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Google Video Sued For Copyright Infringement
PadRacerExtreme writes to mention an Associated Press article about a lawsuit against Google Video over copyright infringement. The company provided no additional information about the case, which it disclosed in an SEC filing on Wednesday. Some analysts are viewing this as a preview of what may happen to the company after it completes its takeover of the YouTube site. From the article: "Because it indexes so much material owned by others, Google has become accustomed to fielding complaints about copyright infringement. Some of the disputes have triggered lawsuits for everything from Google's efforts to make digital copies of library books to its search engine's ability to display snippets of news stories and photos appearing on other Web sites. Those suits haven't become a big financial drain on Google yet, and investors so far appear confident the company's lawyers will minimize the damage from any claims brought on by the YouTube purchase."
The cultish Scientology/EST offshoot known as The Landmark Forum has claimed copyright infringement against Google and YouTube. The EFF has extensive details and are trying to squash that case.
Background: In 2004 a French TV channel had someone with a hidden camera go to a Landmark Forum indoctrination weekend. The expose was shown to 1.5 million viewers. Soon after the broadcast, Landmark left France. A similar situation occured in Sweden a few years before.
Landmark has no valid copyright in either case but, having learned a lesson from Scientology, are now resorting to intimidation and abuse of the DMCA and court system.
In any event, fire up BitTorrent and get the French video with English subtitles at Pirate Bay and a Swedish expose on Landmark, sans subtitles at the moment, at this link.
You will definately want to see these in case one of your family members or friends starts to push you to take a weekend course "that will create new possibilities"...
Spread the word, knowledge is power.
Trolling is a art,
This just reconfirms my belief that Google should have waited a few months/years to buy YouTube. I think Mark Cuban was right, YouTube was a big ole lawsuit waiting to happen. Google could have waited until the copyright lawsuits hit then sweeped in to buy it for a fraction of the price. Now they've just increased their liability.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
My advice to Google is this: Prepare some form of profit sharing and all potential suits will be stopped din their tracks.
Hey, the 'Reply' button is back!
Seriously, though, Scientology has a long history of suing people who talk about Scientology for copyright infringement. "You're showing people our secret dogma? How dare you distribute our papers without our consent!" Xenu.net and Wikipedia have lots of information on Scientology now. (Disclaimer- Xenu.net is strictly anti-Scientology. Wikipedia has mostly facts, which, as we know, have a decidedly anti-Scientological basis).
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
The video is available for viewing online at The Cult Awareness & Information Centre
Google will change from a computer-science company to an advertisement company to a juristic company?
Mad as a bag of squirrels.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Everyone said it was going to be GOOTUBE that would get in trouble for copyright infringement, but it's Google Video instead.
That's what it comes down to. Sites like Google Video and YouTube wouldn't be allowed to become saturated with illegal content if the MPAA and RIAA didn't think there was some massive profit in it. Don't give me that DMCA crap either. You think if I start a website tomorrow called MovieUpDownLoad.com and basically just make it into a FTP that you can upload to, and encourage people to throw on whatever pirated content they have, that I'd last a week? You think the DMCA is going to protect me if I simply say that I'll moderate the site once every three months? Once every month? How about once a week? Fat chance. The site would last 30 days at best before a cease and desist showed up at my door and cops raided the place and took all my computers. Hahahaha. I don't have a billion dollars, and probably never will, so the MPAA and RIAA aren't going to wait around to sue me out of existence, they are going to do it right away. I can virtually gurantee you that later today, somewhere in America, a bunch of high powered attorneys and executives are going to get together behind closed doors in a smoke filled room to discuss how they can best profit from suing Google, when the best time to act is, and how to go about it. I mean, seriously. I can see them coming up with some ridiculous lawsuit for some amount of money that isn't even a real number. What's that? 1,000,000 videos? Well, you've had that for two years now...so lets see...1,000,000x365x2 = 730,000,000...now we are going to fine you 10,000 for each piece for every day....you know what, just give us all your money. Fucking bastards.
