What makes it okay for them to upload it without the original owners of them to not complain about them being uploaded?
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the owners dont complain because it is still an ad.
Its free advertising for the company. They dont have to pay or maintain it.
Why would they complain?
Neither, the way youtube works is that when someone uploads content owned by someone else the owner can either have them take it down. Or agree to leave it up but then they get all the ad revenue that video generates. (they can also do nothing, but that’s not really worth doing)
So…makes a lot of sense to just leave it up in a lot of cases unless the owner thinks they would make more money by taking it down.
The thing about copyright stuff is that it’s not an automatic issue where the government is going to try and punish you. It’s only an issue if the copyright owner decided to sue it, and in this case they aren’t going to do that.
Neither, copyright belongs to the owner independently of whether other people follow it or not.
However, if there isn’t any commercial value in enforcing the copyright or the owner of the copyright is a company that doesn’t exist anymore then there may not be any value in trying to enforce their rights. That doesn’t mean the copyright vanishes, but it does mean that practically speaking it’s not a worry for people violating that copyright.
The original creators of the commercials still have copyright. For anything made after 1978, he copyright lasts for the entire life of the creator(s) plus 70 years. Things made by an anonymous author or made for a corporation last 95 years from its first publication, or 120 years from its creation, whichever comes first.
For things made between 1946 and 1978, it’s complicated
For things made between 1923 and 1946, it lasts 100 years.
Only after that period has elapsed does it belong to the public domain unless the copyright holder specifically gives it to the public domain.
The only thing stopping you from using it is if the copyright holder tries to stop you, but if they don’t, they don’t forfeit their copyright (like they would for a trademark)
The reason YouTube hasn’t been sued out of existence yet is because they have a good system for the copyright holders. Copyrighted works in their database can be automatically detected by content ID or manually claimed by the copyright owner. The copyright owner can then choose to automatically remove the video or receive some/all of the ad revenue from the video.
So copyrighted content on YouTube is only there because the copyright owner uploaded it themselves, is taking the ad revenue, doesn’t know it’s there, or can’t be bothered.
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