We all knew Viacom wasn't too happy with Google and YouTube. Last month the media company asked Google to remove 100-thousand videos, and Google took efforts to do.Now Viacom is seeking $1 billion from Google for unauthorized use of Viacom content. Viacom claims that nearly 160,000 of its copyrighted cliips have been uploaded to YouTube and viewed over 1.5 billion times.
In a press release, Viacom says the decision to sue Google follows a series of "unproductive negotiation." Viacom also accuses YouTube of building "a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works."
It'll be interesting to see how far this case goes. Our guess is that Google will attempt to settle out of court, possibly by reaching a revenue sharing agreement with Viacom. Or Google could offer a one-time payment and finally make good on its attempts to provide robust software to filter out copyrighted material.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-13-2007 @ 12:12PM
RG said...
Two multi-billion dollar corporations and their lawyers at each others throat. Can't thing of anything less relevant to the 'common man' than this. RIAA, MPAA, Viacom, digital rights, free internet...this is getting so boring.
Ordinary people who feel this is bad for all of us should do something about it and I don't mean finding alternative means of watching the stuff thats deleted.
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3-13-2007 @ 12:31PM
David said...
--- It'll be interesting to see how far this case goes. Our guess is that Google will attempt to settle out of court, possibly by reaching a revenue sharing agreement with Viacom. Or Google could offer a one-time payment and finally make good on its attempts to provide robust software to filter out copyrighted material. ---
Or, they may decide to fight it out in court. YouTube is not the new Napster. Users upload the content, and Google removes inappropriate content as found/asked. I have a hard time imagining how Google can be legally expected to proactively filter all Viacom content without shutting down the service completely. Keyword filters won't work, as they'll inevitably catch non-infringing content as well (actually, this happened after Viacom demanded the removal of their 100,000 clips, remember?). And Viacom's argument that they should be required to is akin to saying that ISPs are responsible for proactively filtering their users' homepages for infringing content. Its impossible, and Viacom knows this. They just want a piece of the lucrative advertising pie.
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3-13-2007 @ 1:41PM
bienvenunet said...
How ironic that Viacom, which makes most of its money by pandering to younger audiences and milking pop-culture cash cows, chooses to remain in the 20th century on this issue.
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3-13-2007 @ 3:09PM
Jason said...
Lets not make Google out to be the good guy here... Viacom has every right to request a share of the profits that their 100,000+ clips made for Google/YouTube... I am sure there was TONS of advertising revenue generated by the viewing of those clips on YouTube.
Thats all this is about... Sure YouTube is a great service but it isn't out there to be a free great tool for the masses to share video... its out there to generate revenue for YouTube/Google. Lets not let everyones "love" for Google cloud the issue here.
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3-13-2007 @ 4:41PM
James said...
Actually, it sounds like Google *is* the new Napster, except that with Napster there was the impression that they blacklisted a few token files while stage-whispering "it's OK, keep sharing copyrighted stuff" to their users. I'm given to understand that's pretty much why they lost.
In this case, Google is in control of the distribution network (like Napster was), and has a duty to control the content of the network (like Napster did). I think (and most courts *probably* agree) that making a "best effort" to remove infringing content *after* it is pointed out to them is good enough, provided they appear to be serious about it. After all, *blocking* infringing content proactively is very likely to block non-infringing content as well (and, y'know, only blocking infringing content is pretty much impossible), which is a First Amendment issue the court likely won't want to tackle. I think Google has this one if they can just show that they responded quickly and effectively (i.e. showed Due Dilligence).
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3-13-2007 @ 9:39PM
darkbhudda said...
1 billion? Well I'm sure other lawsuits will swiftly follow. Google needs to hire people just to check every clip uploaded. Then maybe they can work on software filtering.
I've bought CDs after seeing music clips on YouTube and I've bought DVDs after seeing clips on YouTube of shows I will never see in Australia. So in my case at least YouTube is generating revenue for media companies.
I am sure there was TONS of advertising revenue generated by the viewing of those clips on YouTube.
What advertising revenue? What ads? I've never seen an ad on YouTube ever so how can they get revenue from something that doesn't exist?
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3-13-2007 @ 9:39PM
Eleventeen said...
"Viacom also accuses YouTube of building "a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works."
Well...I'm accusing Viacom of being money grubbing bastards with a fluff lawsuit like this. A billion dollars? They can't be serious. They can't even begin to prove that the clips posted to YouTube are worth a billion in revenue, let alone a billion in "damages."
Yet another example of the failings of the modern American court system.
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