Viacom vs. YouTube - Whose Side Are You On?

DigitalDame2 writes "Lance Ulanoff of PCMag believes that the Viacom and YouTube lawsuit is a bad idea because it has the potential to damage the burgeoning online video business; instead, it could work with the millions of people who are currently viewing Viacom content on YouTube. On the other side, Jim Louderback, an editor-in-chief of PCMag says that Lance doesn't know what he's talking about: with all the content available online for free, Viacom can kiss those investments goodbye. YouTube is actively filtering, actively allowing uploads, and making money off of the content that's been uploaded. The courts will find that Viacom has been wronged, that Google has not done enough to protect the rights of copyright holders, and that Google owes Viacom reparations. Whose side are you on?"

Comments

somewhere between!

[DriveDog]

Success by Viacom in getting commercial stuff removed but no major fees rewarded would be perfect... less commercial stuff on YouTube.

Re:somewhere between!

[Seumas]

I'm tired of companies getting rich off of questionable or illegal practices and then, once they have a massive userbase, suddenly selling out to someone to go legit. It's what the original youtube did. It's what Napster did. Imagine if I started up a car dealership and instead of paying for my own cars to stock my dealership, I went down the street and stole them from my competition. Then I sold those and once I had sold enough of these stolen cars, I had enough customers and money and attention that I could afford to go legit.

It's even worse than companies like Worldcom that can completely screw people over and break every law on the books, fire one guy and just keep on doing business as usual. So the moral of the story is that it's wrong for you or me to "steal" and justify it with "fair use", but it's okay to do it if you're a corporation or are being eyed by hungry corporations.

Re:somewhere between!

[Original Replica]

Speaking of commercial stuff, aren't commercials what paid for the investment of the shows in the first place? Shouldn't YouTube just add the Commercial Time (billable by Viacom)to the videos? Opening a new market instead of killing one?

Re:somewhere between!

[DriveDog]

You might think. Shouldn't Viacom ask for this? But that would imply something other than stupidity on their part.

Re:somewhere between!

[defile]

Then I sold those and once I had sold enough of these stolen cars, I had enough customers and money and attention that I could afford to go legit.

It's called government. But not before it's called organized crime.

(look it up)

Re:somewhere between!

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Success by Viacom in getting commercial stuff removed but no major fees rewarded would be perfect... less commercial stuff on YouTube.

Awesome! I'm so sick of seeing Comedy Central and movie clips. What we *really* need is more tweenage girls singing "Fergalicious" into soup ladles.

Re:somewhere between!

[webheaded]

I'm sorry, but that's a crock of shit, honestly. YouTube and Google aren't stealing anything. When they are asked to take stuff down, they do. Beyond that, they have no obligations to police the shit out of the site. If the copyright holders want to bitch about it, then they can do so in the form of a takedown notice or shut the hell up. I can't even understand why anyone thinks that Viacom is in the right. Again, YouTube is powered by users, not Google. Pull your head out of your ass.

Re:somewhere between!

[rmstar]

Beyond that, they have no obligations to police the shit out of the site.

Precisely. At least for now, they feel no obligation to police the site and make sure the stuff doesn't get posted in the first place. As far as I understand, this is what Viacom wants to change. They want courts to order google/youtoube to properly police their site, and make sure undesired content cannot be posted in the first place. Or at the very least, introduce a proper mechanism for identifying users that post material owned by other people.

Again, YouTube is powered by users, not Google. Pull your head out of your ass.

The issue isn't as simple. One can argue, and I'm sure this will be at least one of the arguments, that google/youtube is hiding behind this mantra (modulo the anatomic correction term) in order to make money, and that most of its profits come, simply, from not being forced to take responsibility. Clearly, this argument isn't flat out wrong either. They have this beautiful scheme where anonymous, unidentifiable users post proprietary content at a rate so high that removing it on request makes no difference to the availability of the material. Alongside this content (which they of course will remove as soon as they are notified, but which keeps popping back instantly) they place ads, and make hard cash. Cash that they do not share with the copyright owners, btw. It's just a beautiful scheme.

My guess is that google/youtube will be forced to allow only correctly identifiable users to post videos, i.e, while you can choose any nickname you want, somewhere your real name and address will be stored in case someone has a legitimate reason to go after you.

Re:somewhere between!

[mgblst]

Look, I have the big media companies, most of us here do. But what if I was going to post pictures of your wife up on the net, and said, ok, I will take them down, if you send me takedown notice. And I will do this for everyone in the US. This is how big media companies see sites like youtube. And to a certain extent they are right, google is making money of copyrighted content.

Of course, whether this provides positive exposure, or necitates a lawsuit is another matter.

Re:somewhere between!

[Rogerborg]

You think Google paid a billion dollars for the domain?

Your head is so far up your arse that it's coming back out your own nostril.

Re:somewhere between!

[karnowski]

> I can't even understand why anyone thinks that Viacom is in the right.

Spoken like someone who has never read the DMCA. See below for the relevant section. Now tell me how does Google satisfy clause "B"? And with regard to point "A(i)" tell me how it is so easy for me to put in "Daily Show" into YouTube's search field and come with infringing material yet Google can claim "it has no knowledge" of infringing material unless someone sends them a take-down notice? How do you think a judge will view a Google claim of "we have no knowledge of the infringing material" if they do so? The company with the greatest search algorithm in the world is unable to find something that is clear as day to you and me? They'll be laughed right out of the court room.

Those who claim that a copyright violator (Google) is only obliged to take down content after it is pointed out to them are ignorant that their are certain criteria that the violator must meet, and Google doesn't. My prediction is Google will settle or lose.

"(c) Information Residing on Systems or Networks at Direction of Users.--

"(1) In general.--A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), 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--

"(A)(i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing;

"(ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or

"(iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material;

"(B) does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity; and

"(C) upon notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.

Re:somewhere between!

[Luke Dawson]

I think they do have an obligation to police the stuff posted on their site. Even if not a legal one, then at the very least a moral one. They are providing the means for people to break copyright law. If I kept a stash of guns outside my house, are you seriously suggesting I should be absolved of all responsibility if someone then uses them to go on a killing rampage? Maybe not a great example, but the fact of the matter is, like it or not, whilst Google might not be pulling the trigger, they own the guns. The users are just bringing their own ammo.

Re:somewhere between!

[Chris whatever]

Te point is when people are watching stuff on youtube and the material is from a tv show or other they arent watching it on t.v thus affecting ratings and commercial partners, you are stealing viewers from the source of the broadcast and making money out of it.

THAT IS THE ISSUE, if i created material on a website and had business partner that relied on people hiting my website and seeing publicity and or other stuff i would probably sue someone who hosted some of my stuff on his website because people would not be coming on my website to see it.

It's not about freedom of speech

Re:somewhere between!

[DriveDoq]

822962 Here!

Re:somewhere between!

[webheaded]

That is an absolutely terrible argument. Terrible. Should the people that make BitTorrent have to police every torrent site ever made? They are providing a means for people to get copyrighted material.

