other Guys and demand that they take the video down, or require some payment to get your permission.
There is no law against a person creating and distributing such a poster, to the best of my knowledge. However such a poster pretty clearly implies that the person shown is guilty of a crime, or at least strongly suspected. If the store somehow made an error, pulling the image of a person who did not use the stolen card or there is some other error, the person pictured might well suffer a significant loss of reputation, and might sue for defamation. Damages could possibly be significant. Such suits have, I believe, happened when surveillance photos were posted but there later proved to have been an error. Mary might wish to double check how sure the store is that the photos are of the person who actually used the stolen card.
There are now 2 works. An original, abandoned work, and a new, derivative work. The original creator owns the copyright over the original, and the new person owns copyright over the derivative he created. In your scenario, it will be the new creator, who will have the right to sue, if the gpl of the new work has been infringed