Youtube = yousued

Interesting read.

Sig.

Great read. The only thing it didn't cover - unless I missed it - was how Google is able to claim that Viacom setup those marketing people to upload videos from Kinko's and other off-site resources. Maybe it was in the court document?

very interesting read! How many content producers submit their content to the tubes?

Steal people's shit and show it to the world for free - that's how you build a company that sells for $1.65 billion.

There's no more fucking ethics in the world...I mean this seriously pisses me off. The pioneering force in business ethics these days is do WHATEVER IT TAKES to make it and don't get caught. Fuck anyone else and their money/property if it means making you money/successful. I'm not sure there's an industry out there anymore that this mentality is NOT plaguing.

I'm sorry but these businesses that do this shit need to be NEUTERED in order for this to ever stop. I mean take a billion dollars from me after I've made $1.65 billion dollars by screwing other people/businesses/customers and I'm still better off than before. That's punishment? I realize Viacom is one of a slew of potential lawsuits that could happen if they should succeed, but god damn, those 3 co-founders will have been living the life for a long time before there's ever any possibility they come crashing down, if that ever happens. Madoff was sentenced to LIFE in PRISON for stealing people's money to grow himself/his business basically - albeit a lot more than YouTube sold for, but still...why aren't businesses treated the same way as individuals when vast crimes have been committed that made them worlds more successful than they otherwise would have been? The business should be put to fucking sleep.

The only thing I can tell my kids when it comes time to have them is that in the long run they'll be able to live with themselves easier if they are ethical, even if they may struggle in their business and face the stress of a deteriorating economy and lord knows what else while liars, thieves, cheaters make off with the money that the ethical businesses and people should be making. Youtube founders don't have to tell their kids shit because their kids will never have to work a day in their lives.

hmmm interesting article

I have said for a while now that the outcome of that case could determine the direction of youtube style sites in the future. If youtube loses you know anyone who has had a video put up on the site without their permission will jump on and sue hoping for a quick settlement. It may also help to redefine the DMCA. If Youtube is manipulating the content before it goes up on the site they may no longer get the safe harbor exception. These changes may make it more difficult for companies that steal content to hide behind DMCA. All of this may end to the downfall of Youtube or to its radical change.

Great read, thanks.

Good point. Looks like Viacom is one of them ...

From the link above:

The situation was so confusing that Viacom lawyers weren't able to fully identify which clips were authorized and which were not for this lawsuit; Viacom even had its own YouTube account suspended over confused copyright notices.

This fact is powerfully demonstrated by examining the countless errors that Viacom and many other content owners make in sending takedown notices to YouTube. YouTube routinely received takedown requests that were subsequently withdrawn after the media companies who sent them realized that their notices had been targeted to content that they themselves had uploaded or authorized. haBoth before and well into this litigation, Viacom’s own monitoring agent, BayTSP, identified as “infringing” many videos that had in fact been posted to YouTube with Viacom’s permission. These selfha-inflicted infringement claims led to counterhanotices from Viacom’s marketers, sheepish retractions from BayTSP, and even to the suspension of Viacom’s own authorized YouTube accounts for supposed copyright violations.

Maybe, maybe not ...

But there's a second argument. Viacom also claims that YouTube is not covered by the law for a more fundamental reason: it is not engaged in "storage," as a file locker might be, but is in the business of displaying and broadcasting content, which also includes making numerous back-end copies. This behavior involves YouTube in "direct infringement of copyrights."

This appears to be the weakest part of Viacom's case, and it's unclear why the company would bother making it in the wake of a federal court's recent Veoh ruling. That decision noted (correctly, in our view) that automated back-end processes to cache or transcode or display a video did not involve the site operator in such direct infringement.

Youtube with copyright infringement problems. Interesting.