In response to the rest of you, they can't enforce something like this upon Google beacuse it would apply to everyone else. Then every site on the internet would be responsible for what it's users post and that is ridiculous. That will have a chilling effect on the internet, and you know it. To rule in favor of making Google be held completely responsible for stuff would be a terrible thing for the internet.

Re:somewhere between!

[MattW]

Have A(i) and A(ii) ever been resolved in case law? One has to assume Google believes that unless it reviews content as it is uploaded or such, that Ai/ii do not apply. Certainly, it doesn't say the service provider needs to screen it. And there's a reason: YouTube may be the mega-infringement-fest of the net, but what applies to YouTube applies to EVERYONE. Imagine every ISP needing to vet every video clip uploaded to every webhosting account on the planet. A judgement against A(i) and A(ii) for YouTube would be Very Bad for the Internet.

Section B is a lot trickier. YouTube/Google may have legal eagles who think they can persuade a judge or jury that the fact that individual video pages do not server ads implies that they do not receive a direct financial benefit. I'm not sure if this section ever came up in the Kazaa/Grokster/etc cases, or if they sued solely on the grounds of inducement and vicarious infringement. I personally think YouTube has great value without commercial clips. I know that 90% of what I watch there, if not more, is not infringing commercial video - it's political things (Hillary v Obama), home video (pinball cars), or straight commentary that feels like a videoblog. But even if youtube has value, it must have MORE value hosting infringing material. On the contrary, a traditional ISP makes nothing from infringing material, since they are paid by the hoster/user. Since YouTube DOES profit, it may run afoul. So we'll see.

Even if Viacom, wins, imagine this:

(1) Company A operates a YouTube-like "service" where they host videos. They'll host X bytes or serve X bytes/month for a fee. They cannot be profiting from infringing material.
(2) Company B hires Company A to serve up videos uploaded by its users. Videos go from users directly to company A. Company B gets to place ads on the pages. In other words, it's a bit like a hosting service with a software app grafted on. Company A is an ISP, Company B is a web service, and B has arranged for end users to interact with A, and put ads up. B earns revenue from the ads, but never touches or screens the videos. Company A receives and responds to takedowns, but they earn money solely from serving or hosting bytes of video data.

Now who is violating the DMCA? It's still effectively YouTube, but since there are two companies involved, and one profits only from hosting fees, and the other profits from ads but never touches infringing content, what happens now? Viacom and others just have to get their Takedown Printing Presses to full capacity, because there's no way it will infringe. Because YouTube IS serving the videos AND is taking in the ad money, they may run afoul of clause B. But a mere structural change can make it so there are two companies, one profiting from hosting, the other profiting from ads, but a layer that makes it fully indirect. Then it's impossible to find for Viacom, because if you did, you'd be stripping the ISP shield effectively. Now, where does this video hosting company come from? There may be one, but if Larry and Sergey told someone at Sequoia they needed such a company to appear, it would happen. A week later, $20M in capital gets dropped on the first people competent enough to make it work. Google becomes their first customer, they get paid generously for fairly simple hosting services, and Google is now safe from charges of infringement.

Viacom is right, google is wrong

[stratjakt]

Just because we like google doesn't mean they aren't wrong.

If I were to run a public ftp, and let people upload all sorts of copyrighted crap, I'm liable - wether I knew they uploaded it or not. Theres plenty of precedence there, people have been burned for "pubs" on their hardware, that they had no knowledge of.

Why should google be above the law, just because they're a /. fave?

Youtube doesn't have the right to host whole tv shows, movies, etc.

Then YouTube turns around to sue a website for copyright infrigement, for allowing you to download the YouTube content - that they don't even own.

I hate youtube. I hate google even more for their involvement of it. It's napster jr, plain and simple, and it'll be shut down.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[nuzak]

It's very simple: we like the content, we want everything for free, therefore copyright is evil. The justifications come after the fact.

I hate the RIAA and MPAA as much as anyone, and I think the DRM schemes are a pretty cynical attempt at lock-in and control, but this is pretty clear cut: it's Viacom's stuff that Viacom's advertisers pay Viacom to distribute, and Youtube is cutting them out completely. This is the blatant stuff that makes them push for things like broadcast flags and DRM from end to end.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[omeomi]

If I were to run a public ftp, and let people upload all sorts of copyrighted crap, I'm liable - wether I knew they uploaded it or not. Theres plenty of precedence there, people have been burned for "pubs" on their hardware, that they had no knowledge of.

Actually, from what I understand (and IINAL), Section 512(c) of the DMCA includes a "safe harbor" provision that basically says that Google isn't liable unless they refuse to take down material that they have been told to remove by the copyright holder. For better or for worse, right now it's up to Viacom to check for their own content on YouTube, and alert Google when they find it.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[russ1337]

>>>"it's Viacom's stuff"

If they don't want people to see it, don't broadcast it in the first place.

If they want to control it properly, have could big rooms that seat maybe 100 people, and with large screens. Oh put them in public places where you can pay an 'admission' fee. You might want to serve food in the foyer as I tend to get hungry. Perhaps Popcorn.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Curtman]

If I were to run a public ftp, and let people upload all sorts of copyrighted crap, I'm liable - wether I knew they uploaded it or not. Theres plenty of precedence there, people have been burned for "pubs" on their hardware, that they had no knowledge of.

And how is it that usenet has survived all these years? Some time ago it stopped being a place for geeks to chat, and got jam packed full of kiddie porn, pirated video, and warez.

My ISP has a usenet server, my University (funded by public tax dollars) has a usenet server, etc, etc. Not one lawsuit that I've ever heard of.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[nuzak]

Took less than five minutes for justification #1. Any more takers?

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[stratjakt]

I have no idea how usenet slipped under the radar so long. IRC + private ftps have been left alone too. Maybe it's just so geeky and obscure, and just doesn't do the volume to alarm the big guys - where napster and youtube do? I do know that in some cases posters have been tracked down and sued (stupid ones who let themselves be ID'd).

I also know there's a couple dudes that hang out in front of the 7-11 a block away, and I know they sell crack, I've seen them do it with my own eyes. I also know the cops must know, but they haven't done anything about it. Maybe they got bigger fish to fry? Maybe they've just given up on 'da hood'. Maybe their building a case against a higher-up and dont want to rock the boat?

Whatever the case, it doesnt mean it's okay to sell crack.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[apathy maybe]

I couldn't care less about youtube. But I think that copyright is simply wrong.

In the current system I can't see why it is more then five years (life +75? (life +50 in Australia, I can legally copy George Orwell's books) WTF?), and in a perfect system, it wouldn't not exit.

OK, so copyright is intended to motivate creativity. The government provides an artificial monopoly on an intangible product. Fine so far (well... see the perfect system reference above). It is a limited monopoly (fair use and limited time). But why should a corporation (or anyone) own the rights to something after a person is dead (long after ...)? How is that promoting the creation of creative works?

OK, that doesn't really have much to do with the case at hand, but I don't believe in copyright anyway. And I hardly need to justify it to you (it would take to long to explain anyway).

