p2pnet - rss feed: YouTube and An Inconvenient Truth
p2pnet news | P2P:- Al Gore and environmentalists will greet claims made by Viacom against Google’s YouTube with considerable interest.
Some of its assertions also clearly demonstrate the power of the Net as an information dissemination vehicle.
Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube, “threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information,” says Do No Evil.
But according to Viacom, GooTube has led to “an explosion of copyright infringement,” says the Associated Press.
The, “back-and-forth between the companies has intensified since Viacom brought its lawsuit last year, saying it was owed damages for the unauthorized viewing of its programming from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks”.
That’s not so, says Google. Rather, it, “goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works,” and is “faithful to the requirements of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act”.
However, AP continues, Viacom doesn’t see things quite that way.
Last month, Viacom said YouTube, “consistently allows unauthorized copies of popular television programming and movies to be posted on its Web site and viewed tens of thousands of times,” says AP.
And Google and YouTube had done “little or nothing” to stop infringement. To the contrary, “the availability on the YouTube site of a vast library of the copyrighted works of plaintiffs and others is the cornerstone of defendants’ business plan,” Viacom said, AP adds.
Meanwhile, the company said it’d identified more than 150,000 unauthorized examples of copyrighted programming, including An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary on Al Gore’s campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.
It’d been viewed, “an astounding 1.5 billion times”.
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Associated Press - YouTube suit called threat to online communication, May 26, 2008
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May 27th, 2008 at 8:17 am
So when will Viacom sue the carriers for allowing this traffic over their wires/fibers? Where does this stop? After all what is the difference between CableTV and the Internet? Not much these days.
So how is it that an organization is to police all of it’s millions of members? It can’t, and it shouldn’t. There is a thing called free speech, and reasonable use. I am not sure that Viacom is doing anything other than using the legal system to take a potshot at YouTube’s business.
I think that if this isn’t found in Viacom’s favor (which it shouldn’t be), that Viacom should be fined for trying to use the legal system to do business damage to a competitor.
Funny that they didn’t take the music industries method and just go sue all of the individuals who are the ones who might or might not be infringing on Viacom’s copyrights…. Because that wouldn’t hurt the YouTube/Google business.
Wake up and Smell the Coffee…
May 27th, 2008 at 8:34 am
i say Google should pay them….ten million “Theoretical” dollars.
May 27th, 2008 at 8:35 am
YouTube is a tool, a conduit that users use to post content. It is the users that are infringing on copyright, not the makers of the tool. If I commit a crime with an automobile, is the auto maker to blame? If I use an Apple iPhone and threaten someone can Apple or AT&T be sued? This is ludicrous… Viacom should embrace the free advertising and figure out how to make it work for them rather than resorting to inane lawsuits, learn from the RIAA’s mis-steps. http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1046&context=lawrev
May 27th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Sumner Murray Rothstein Chairman of Viacom CAN SUCK MY ASS!
Viacom, Inc.
Revenue ▲$13.423$ Billion USD (2007)[1]
Net income ▲$1.630 Billion USD (2007)
Doesn’t it make you sick!
May 27th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Viacom has no case against Google, as stated in paragraph 6B of the the YouTube Terms of Service:
You shall be solely responsible for your own User Submissions and the consequences of posting or publishing them. In connection with User Submissions, you affirm, represent, and/or warrant that: you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorize YouTube to use all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights in and to any and all User Submissions to enable inclusion and use of the User Submissions in the manner contemplated by the Website and these Terms of Service.
… although seeing as how large companies are these days, I guess it’ll start a “lets sue people you upload stuff to youtube” trend
May 27th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Someone mailed someone else (Heavens no! Neither one was me. Perish the thought…) a bootlegged DVD through the US mail! The postal service must be SUED! Sued for Billions in damages! They facilitate copyright infringement! They’re Witches! Burn them!
May 27th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
All of this, when many companies are finding that it is better to work “with” places like Youtube than “against” it.
There is a case where a major Japanese Animation company found that one of their programs had been placed on Youtube. As in the case of many companies like this, the company (who was just about to release the series on DVD in the US) freaked out, worried that the DVD sales would fall through the floor (they were plagued by the fact that they did not have enough budget to promote the product before the launch).
It turns out that the Youtube copies spawned a whole slew of parodies with people dancing to the ending music from across the globe, and ended up give the show *free* pre-sales promotion.
When the DVD actually hit the US market, sales shot through the roof, with over 3 times the number of DVDs sold in Japan (which considering the show popularity in Japan is really saying something).
Now this company works “with” Youtube, allowing for certain clips to be used on the web, as long as they adhere to a number of guidelines.
If more companies learn that working with their customers, instead of against them, will benefit them instead of just a handful of lawyers and power hungry thugs.
It’s very interesting on how many of the entertainment industries are mimicking the methods that the MAFIA used to expand their power- looking to shape the business to their own needs, and when that doesn’t work they send out “someone with ‘the’ as their middle name” to “talk sense into” the business or person- When they should be looking into ways that they could work with the customers.
Just my two cents
Just my two cents
May 27th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
It’s really not about Viacom being worried that they’re losing any money. They, like all the other content companies just don’t like anything they can’t control. They want to see the Internet turned into AOL, where everything is tightly controlled and monitored.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Wow. A day later and I can agree with all of these posts.
It’s heart warming to see that folks actually understand common carrier and legal issues.
It is, however, disheartening to know that you can not sue a manufacturer of a gun, or the gun dealer for a murder. Yet the courts sided with the DvD companies in putting a software company out of business because they had software that defeated “copyright” protection schemes. Even though the PEOPLE have a right to make backup copies of things that they have paid for.
So I don’t hold my breath that Viacom won’t win this case, or get some concession out of Google in the end.
Also it’s not really about the copyrights, it’s about putting a torpedo into the water aimed at Google. This is all about business not legal rights or wrongs.
Wake up and Smell the Coffee
www.myhell.org