Learning Objective: This is a reading and comprehension and conversation class. At the end of the session, the participants are expected to be able to practice reading properly, enhance comprehension and recall and answer the questions about the article.



Story Proper

A court in Hamburg, Germany has ruled that the video-sharing site YouTube is responsible for videos on its site that are posted illegally. The ruling said YouTube must do more to prevent posters uploading copyrighted music videos to the site. The case was brought to the courts by the royalty-collecting organisation Gema, which represents over 64,000 German musicians and songwriters. Gema has been fighting YouTube in the courts since 2010. The group accuses YouTube of using music online without paying royalties to those who produced the tunes. YouTube may be forced to pay royalties for all the video clips on its site. This could prove extremely costly for Google, the owner of YouTube.

The court said it did not consider YouTube to be the copyright violator, but the user who uploaded the song. It did say, however, that YouTube must implement stronger filters to block copyrighted material. YouTube representatives say the site is not responsible for what users post to it. They claim those who post copyrighted material are at fault and that the YouTube site is simply a platform for sharing. A spokesman said: "We remain committed to finding a solution to the music licensing issue in Germany that will benefit artists, composers, authors, publishers and record labels, as well as the wider YouTube community." Currently, around 60 hours of videos are uploaded to the YouTube site every minute.



1. YOUTUBE: Talk about YouTube.


2. CHAT: Choose your favorite word and discuss about it.

court / video sharing / posted illegally / paying royalties / songwriters / tunes / costly / copyright / filters / responsible / at fault / finding a solution / record labels


3. FREE: What things should be free online? Complete this table.

Why? -----Pros and Cons?


Music
News
Sport
Videos
Books
Games



4. COPYRIGHT: Students A strongly believe YouTube is responsible for videos illegally posted on it site; Students B strongly believe not.

What about you? What is your stand?


5. SITES: Which ones do you like best? Why?

YouTube
Flickr
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Wikipedia
Amazon
eBay


"Online activities, the mp3 and printable handouts are available for this lesson at http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com"