Thank you Viacom
 

the Tube sites day is coming - this quote by Viacom relating to its billion dollar lawsuit againt YouTube and Google says it all and when this case is presented in front of a judge I have no doubt whatsoever that it is going to be plain and clear to that judge what has been going on and the DMCA isn't going to save any tube site owner's ass - be they Google or YouPorn or the hundreds of others.

Their entire business plans are built on hiding behind the DMCA.

So keep your records of infringements because one day they will be worth a lot of money once the judicial system catches up.


It said 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.

I actually think Google is going to put up an impressive fight.. DMCA needs to be changed first.

Hopefully this will spark a update to dmca.

of course Google will have the best legal team money can buy as well as Viacom - but a judge or jury of laymen are going to see the absolute mountain of evidence of copyright infringements and wonder why Google didn't do anything pro-active knowing how huge the problem was/is to stop the infringements - proving that YouTubes financial success is due mostly to those infringements will be easy.

remember "Dont count your chickens until they have hatched " anything could happen !!

just ask OJ , and Michael Jackson :1orglaugh your not guilty until they say so :Oh crap

I think unfortunately that what you see is what a jury of _your_ peers, content producers, might see. A jury of laymen, however, have become used to their youtube, and don't think about downloading an mp3 or 10000, is really any sort of crime. :2 cents:

frustrating part is how slowly the legal process works - it's over a year since this lawsuit was initiated.

the resolution is years away.:Oh crap

Truthfully I don't even think there is THAT much copyrighted stuff on there now days. Sure there is still a fair bit of short clips taken from TV, etc, but anything major gets removed almost immediately. Google/Youtube will win.

Viacom and Google have been at odd's for a little bit about this, and all it is really is a price settlement that would be a blanket license.

How thats is supposed to work technically I got no idea, however Viacom is notorious for pushing the issue for taking a bigger piece for the blanket license. This has been in the news on and off for about 6 months now.

FOr example. Rick Roll plays an interestng point in this. Rick got royalties for the playback of the video clip on youtube. So how did that happen? This is not a joke its true.

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).

Good points, w00tpron. While I do think that illegal tube sites deserve theirs, I don't feel that YouTube pulls the majority of it's profits from illegal content, thus they do not DESERVE to lose to Viacom...
Further, I don't think they WILL lose since they have been known to react to DMCA notices satisfactorily...and especially if Viacom is suing on the exact grounds of which you stated.

All in all, I hope that this will result in revisions of the DMCA, but unfortunately I doubt that it will... :(

Right now they are still ok. A court would be out of its rights, imo, to make any ammendments immediately retroactive. They'll probably get a grace period in the end.

Very slow turns the wheel of justis

you realize that viacomm original take down request took down 1000s of fair use videos as well (parodies, comentary video) all google has to do is go thru the list of people who lost their right of free expression to prove that dmca safe harbour provision is a balance to the extra rights the dmca gave copyright holders.

If anything DMCA should have a penlty for making false take down requests like losing the copyright for the parodied content.

is youtube even making THAT MUCH profit? i would say as a whole the site is in the red. wasnt it making $0 when they bought it?

Somewhat true. A lot gets nuked. But some remain.

However, Google does also provide a tool to copyright owners where, if you see your shit, you can remove it yourself. They sent it to me when some of our videos were on there.

So you can't claim they do nothing when they provide a tool, and nuke a lot of shit. Knowing Google, they probably have records for just how much they DO police.
:2 cents:

it looks like viacomm case just got a lot harder to prove because

RIAA just walked away from "make available" case to avoid a judgement against them

Profit aside, giving it away something that isn't yours for free is theft. Similar to me going to your house, stealing all your things and giving them away... then claiming ignorance since I didn't make any $$$ off it.

There is a monetary value to the products.

I agree men!

If google is accountable for what people post on something they dont monitor, then thats like saying that a store clerk is guilty somehow when someone in his shop is doing illegal activities, Doesn't matter if he knew about it or not. Unless its murder, which it isn't.

My point is.. if someone sees something illegal going on, and it doesn't do actual bodily harm to anyone else then they don't have to do anything.

I'm guessing thats their best defense. However prosecution will most likely argue that they were profiting off it and thats why they didn't do anything.

I'd give it 50\50 really.