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I tend to agree with what you're saying. But I don't know if Google really could have done much to stop this from happening. Considering how many thousands of new videos are uploaded every hour, it would be impossible for staff members to inspect each one for traces of copyrighted material. And if people didn't have the ability to upload videos and have them instantly available, YouTube wouldn't be anywhere near as popular or useful as it is now. Quite simply, so long as you allow users to post their own material, it's going to be difficult to make sure that copyrighted work doesn't make its way onto your servers. Some forums have avoided responsibility for their members' posts (if memory serves), and YouTube is really no different. Both collaborative services are moderated, but you can never keep up with the rate at which people post new content on a popular site.

I think the best idea would be to make the YouTube member who posted the material responsible for it. Google can tell Viacom which IP posted the work, that IP can be traced back to an ISP, and then the individual who owns the account on YouTube can be sued by both Viacom and Google for breaching copyright law *and* the YouTube membership agreement.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Kpau]

Lets also be clear that Viacom is just as much a "content provider" as Google is. In other words, they create NOTHING. Viacom is just another middleman between the artists and the viewers. In fact, since their products never make any money (see Viacom and others - accounting practices), they usually avoid paying out much that was earned to the artists (see various **AA member tactics). I'm kind of the opinion that Google acquired Youtube to slam this to the mat and Viacom bit into it. I suppose one could also argue that *this* is real entertainment as opposed to that other crap :)

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Propaganda13]

Information wants to be free. It also doesn't want people without the copyrights to make money off of it.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[pipatron]

As I mentioned in another discussion, it's not only difficult for YouTube to control the copyright on uploaded material - it's impossible. I can upload some clip of a swedish TV show, but who would they contact to see who owns the copyright to that?

I could also add "(c) Viacom" to some clip that I have made, does that mean that Viacom now actually owns the right to copy that clip?

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[k1e0x]

Thats how Iso Hunt has been fighting the RIAA and MPAA.

>> Read above. According to normal procedures of DMCA takedown, it is your responsibility to identify what maybe infringing your copyright, and
>> then we will comply. Your notion that we should know every title MPAA owns, while you have difficulty producing such yourself, is absurd.
>> Links to websites such as imdb.com is user submitted, while torrent links may be user submitted or indexed from other sources on the internet.
>> We do not moderate this process, we don't have the resource to do so and it is not our policy.

They are being sued but so far so good, they have been online for about 4 years now. I don't see why a group as large as Google can't just remove content when Viacom informs them of it.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[yali]

Legally you're right. Youtube is within the protection of the DMCA and should win the lawsuit.

However, they are exploiting that protection. When somebody uploads Viacom's copyrighted content to YT, YT makes money off of the content until the moment that Viacom discovers it and tells them to take it down. YT gets to keep the money, and Viacom's product is now less valuable because thousands or millions of people have already seen it.

Seems like a potential legislative tweak to "safe harbor" would be to require service providers like Youtube to track ad hits/revenue gained from any particular content source. If Viacom can prove that the content was theirs, then Youtube should then have to turn over that money to the rightful copyright holder.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[crabpeople]

They are perfectly free to lock up their content in a vault and never release it. This will of course hurt them even more financially, but hopefully they will die either way. That way we will have more pure pwnage and less everybody loves repub- uhh... raymond.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Penguinisto]

"And how is it that usenet has survived all these years?"

Probably due to the vagaries of propagation and the buffer space that have plagued USENET ever since more than three NNTP servers were active on the Internet. Because of limitations in how much one can conceivably post at one time, most of your warez and other binaries are chunked-out into sequential (usually)MIME-encapsulated packages that have to be re-assembled in order... else the whole thing falls flat.

The vagaries come in when you realize that 1) propagation is never linear in time or path (sometimes part B of something shows up, then X, then N, then A, then C...), 2) it is never consistent (some parts never really make it altogether, because the one copy of it got pushed off a buffer somewhere on its way off the parent NNTP server), and 3) odds were good that the results were a fake (just like a lot of p2p nowadays, come to think of it...)

Considering that a max-sized MIME chunk was/is(?) usually 30K lines or so, and that a typical 1MB file would break out into a couple hundred chunks by itself... how well d'ya think a 600MB warezed DivX would distribute?

Even the MP/RIAA are smart enough to realize this...

(besides, NNTP headers can be and have been very easily faked since the dawn of time... tracing someone nowadays is prolly infinitely harder than it was then, as late as the '90s, when it was still pretty rough work for someone trying to track down a newsgroup bomber, forgery, or other miscreacncy).

/P

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[jmccay]

Right & wrong is unimportant in this case. Even if Viacom wins, it will still lose. This is another example of a company failing to fulfill the needs, & desires, of the consumer. Take AOL/Time Warner for example, you may consider them evil, but they have made a lot of content available to AOL users for free. This includes videos, previews of shows, on demand content, and some shows for free. For example, I currently have Babylon 5 on (Matters of Honor). AOL/TW understands this idea of consumer based services (even if sometimes they don't fulfill them). Unless Viacom, and others like them (such as the members of RIAA) understand this concept, they will never win this battle because the consumer will not be fulfilled (or happy). This is the simple concept behind a market economy such as capitalism. Current economic models and text books fail to account for the power of consumer piracy as a very loud shout that they feel the product, or service, costs to much for what they consider to be value of the product. Older economic models assumed the consumer would not pirate the product. This assumption is incorrect because the feelings, or values, of society change with time. The internet has given consumers a new method to tell companies that they are ripping the consumer off. MP3 file sharing & this new video stuff are both examples of this. So the real question is, does Viacom get this, or will the become another RIAA and start suing consumers?

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[iminplaya]

OK, so copyright is intended to motivate creativity.

Oh jeeze! It is not! It is intended to protect established distribution channels. That's ALL that it is for. nothing else. The only law that there is to protect the creators are those against plagiarism "the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work." Note the second "and" in there. It is all important. Because to me, there is no such thing as "unauthorized use". So it has to include the part about false representation. It is something that is not transferable in any way, and it lasts forever. And that there is the key, and the ONLY thing that any IP law should apply to. IP law exists to protect business, not to motivate creativity. Creativity is properly motivated by necessity and curiosity.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[zotz]

"and Viacom's product is now less valuable because thousands or millions of people have already seen it."

Actually, this tends to make it more valuable. At least in some cases.

Would that millions of people should see my stuff. Can you help me out and watch some of my stuff below? Point your friends at it as well...

all the best,

drew

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzbr o&search=Search

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The point isn't whether or not you happen to "believe in" copyright. The point is whether or not you respect other people who do (like Viacom) enough not to go messing with their stuff.

The fact that you do not respect them or their stuff makes you a dick. The fact that you haven't figured this out for yourself by now makes you a stupid dick.

And FYI, the reason a corporation can hold a copyright is the same reason that a corporation can hold other kinds of property; because the law grants it those rights. Corporations exist, as they have for centuries, because those types of organizations are beneficial to the economy. It's good to have a growing economy because, among other reasons, that way your mommy and daddy can hold down jobs and earn money to buy you the computer you use to steal other people's intellectual property, you stupid dick.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[ADRA]

And the bill for the cost of the bandwidth incurred? If Google remains in the 'user supplied content' market with the burden of heavy auditing and loss of all ill-be-gotten profits, how do you see anyone making money in user contributed content markets?

