Copyright laws are outdated and inadequate to protect content creators against web content aggregators

Is aggregating content on the internet different than posting and distributing the content yourself? The internet is full of content. Much of this content has been posted in violation of copyright laws. Companies are driving traffic to their sites by aggregating content from other sources to bundle the content into premiere destination sites. As site popularity and its corresponding traffic increases, so does the amount of revenue the site is capable of generating.

More and more people are spending their free time online consuming content. So the question is if sites are aggregating content from sites, such as YouTube, and the content has been posted in violation of copyright are the sites also violating content. Aggregator sites will argue that they are not earning revenue from the content and they did not post the content and they are not hosting the content. But they are using the content to generate traffic and in many instances they are then “funneling” traffic to revenue generating sites.

Traffic funneling is using loopholes in copyright laws and they are absolutely using copyrighted content for financial gain. Copyright holders seem to have little leverage as copyright laws are outdated and inadequate to protect against the scenario described above as content aggregators have created a one-step funnel that seems to be exploiting content for financial gains.

Please read: Mike Shields article “Earlier Tests Hot Trend with ‘Kideos’ Launch”- http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/broadband/e3i70172e607ddc1be9dbac26234eec4474