Viacom nails Google for $1 billion
p2pnet.net news:- In February Viacom demanded that Google delete more than 100,000 videos from GooTube. It complied. But that apparently wasn’t enough for Viacom and now it’s suing Google and YouTube for $1 billion, “over unauthorized use of its copyrighted entertainment,” says The New York Times.
“The suit accuses Web search leader Google and YouTube of “massive intentional copyright infringement” of Viacom’s entertainment assets and seeks an injunction against further violations.”
According to Viacom, GooTube is sporting close to 160,000 “unauthorized clips of its programming” whic have been “viewed more than 1.5 billion times”.
Viacom claims YouTube’s business model “is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content,” says the Times Online. And that’s, “clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws,” the statement continued.
Not at all incidentally, Viacom has agreed a limited deal with Joost, the online TV application developed Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom of Kazaa and Skype fame.
Also See:
complied – Viacom, Google, square off, February 5, 2007
The New York Times – Viacom Sues Google Over YouTube Video Clips, March 13, 2007
Times Online – YouTube faces billion-dollar lawsuit, March 13, 2007
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March 13th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Youtube should just sue them back, for wrongful accusations. What about all those videos that were yanked, but had nothing at all to do with Viacom, or any copyright holder for that matter? Who’s going to compensate the creators for that?
March 14th, 2007 at 2:07 am
Them suing youtube is lame. every episode has been posted by various people on myspace and there are at least a dozen websites that have been created taht use those feeds on their webpage.
And the last episode 1101 of southpark had Cartman mentioning something about watching a video on youtube more then 60 times lol. kind of ironic.