Firstly, if you believe that Google 'must' police themselves to keep things straight, exactly how would you suppose they do that while remaining profitable? If they can't be profitable, would you like to see them and every other form of 'user submitted' data to disappear from the internet? Text forums gone. Image galleries gone, video sites gone, social collaboration sites gone. The hidden potential of being sued by content owners would be an unacceptable burden to most web sites (this applies to legitimate and illegitimate sites alike). In the end you'd end up with a few 'in the fold' sites that paid the riaa/mpaa tax and the rest get sued into oblivion or flee to countries with more lax laws.

As an aside, if politicians want to 'save the children' from social sites this would be the most devastating way to do it!

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Gogo0]

I may be misunderstanding you, but it is nowhere near that complicated.

A 4.5GB ISO file would be rar'ed into about 100 ~45MB files, and then there would be about a dozen par2 files to repair incomplete (missing chunks) or missing files. That was *kind of* a pain back in the day, but only to select the files when downloading. If youre an uploader then splitting, making par files, and uploading is an effortless process that only takes up background time.
Nowadays we have these .nzb files that contain everything you need. A 1MB file will handle everything but repair and unrarring, and even those can be automated.

Usenet is still complicated compared to napster, but its rapidly approaching the ease of torrents.
Hopefully they'll continue to ignore it and serious usenet providers will continue to have a policy of blissful (profitable) ignorance regarding who downloads what and when.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[SkyDude]

"and Viacom's product is now less valuable because thousands or millions of people have already seen it."
Actually, this tends to make it more valuable. At least in some cases.

According to my attorney, who is a total Luddite, when I mentioned this suit to him at lunch today, he first thought was to ask how Viacom would show they were damaged. Google/Youtube will claim the showing of clips gave greater value to the plaintiff, so, even though they may lose on the copyright beef, Viacom will not be cashing any big checks if Google's attorneys play it right.

I'm no lawyer, but I pay for one and he's damned good too.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[defile]

Ahhh yes, the Napster defense.

How'd that go for them? I wasn't paying attention.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeeep, and using programs like sabnzbd. I just copy an nzb to a directory on a linux server and poof.. I download a 12GB HD Movie rib at near 1 Megabyte a second. Usenet is much faster than a majority of other sources for these kinds of things. The major problem with usenet is retention. Whatever's posted lasts for 1-2 weeks on a server such as a local ISP or edu.. you can get around a 70 day retention from the bigger guys if you buy an account from them. The other problem is that you can only see what they have available. You're not searching a million users for this file you want... You're hoping someone took the time to upload it. With newer or popular stuff, it's not that hard to find..but with more obscure things usenet isn't that useful.

Plus you have all that annoying spam (some of which could probably land you in jail if you happen to download it and then your usenet client caches it)

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should google be above the law
Youtube doesn't have the right to host whole tv shows, movies, etc.

Google is not operating above the law, in this case. Legally YouTube is in the right. Under the DMCA they qualify as a safe harbor (since they always honor the take down notices). So, legally speaking, they are right.

Then YouTube turns around to sue a website for copyright infringement, for allowing you to download the YouTube content - that they don't even own.

Did that other site host the content on their own servers and honor take down notices? No? Then they don't qualify as a safe harbor.

I hate youtube. I hate google even more for their involvement of it.

Sounds to me like you are losing your objectivity. Please calm down a bit and think logically.

It's napster jr, plain and simple

Legally speaking, no, it is not. Napster did not host the content and did not honor takedown notices, and hence was not legally protected under the DMCA.

What I think is really irking you, however, is not the legality so much as the morality of the situation. You think it is "morally" wrong for YouTube to allow unrestricted uploading/downloading of digital content. Needless to say, I disagree. I don't consider data duplication to be morally wrong. Data does not operate according to the same laws of physics as matter, and as such the moral principles that surround its use are and must be different. Further the economic arguments (if people can trade data freely, then nobody will be able to make money off it and nobody will produce it anymore) are pure bunk (the examples have been hashed out time and time again...the necessary business model is different of course, but it is viable and has been used successfully by artists of every type).

So there you have it.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[omeomi]

Hey, if it were up to me, the entire DMCA would be repealed...I'm just pointing out that the Google/Viacom thing is not exactly a cut-n-dry issue. I think Napster ran into trouble because the majority of the files shared were illegal...YouTube might be a different case, because there is plenty of legal content.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[dabraun]

Considering that a max-sized MIME chunk was/is(?) usually 30K lines or so, and that a typical 1MB file would break out into a couple hundred chunks by itself... how well d'ya think a 600MB warezed DivX would distribute?

Apparently you haven't been on usenet in a while. The "complicated process" you describe is completely automated and there are plenty of newsreaders (i.e. news file grabbers) which convert the thousands and thousands of posts out there in a group into the 25 movies that are actually posted.

As some GP post said though, this slips below the radar - not enough people even know about usenet to make a dent.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Stonehand]

Not for sporting events, movies, or other productions that huge portions of the audience would only want to see once.

It's mostly entertainment. How often would you want to re-watch the same video? How many people would bother to see the same Super Bowl over and over?

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Mr2001]

It's very simple: we like the content, we want everything for free, therefore copyright is evil. The justifications come after the fact. Maybe that's how you think, or more likely how your imagined version of a file sharer thinks, but don't pretend you can speak for everyone who's opposed to copyright.

There are plenty of reasons to oppose restricting free speech in order to make information a scarce good that have nothing to do with "wanting everything for free", and in fact many of us would be happy to pay content producers directly for their work, if they'd just mind their own business instead of telling us how we can or can't use our own hardware and internet connections.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[owlnation]

It's very simple: we like the content, we want everything for free, therefore copyright is evil. The justifications come after the fact.

It's simple, but it's not very simple, and it's not the simple you suggest. Much of Viacom's products are in fact already free. TV is, for the most part, free. Their revenue mostly comes from advertising, which a growing number of people are Tivo-ing out. Though to what extent anyone ever watched it is moot. Ads were always a good time to channel surf or go make some coffee.

but this is pretty clear cut: it's Viacom's stuff that Viacom's advertisers pay Viacom to distribute, and Youtube is cutting them out completely.

Bearing the above in mind, Viacom is cutting off one easy way to its future by doing this. Viacom is hurting itself by not using new channels such as YouTube to promote their own shows and to broadcast them - complete with ads - on the internet.

They are just another example of many in the entertainment industry who are like King Canute trying to hold back the tide. Sink or swim - people want their entertainment for free, and whenever they choose to sit down and view, regardless of schedule. There's no reason whatsoever they can't have it, and the producers will still make as much, if not more than they did before.

Bear in mind also - the real loser in this is Nielsen. Direct stats on downloads views give you a true measure of your viewing figs and demographics - Nielsen is just extrapolated guesstimates. Maybe the right shows will get picked up for once.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[ivan256]

So you went from making a reasonable point to being a troll.