I expect there are probably assault lawyers out there whose biz model is based on suing Google.
The large media companies will probably want to make deals with Google. Why not make some money instead of paying lawyers for years? Google will probably set up a service similar to Microsoft's Xbox Live television sales or Apple's Itunes. And it will examine material more closely. Copyright lawsuits are mostly based on intimidation anyway. It's easy to intimidate a scared teenager. A huge corporation with the best lawyers in the world is another matter. The media companies are in the process of moving into the Internet age, they are just coming up with a new business model. And Google will be another digital cog in the new media machine.
Legal Matters
Certain companies have filed trademark infringement and related claims against us over the display of ads in response to user queries that include trademark terms. The outcomes of these lawsuits have differed from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Courts in France have held us liable for allowing advertisers to select certain trademarked terms as keywords. We are appealing those decisions. We were also subject to two lawsuits in Germany on similar matters where the courts held that we are not liable for the actions of our advertisers prior to notification of trademark rights. We are litigating or recently have litigated similar issues in other cases in the U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Israel and Austria. Adverse results in these lawsuits may result in, or even compel, a change in this practice which could result in a loss of revenue for us, which could harm our business.
Certain entities have also filed copyright claims against us, alleging that features of certain of our products, including Google Web Search, Google News, Google Video, Google Image Search, and Google Book Search, infringe their rights. In addition, our planned acquisition of YouTube may also subject us to additional copyright claims upon the closing of the transaction. Adverse results in these lawsuits may include awards of damages and may also result in, or even compel, a change in our business practices, which could result in a loss of revenue for us or otherwise harm our business.
From time to time, we may also become a party to other litigation and subject to claims incident to the ordinary course of business, including intellectual property claims (in addition to the trademark and copyright matters noted above), labor and employment claims, breach of contract claims, tax and other matters. Although the results of litigation and claims cannot be predicted with certainty, we believe that the final outcome of the matters discussed above will not have a material adverse effect on our business, consolidated financial position, results of operations or cash flow.
Ahaha.. whoever made that claim, will soon disappear from the google enginer index altogether !!
the video can also be viewed here:
u cation/search/landmark%20education/video/xhn8s_ins ide-lf-1
http://www.dailymotion.com/visited/tag/landmarked
seriously, it's an [allegedly] evil org!
why hasnt this story been tagged 'itsatrap' yet? Hey, paranoid guy where are you?
The DMCA is a terrible, terrible law for a bunch of reasons. One of the gems is section 512, which effectively allows anyone willing to engage in a little perjury to silence someone else for ten to fourteen days. This has been used to silence legit speech before. In practice there is no penalty for the perjury, after the two weeks just drop the claim with an, "Oops, I guess I was wrong, sorry." In theory you can countersue for damages, but you'd have to prove it was intentional, not a mistake, and that you suffered financial damages.
However, there is a silver lining on this afront to the first amendment: the safe harbor clause. "A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or...for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, if the service provider...." In short, so long as an online service provider didn't know their users were uploading infringing materials, and promptly take the material down when properly informed, they are explicitly protected from copyright infringement claims. There is no requirement for the provider to police their users, so the easiest solution is to turn a blind eye, make reporting claims a nuisance, but process claims promptly when you get them. As someone who has filed DMCA takedown requests with Google over infringement, I can assure you that Google is doing exactly that.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
"...what may happen to the company after it completes it's takeover of the YouTube site"
[it's] = [it is]
Copyright infringments aren't evil in Google's eyes...
Why does Mark Cuban get any reference here? I don't get it. Saying that Google was a target for lawsuits because it bought YouTube is certainly not a novel idea, and I highly doubt that Cuban was the first to point it out. Has Cuban EVER been relevant? He's a billionaire - that's it. He happened to sell a company at the best possible time, and was smart enough to diversify what he made. For lack of a better term... whooptie-doo. He sure tries really hard to be relevant, but I suppose he has nothing better to do.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.