YouTube Fires Back At Viacom

Passion 05-28-2008

Although it is not strictly on topic for this blog, we have decided to initiate partial coverage of the case of Viacom v. YouTube. (By 'partial coverage' I mean that I will be selective, picking out some of the most important events, rather than attempt to be exhaustive.)

Viacom v. YouTube presents important issues in the war being waged by large content owners to try and shut down the internet as we know it ( a war that is familiar to anyone who has read up on the RIAA's creative "making available" and "offer to distribute" theories in the RIAA v. The People cases ).

YouTube's recent filing -- an answer to the amended complaint -- has received a lot of press attention, but I noticed that the press accounts did not provide the readers with actual copies of the litigation document.

That's where we come in.

YouTube's answer contains this statement, which pretty well sums up what is at stake:

Viacom’s lawsuit challenges the protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") that Congress enacted a decade ago to encourage the development of services like YouTube. Congress recognized that such services could not and would not exist if they faced liability for copyright infringement based on materials users uploaded to their services. It chose to immunize these services from copyright liability provided they are properly responsive to notices of alleged infringement from content owners.

Looking at the online world today, there is no question that Congress made the correct policy choice. Legitimate services like YouTube provide the world with free and authorized access to extraordinary libraries of information that would not be available without the DMCA -- information created by users who have every right to share it. YouTube fulfills Congress’s vision for the DMCA. YouTube also fulfills its end of the DMCA bargain, and indeed goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works. By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for internet communications, Viacom's complaint threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression.

Raven

This thing can be going on for a very long time. To many laws out there that they could be throwing these backa nd forth at each other.

orange

Viacom are being ridiculous.. they're basicly saying "you cant show what we've already shown, and not all that likely to show again"

they're not going to gain or lose anything even if 99% of their stuff was on YouTube!

Hsoolien

I find it hilarious that the picture used for this thread represents one of the most prevalent copyright infringements in the world, only music, movies and games see more infringement and that's only if you look at the collective whole. It is estimated that the creator of Calvin and Hobbes loses millions yearly in revenue he should have got for the use of them. Oh that and the usual libel associated with the image (defacing a logo) In fact legally almost every use of that image would result in a minimum of five years jail time (there is no legal argument that supports the user, it's only the fact it would go on for decades with the number of infringements and Bill Watterson has better things to do with his time it isn't happening)

That said, YouTube is one of the best places about copyrighted material, hell they check all incoming movies in an attempt to make sure nothing gets posted they've already banned. Everybody is just pissed because they have to make the complaint first to get it removed, and they don't want to hire someone just to make sure YouTube does not have their stuff (which ironically would likely be cheaper in the long run then all this suing)