I think it's too early to call this one, as we don't have all the details. On the whole, it seems fishy that this comes shortly after Viacom breaking off their distribution deal and going with (the stupidly named) Joost. It seems like some odd sort of corporate revenge for not giving Viacom the contract terms they were looking for, combined with a desire to make online distribution impractical since they can't figure out how to profit from it. The Billion Dollars number seems fishy to me too. How did they come up with a billion dollars? Also, if Google is going to be punished for blatant violation, why does Viacom deserve to be the beneficiary?

It seems clear that Google (YouTube) did some wrong, but it doesn't follow that means that Viacom is right.

Oh, and to take a page from your book, let me just say that if you respond to this in disagreement it is clear proof that I am right.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Kluenitou]

I completely disagree with you. First of all, if you hosted an FTP Server and had tons of copyright crap, true, you will be held liable...but the Youtube/Google Video giant isn't an FTP Server...there are many non-copyrighted materials posted to both of these sites everyday. If you go to Google Video's Top 100, you'll see most of the videos are user-created. Granted most of them are girls lip-synching into a webcam or moronic pranks...hardly what I would call quality videos, but they are non-copyrighted nonetheless. Most of these people who post the videos, do it completely legitimately and are not in violation of any copyright laws.

You may or may not recall in the late 70s when Sony first came out with the Betamax. They were sued (Universal City Studios, Inc. et al. v. Sony Corporation of America Inc. et al.) because it was thought that people could run around copying movies illegally. Sony ended up winning the claim on the basis that the legitimate uses for their product superseded the illegitimate ones.

I believe we will see a similar ruling in this case. Youtube/GV is quite unlike Napster in that it has many legitimate uses as showcased by the aforementioned moronic videos. Also, although Napster was a scape goat in the free music downloading fad, you may or may not have heard of another case, MGM Studios vs. Grokster LTD. In this case, they upheld that the Grokster was not to be held liable for the music that was pirated using their software because LEGITIMATE uses existed for it...see a pattern here? Although the legitimate uses were few and far between, the theory was that the software designers shouldn't be held liable for stupid users infringing by utilizing their software just as Sony couldn't be held liable for infringement if its users copied video tapes.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

So your response makes you a Flaming DickTroll? (every time you say, type, print, or even think of my new name for people such as yourself, you need to pay me $1,000,000,000.00)

And FYI, the only reason why corporations can hold (the types of) copyrights they have today are because they lobbied government to do it or found a loophole in the copyright/patent laws. Not because the government thought it was a worthwhile idea to preserve economic tranquility and stimulate innovation. (this doesn't cover all copyrighted material however)

You Flaming DickTroll.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[OBeardedOne]

I hate youtube. I hate google even more for their involvement of it. It's napster jr, plain and simple, and it'll be shut down.

Napster and Youtube are completely different beasts. Over 90% of the music on Napster was copyright, very few people used the service to download the other 10% which mostly comprised obscure backyard crap that no name bands put on there. Without the copyrighted music on Napster the service would never have become as big as it did. Youtube on the other hand has a much larger percentage of people that actually enjoy watching the obscure backyard crap so it makes up a larger proportion of the service.

No doubt the studio produced movies and TV shows help to lift the number of users on Youtube but Youtube would still survive and be successful without it, unlike Napster. I'm not sure of the percentages but just take a look at Youtube's most viewed videos and a lot of them are of cats in toilets, risque bra commercials from Sweden and teenage boys burning their genitals.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Not for sporting events, movies, or other productions that huge portions of the audience would only want to see once. It's mostly entertainment. How often would you want to re-watch the same video? How many people would bother to see the same Super Bowl over and over?

If not on YouTube, where else are you going to see it? For precisely the reasons you mentioned, most of the copyrighted stuff on YouTube is unlikely to be widely broadcasted again (complete movies and TV shows are an exception, of course). Viacom might have a point if they were offering a comparable service to YouTube, but they are not.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[ClosedSource]

"I think it's too early to call this one, as we don't have all the details."

If there's some doubt that Viacom's copyrighted material is on YouTube, then you're right. If not, I don't see what relevent details are missing.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[nuzak]

> So you went from making a reasonable point to being a troll.

Is it trolling if the boat don't move? I pointed out that lame justifications would follow, and someone happily obliged.

> let me just say that if you respond to this in disagreement it is clear proof that I am right.

Now you get to brag to everyone that you won an argument on slashdot.

(that's a troll)

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Atario]

Whatever the case, it doesnt mean it's okay to sell crack.

Doesn't mean it's not ok, either. I tend to say it is ok. However, it is almost certainly, at the moment at least, illegal.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[triffid_98]

How about I find it completely insulting and immoral that content owners (such as Viacom) are allowed hold content hostage for durations that far exceed our lifetimes? If it weren't for youtube I'll wager I would never have seen another cheesy Ronny James Dio video again. I sure as hell can't see them on MTV, and I don't think they ever get a video release. Heaven forbid that someone watch a 20+ year old video not blessed with the Viacom seal of approval.

Of course morality has no bearing on the legality of the case, so game on.

Took less than five minutes for justification #1. Any more takers?

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that Google / YouTube are making big bucks by knowingly violating someone else's copyright. This will only result in more copyright laws and DRM implementations, which IMHO is a very bad thing.

I am on neither side. They are both evil.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Curtman]

how well d'ya think a 600MB warezed DivX would distribute?

Very well. The last one took about 4 minutes to finish downloading. Plus I didn't have to distribute any chunks to peers, so I haven't broken any laws to do it.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[portnoy]

So the real question is, does Viacom get this[...]?

Considering that they just entered a deal with Joost for online content, and this lawsuit is probably a means to remove their most likely back-channel competitor? Yeah, I'd say they get it.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you don't want me to steal your shit, you shouldn't leave your door unlocked!"

What a bunch of dweebs trying to justify their own thievery.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[poot_rootbeer]

Took less than five minutes for justification #1. Any more takers?

Stop treating legitimate counterarguments to your position as thoughtless knee-jerk justifications.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[poot_rootbeer]

Viacom's product is now less valuable because thousands or millions of people have already seen it.

Huh?

Creative products become MORE valuable when more people are exposed to them, not less valuable.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[poot_rootbeer]

Seems like a potential legislative tweak to "safe harbor" would be to require service providers like Youtube to track ad hits/revenue gained from any particular content source. If Viacom can prove that the content was theirs, then Youtube should then have to turn over that money to the rightful copyright holder.

Then Viacom would start quietly putting up its own content on YouTube, waiting until it was no longer part of their business plan to have it publicly available, and then send YouTube a takedown notice and demand for restitution.

Viacom gets all the profits, and Google is stuck with all the distribution costs. That's even LESS fair than the current model where Viacom and YouTube both make profits off Viacom's works proportional to the resources they dedicate to distributing them.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[ivan256]

How much? How long does it stay there before it gets taken down? Does google willingly remove it when it appears there? Does Google actively hinder the discovery of the material? Does blocking Viacom from searching people's "Friends only" videos constitute blocking discovery? Is sharing Viacom content only to your friends "Fair Use"? If not, does it warrant the same punishment as sharing it with the whole world? What level of responsibility falls on Google and what level falls on the user that originally ripped the content?

