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Everybody Nagging About YouTube
Unauthorized copyrighted videos make up only a small percentage of the videos on YouTube, and account for negligible traffic or revenue.
Viacom can't expect to win this case. They just think that they can force Google to settle. But it's never going to happen.
Even with Google having hired 14 lawyers, each at at least $500 per hour, their legal fees will be nothing compared to either the amount of money that YouTube is making, let alone the $1 billion that Viacom expects to obtain.
You can't expect to win suing somebody because they "hide behind the law". That's what the law is for.
You can't argue that YouTube encouraged infringement because it doesn't. And it responds to DMCA notices properly. And it disables access to repeat infringers. And although it is not obligated to, it won't let you re-upload a video that has already been disabled for copyright infringement. That covers the poorly-defined part of the DMCA that makes OSPs liable if they are specifically aware of infringement without being notified.
So if anything, YouTube should win, and be awarded its legal fees.
Viacom is arguing that YouTube encouraged people to upload infringing videos and that it did so for financial benefits.
Ultimately, YouTube can't be spending more than $50,000 per month on attorneys. And it's going to take 2-3 years before it even gets to trial, if ever. I think that YouTube could even win on summary judgement, because this case is a no-brainer.
Even Jon Stewart was making fun of this on his show (which is on a Viacom-owned channel). And he is going to be deposed. He portrayed Sumner Redstone as some guy saying, "my clips! they stole my motherfucking clips!"
YouTube is the internet's #3 website, and you can't argue that it got there because of television shows. There are plenty of websites that have entire seasons of television shows and movies and in much better quality than YouTube, and they don't have nearly as much traffic.
And people like Google. Google is nice and colorful. And it's run by cool people who wear jeans and eat Kraft Dinner. But Viacom is evil and it is run from a blue office tower in New York. And the head is Sumner Redstone, some 85-year-old who spends most of his time on vacation at some Miami resort and eats Filet Mignon for breakfast. And he wants to take away our entertainment.
There will be a jury, and all of the people on that jury will have heard of YouTube way before they came to the trial. And like the millions of other people who visit YouTube every single day, none of them think that YouTube is infringing. Most of them are watching some guy put a Mentos into a glass of coke. And the other 1% are watching tv/movie clips, which are either put on by the television studios (in which case they aren't infringing), or by some fan who made them into a video (in which case they aren't infringing), or by some fan who just posted them (in which case they may be infringing, but the average person watching them doesn't think so).
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