Is it illegal or immoral to download videos from video.google.com?

Question

When I'm at work, I search for videos on video.google.com. Whenever I find a video that's hosted on the Google servers, Google provides an option to download it in an iPod compatible format.

It seems to me that this practice would either be illegal or at least immoral being that I would be downloading somebody else's intellectual property for free. But if it is illegal or at least immoral, then why would Google allow it?

I'm proud to say that I've purchased everything in my iTunes library, I've purchased all the (expensive) software on my computer and I'm very much against piracy, but I don't get this Google download option. Is this illegal, is there a technicality or a loophole I don't know about or is this actually considered fully legal and ethical?

I should say I've purchased ALL of the software on my computer. :) Expensive and not-so.

Answer 1

I believe there are some lawsuits in progress right now against Google with respect to copyrighted material that Google has made available for Google users to download or access.

The owner of copyright has the right to pursue copyright violations any way they please. Some of them go after the people who distribute the copies in violation of copyright. Some of them go after the people who receive the copies.

I imagine that if some copyright infringement case is won against Google, the next step will be a court order to give up the IP addresses of all the people who got the copies.

You may recall a scandal at Wikipedia where someone posted some libelous information. It was traced to the IP address of a private company, which tracked down which employee did it. The employee claimed it was done as a joke, that he did not believe Wikipedia was for real. That guy no longer has a job, because his employer did not appreciate getting into the national news regarding the scandal.

Then there is the question of whether this activity is appropriate to be doing when you are at work, being paid by your employer. Most of us are allowed reasonable e-coffee breaks, but Internet activities unrelated to work needs to be done in extreme moderation.

There have been several stories in the local news about people getting fired because they were caught with porn on their work computers.

I believe there's a lot of ignorance and carelessness out there.

Visit any newspaper site on-line. They all have copyright notices about their content, and at the same time make it easy to print, download, or e-mail their stuff. Isn't that a contradiction?

Take a look at any text book. There is a copyright notice. We are not supposed to be copying the material in there, but most teaching involves taking notes from the text books, writing down the exercises in it, doing the exercises, checking the ansers. Isn't the very nature of using a text book how it is designed to be used, a violation of copyright?

My job includes writing software (paid for by my employer). I am very careful to include copyright notices inside the code, especially derivative cases ... that's where I cut & paste parts of other programs that do standard functions, where the standard functions have copyright notices from the computer tool makers ... well the combined code has copyright notices in it from all the different tools I used to write the new code.

Answer 2

It relies upon on how Google won the rights to instruct it. If Google is purchasing a license to grant it and is then offering it for unfastened there is not any longer something unlawful approximately it. If it replaced into in user-friendly terms some person who uploaded the document devoid of possessing the psychological rights to it, downloading it can be a violation of the genuinely proprietor's assets rights.