What? You thought this was black and white? The content is there, so they owe a billion dollars? The hammer will fall somewhere between the two. My prediction is that Google will be forced to pay something, but they will still get the best of this case, and the ruling will be mostly in their favor.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Pollardito]

Lets also be clear that Viacom is just as much a "content provider" as Google is. In other words, they create NOTHING. Viacom is just another middleman between the artists and the viewers. that's the ironic part, they're clearly not interested in showing these videos on their own channel (MTV is all-reality-show, all-the-time), so what do they care if people watch them somewhere else? if they believed that there is a lot of revenue to be made showing these videos they'd be showing them on their own stations!

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[ClosedSource]

Copyright infringement occurs the instant a single illegal item is posted. The idea that it "doesn't count" if it's just a few items or if you take it down when the copyright holder asks you to, is a post-Napster fantasy. The burden of insuring YouTube is free of illegal material is 100% Google's responsiblity. If Google can't afford to prescreen material before it is posted, than they are free to shut down YouTube.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

> It's very simple: we like the content, we want everything for free,
>therefore copyright is evil. The justifications come after the fact.

The law ought to follow the will of the majority of people, not the vocal minority with the $$$.

So yes, if the majority of people like content, and the majority like getting it for free, then maybe the copyright laws *do* need dismantling...

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[cjb110]

Maybe it's just so geeky and obscure

of course that's the reason...trying to explain to the public that a set of 'text' messages is actually some mp3 file.
plus its not p2p, so its not 'cool', so general media/news sites wont mention it either.

doesn't do the volume to alarm the big guys

I think that has only recently been true. Before BitTorrent most of copyrighted content started on IRC (even harder for them to explain), then moved to usenet, then appear on kazaa, limewire etc.

tbh if you want stuff that is outright illegal in every country, then IRC is your best bet on finding it.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[typicallyterrific]

To a certain extent, yes. You ARE allowed to transfer copyright.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

"Granted most of them are girls lip-synching into a webcam"

Yes, and lip-synching copyrighted songs they did not pay the statutory fee for most likely, hence copyright infringement.

And Grokster lost at the Supreme Court level and was shut down.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/technology/08gro kster.html?ex=1289106000&en=1065d46839f08b9f&ei=50 90&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grokster

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[AutomaticCautionDoor]

Actually, nuzak had a good point. So many of the arguments proferred in these debates are indeed after-the-fact justifications. They're a dime a dozen:

You shouldn't infringe somebody's copyright.
I heard that record labels rip off artists!

You shouldn't infringe somebody's copyright.
I heard that Disney bought off Congress!

You shouldn't infringe somebody's copyright.
CDs only have two good songs!

You shouldn't infringe somebody's copyright.
Corporations are greedy!

You shouldn't infringe somebody's copyright.
Sometimes it makes me go buy the DVD!

You shouldn't infringe somebody's copyright.
It's free exposure!

Ad nauseam. I don't think nuzak was stifling debate. He was simply pointing out the inescapable (and insufferable) reality of these conversations.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[AutomaticCautionDoor]

That's quite a generalization you've made there.

Are you saying if we got rid of all copies of the Mona Lisa -- all the prints and images that currently allow "more people (to be) exposed to" it -- that the Louvre would not be able to charge a higher premium for viewing the remaining original? Or that this original would not fetch a higher price at auction? You're sure that's a sure thing? You're sure your confidently asserted generalization holds up across the board?

Granted, the syntax of the grandparent post would have been more explicitly accurate if worded like this: Viacom's product is now less valuable TO VIACOM because thousands or millions of people have already seen it OUTSIDE OF VIACOM'S CONTROL. But it's understood that's what the poster meant, because value to the copyright holder was the whole point of the discussion.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[adelord]

Seems like a potential legislative tweak to "safe harbor" would be to require service providers like Youtube to track ad hits/revenue gained from any particular content source. If Viacom can prove that the content was theirs, then Youtube should then have to turn over that money to the rightful copyright holder.

Then Viacom would start quietly putting up its own content on YouTube, waiting until it was no longer part of their business plan to have it publicly available, and then send YouTube a takedown notice and demand for restitution.

Viacom gets all the profits, and Google is stuck with all the distribution costs. That's even LESS fair than the current model where Viacom and YouTube both make profits off Viacom's works proportional to the resources they dedicate to distributing them.

Just modify the idea from grandparent so that Viacom's share of Google ad revenue from Viacom IP would be (google's ad revenue)-(google's overhead including admin and distribution costs)-(some number based upon how long the content was left unchallenged to encourage IP owners to be prompt in challenging). This would allow for a more rational sharing of profit between the safe harbor and the copyright holder, rather than an all or nothing legal game. A good way for Viacom to police Youtube content under this system would be to offer a "bounty" percentage of ad revenue to viewers who report the clips. Suddenly you would have a large population of viewers very familiar will Viacom brands. The system would even be robust enough that attempts to abuse the system (upload, encourage others to view, then challenge for profit) would be good for both YouTube's and Viacom's bottom line. Viacom vs. Google doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[ivan256]

Oh please. You can't possibly assert that the damages to the content owner are the same if the content is posted for a few seconds or weeks. It's not a black and white "you infringed" or "you didn't infringe". It's a matter of degrees, and it always has been.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[ClosedSource]

Infringement can occur with 0 damage to the IP holder. The degree of damage is only relevent to the penalities, not to the act of infringement.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong

[ivan256]

Since when is this a discussion purely about whether or not they infringed? This is about Viacom seeking a billion dollars in damages. If it was just about Viacom looking for a moral "they infringed" victory, then sure, they'd be 100% in the right. But it's not. It's about a billion dollars.

So, if the judge awards Viacom $50mil or $100mil, who won this lawsuit?

Napster

[biocute]

Well, if Napster can be nailed, a site that actually hosts illegal copyright materials shouldn't be able to escape so easily.

I would be more interested in knowing if Google has jumped the shark?

Re:Napster

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be more interested in knowing if Google has jumped the shark?

In my opinion, the series went downhill when Yahoo got pregnant and they killed off Lycos.

I'm going to put off voting.

[andy314159pi]

Considering our likely imminent destruction, I'm going to refrain from voting until we rebuild civilization.

Just like Napster...

[John3]

YouTube is hosting the material, so ultimately Viacom will win.

Sure, YouTube is a cool idea and users love it, just like Napster was a hit with users. It's the darn content creators who are up in arms.

Re:Just like Napster...

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Except that that's exactly UNlike Napster, which was p2p.

Re:Just like Napster...

[John3]

Correct...I forgot that Napster was p2p without actually hosting the files. However, both Napster and YouTube ran/run servers that make it easy for users to share copyrighted materials (as opposed to decentralized methods like Bit Torrent).

An my "Just like Napster..." quote was really to express my feeling about the ultimate result, which is the demise of YouTube (with a relaunch in a sanitized version...like Napster). :)

Re:Just like Napster...

[markbt73]

It's the darn content creators who are up in arms.

