“Americans are freedom loving people and nothing says ‘freedom’ like getting away with it.”

From Long, Long Time by Guy Forsyth.

How many times have you heard the expression, “DMCA license”?  The expression is completely baseless, yet it has come to be used to describe an online company that uses music, movies, television, books and images that are intentionally used without rights and commercially until the company receives a take down notice.  The examples given of companies using the “DMCA license”?  Most frequently YouTube, Grooveshark and whatever Michael Robertson is doing at the moment.

If you tell these people that there’s no such thing as a “DMCA license” and that the very expression is internally contradictory, the comeback usually is “Why does YouTube get away with it?”  And of course the answer is the same answer to why does YouTube claim to be struggling to break even–Google is willing to…