Not quite. It's the content rights-holders who are up in arms, and most of them couldn't create content if their lives depended on it.

All we're showing with the success of p2p networks and YouTube is that we don't need middlemen anymore. They're just dying really hard.

Re:Just like Napster...

[Pootie Tang]

There is a big difference between Napster and YouTube regarding who hosts the files. Napster was unable to comply with takedown notices since they didn't host. YouTube can because they do. The ultimate outcome might be the same as with Napster anyway, but who hosts certainly has an impact on the arguments that will be made and I don't see it as being in Viacom's favor.

YouTube also has a lot of jackass-with-a-camcorder stuff on it. One of the things that hurt Napster was that almost all of the traffic was without the copyright holders permission. I'm not sure what the percentage is for YouTube, but I imagine they'll have an easier time demonstrating non infringing use.

I really don't know how to expect it to turn out, I could see either side "winning" (in court, who, if anyone, wins long term remains to be seen as well). The circumstances aren't quite the same as Napster though.

Hmm. Hom. Hoom.

[Stanistani]

>Whose side are you on?

Treebeard: "I am on no one's side, because nobody is on my side."

Re:Hmm. Hom. Hoom.

[andy314159pi]

lol great post

Re:Hmm. Hom. Hoom.

[felineSushi]

"Hmmmm. That doesn't make sense to me. But then, you are very small."

Re:Hmm. Hom. Hoom.

[Anonymous Coward]

Treebeard: "I am on no one's side, because nobody is on my side."

Yeah, but don't forget that he and his pals then proceeded to kick the crap out of Isengard.

Re:Hmm. Hom. Hoom.

[tooslickvan]

The correct quote is: "IIIIIIIII'ammmmmm onnnnnn nooooo onnnnnnneeeeee'ssssss ssssssssiiiiiiiiddddddddeeeeee, beeeeecauuuuuusssssseeee nooooobooooodddddddddyyyyyyy isssssssss onnnnnnn mmmmmmyyyyyyyyy ssssssiiiiiiiidddddddeeeeee"

Re:Hmm. Hom. Hoom.

[HeadlessNotAHorseman]

It still doesn't mean he was taking sides....he took down Isengard because Isengard was trying to destroy his trees, not because Isengard was one of the baddies.

Re:Hmm. Hom. Hoom.

[Anonymous Coward]

You got the quote badly wrong. It's "I am not altogether on anybody's side, because nobody is altogether on my side", which has a very different meaning.

(Emphasis added.)

Re:Hmm. Hom. Hoom.

[Stanistani]

You should never read "Lord of The Rings" in a moving vehicle.

Viacom?

[partenon]

This one is simple: Viacom. They don't need to sue for 1 bilion, but YouTube needs more reviewers (or improve their copyright protection). Viacom certainly spent a few bucks on producing these TV shows. They can't simply give it away for free. It is *their* products, and *they* decide where it can or can't be redistributed.

Re:Viacom?

[Qzukk]

I don't know... all Google has to do is trot out Viacom's screwups like C&Ding a game engine tutorial and they can make a pretty good case that Viacom has no clue whatsoever how much of their stuff is on YouTube, and that their claims of massive infringement are massively overstated. Furthermore they can state that if Viacom can't figure out what they own, Google obviously has no chance to figure it out on their own, and therefore must abide by the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA and follow Viacom's takedown notices to the best of their abilities, given the evidence of Viacom's inaccuracies.

Re:Viacom?

[modecx]

This one is simple: Viacom. They don't need to sue for 1 bilion, but YouTube needs more reviewers (or improve their copyright protection). Viacom certainly spent a few bucks on producing these TV shows. They can't simply give it away for free. It is *their* products, and *they* decide where it can or can't be redistributed.

Actually, according to subsection (c) of section 512 of the DMCA, providers or any size aren't required to have ANYONE reviewing their sites' content. The only thing required by YouTube is that they promptly disable pages when they get a valid complaint letter.

So the case is obviously that Viacom needs more people searching for their own content.

Re:Viacom?

[RexRhino]

Why can't Viacom give away this content for free? Aside from the fact that YouTube content is a horribly compressed, low resolution clip no longer than 15 minutes in length and so it can't really show Viacom's content properly - Viacom already gives their best content away, free, in high definition across the air waves. In fact, before video recorders were available, pretty much everyone got their video content for free... yes people still spent a lot of money to create video content.

Re:Viacom?

[JambisJubilee]

Viacom certainly spent a few bucks on producing these TV shows. They can't simply give it away for free.

Like broadcasting them from a television station? Oh wait...

Re:Viacom?

[j4v4n4t0r]

I think you're absolutely right. If they haven't informed utube of what content is theirs then the DMCA will protect them. Viacom is already making money for the content by broadcasting it. Doesn't the money we pay to our television service provider ultimately end up (in some part) in the content creator's pocket. Why should they get more money just because you can view it in (very low quality) after it has already for broadcasted.

Maybe Viacom is going broke and this is a desperate attempt to survive. Google will win this IMO.

Re:Viacom?

[Anonymous Coward]

and therefore must abide by the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA and follow Viacom's takedown notices to the best of their abilities, given the evidence of Viacom's inaccuracies.

None of that matters. Viacom doesn't need to prove *exactly* how much of their crap is on YouTube, they only need to show that a lot of it is. HOWEVER, they do need to say exactly how much crap is on YouTube if they want damages for lost profits/each instance of infringement. Point: Viacom.

Viacom already knows what it owns. Google has a very good chance to figure this out; it's part of the legal process (the discovery stage, before trial, where each party has to turn over all relevant evidence to the other party). Point: Viacom.

And finally, The DCMA Safe Harbor provisions do not apply for several reasons: 1) the infringing act consists of processing and filtering the videos that were uploaded by users. If GooTube just posted the exact same file (or copy of the file) posted, the safe harbor would apply. BUT they don't; they convert the file into another format. Further, they filter based on tags and filenames. And, GooTube makes money, from ads that are shown when the video is displayed. It doesn't matter if they make a profit; revenue is what matters under the DCMA. Point: Viacom.

WHAT ABOUT AN INJUNCTION?
Viacom's not asking for an injunction. They're asking for damages.

The difference? Viacom gets paid damages, but GooTube doesn't have to take the videos down.

What does this mean? Well, it means Viacom can sue them again for more damages later if GooTube doesn't take the videos down.

Why? Because they don't have to make any legal arguments about an injunction, which they could lose. Because it might turn into a revenue stream if GooTube thinks its worth the cost of getting sued and paying out to keep the videos on the site.

Re:Viacom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Contradict much?

they only need to show that a lot of it is. HOWEVER, they do need to say exactly how much crap is on YouTube if they want damages for lost profits/each instance of infringement.

Viacom's not asking for an injunction. They're asking for damages.

You can say "point viacom" all you want, but you're not the referee. It doesn't change the fact that viacom doesn't know what's on YouTube, and couldn't figure it out if they tried (see invalid takedown notices).

Viacom gets paid damages, but GooTube doesn't have to take the videos down.

Well, no, once viacom tells them what videos are theirs (required to claim damages) then google will take them down to comply with the dmca. They probably don't want to get sued again. It's much like SCO vs. Linux: anytime they want to tell the Linux developers what the infringement is, the developers will happily rip it out and replace it with a non-infringing implementation. But then they wouldn't have grounds to sue, right?

revenue is what matters under the DCMA.

Not exactly. First off, it's not clear that transcoding a video automatically is not covered in the safe harbor provision. It is otherwise unmodified (Google isn't adding ads to the movie itself... yet). Secondly, the court will likely have to decide whether Google is profiting directly from the viacom work or not (if anyone who receives any money at all could be sued, ISPs would die overnight, after all, they're paid for the networks bittorrent and kazaa use). They'd probably take a look at the ad revenue for viacom videos, and compare it to the ad revenue for non-viacom videos, and see how that works out. If it's clear that viacom material is whats raking in the dough, then they'll probably decide Google is directly profiting from the viacom material. Otherwise, they'll probably decide that google is simply profiting from the site and not the material, since any other material there would earn them the same amount.

Re:Viacom?

[gfreeman]

They can't simply give it away for free.

They alrady have. They gave it away free by publicly broadcasting it. I may have legal copies of their shows on my PVR, on VHS, on .mpg - and all for the cost of my cable subscription (of which I am sure they get a cut).

It is *their* products, and *they* decide where it can or can't be redistributed.

They let it out into the wild, free for all to see as long as you have a legal means of watching it in the first place. Which I'm guessing the VAST majority of YT viewers will have.

Re:Viacom?

[partenon]

Ok, IANAL, and don't want to be, but I usually think about "fairness" instead of "legal" and "illegal".

So, I don't agree with you that if Viacom can't recognize some of their productions, YouTube don't have the obligation to recognizing anything. Some productions are clearly from Viacom, and it is copyrighted work. So, while it may be legal to YouTube to claim they aren't aware that the content is owned by Viacom, just a dumb ass would believe in it in real world (out of court).

Viacom's reaction is certainly exaggerated, but they aren't wrong. Again, it is *their* work. They should decide how it can and can't be used :-)

Re:Viacom?

[partenon]

It doesn't matter. They created, they are distributing, they decide if you can or can't reproduce it in public. The fact of distributing it via air waves doesn't means they are giving the content away or giving it for free. They are generating revenues by distributing via air waves. And they aren't getting any buck on YouTube's distribution. So, they *can* forbid YouTube for distributing their content. And yes, you, as a individual, can record their contents distributed by air waves and watch with friends in the weekend (fair use?). But you can't record it *and* reproduce it in a public space, earning money for it, without paying for the rights. Again, they produced it, they have the right to decide whether or not you can distribute it for public.

Re:Viacom?

[partenon]

Another answer on this thread also applies to your comment :-)

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=226745&cid=184 08517

Re:Viacom?

[partenon]

They alrady have. They gave it away free by publicly broadcasting it. I may have legal copies of their shows on my PVR, on VHS, on .mpg - and all for the cost of my cable subscription (of which I am sure they get a cut).

They let it out into the wild, free for all to see as long as you have a legal means of watching it in the first place. Which I'm guessing the VAST majority of YT viewers will have. Another comment in the main thread also applies as answer to yours :-)

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=226745&cid=184 08517

Re:Viacom?

[RexRhino]

Intellectual "property" is not a natural right. Intellectual "property" is a privledge granted by the state. The founding fathers of the U.S., who were hardcore supporters of property rights and capitalism (so don't accuse what I am saying of being some sort of hippie anti-property or anti-capitalist stance), clearly intented copyright to be a brief monopoly granted by the government to "promote science and the useful arts" when they added the copyright clause to the constitution. Copyright was intended to benifit the public at large by making information more free and openly available, not to garantee the copyright holder a profit or for them to dictate how the information should be used.

Viacom's copyright exists to make Viacom's content widely and freely available to whoever wants it. When Viacom exercises their copyright in such a way that it no longer serves the public interest, then the government has a moral duty to revoke their copyright privledges. It is clear that Viacom has abused and continues to abuse its obligation to serve the public with its copyright privledges, and so therefore all their "rights" should be forfeit.

Re:Viacom?

[partenon]

I fully agree with you, looking by another perspective (ex.: replace copyright by patents).

But I do disagree with you when I compare what Viacom produces with a "product". I mean, they produce something, they distribute something in exchange of money (kind of a sell?). So, in this case, they have the right to choose the mediums they will distribute their product.

And don't get me wrong, I do agree with you regarding *ideas*. So, they can't sell the "information" behing a news program. But they can sell the "news program" itself.

(not sure I was clear enough...)

Side? What side?

[DogDude]

One multinational corporation vs. another multinational corporation. Why should I care? Let 'em slug it out. It's not like video on the Net is going to go anywhere, anyway. Spam is illegal, and he have tons of that. Kiddie porn is illegal, and we have tons of that online. Phishing and all kinds of other scams are illegal, and we have plenty of that. Does anybody think that corporate lawsuit #50,401,432 over online video is going to make any kind of real difference to anybody but the attorneys getting paid?

Who's side are we on?!

[physicsboy500]

Are we posting bets now or something?!?

I've got 3 to 1 on YouTube

Youtube...

[nebaz]

IANAL, but I seem to remember a clause in the DMCA that allowed "no-foul" agreements if takedown was immediate if a site was notified that it was hosting copyrighted material, with links to the site given. Is this not the case?

Re:Youtube...

[nuzak]

That's pretty much what the DMCA is all about, yes. However, Viacom is alleging bad faith on Youtube's part in that a) they do respond in a timely fashion, b) their material is predominantly infringing, and that c) they are profiting off the infringement. There's some precedents to back all these up, but I don't exactly have legal research resources beyond the intarwebs to cite them for you.

Some of these points are debateable, but the preponderance seems to weigh pretty heavily against Youtube.

Re:Youtube...

[nuzak]

> a) they do respond in a timely fashion

Should be "they do not respond in a timely fashion" of course. Sigh.

Re:Youtube...

[AKAImBatman]

Is this not the case?

No, you are correct. Which is why I think YouTube will ultimately win the case. The judge will find that YouTube is a common carrier, and makes every reasonable effort to handle takedowns as they receive them. Viacom will walk away in a fit of rage, and possibly implode on their way out.

With the purchase of YouTube, Google has

[zappepcs]

taken the first step needed to be at the forefront of video based entertainment for the next decade or more. Viacom seems to be having second thoughts about upgrading their business model.

YouTube/GooTube will be shown to be innocent of any major issues. Viacom will have to get in the game and change their business model, or watch this particular game at home on tv!

We all understand clearly how the **AA has alienated their customers in no small way. Viacom is trying to do the same thing. While it is not clear what failed in the negotiation stage, it is clear to me that they will lose. It is not Google that puts offending material on the Internet. Remember that Google is hardly the only video sharing site on the Internet.

Viacom's real problem is not Google. Their real problem is that the public at large do not respect copyright as Viacom and others would like to define it. (lets not bring in the real definition at this point) That is to say: The public in general would like to redefine 'fair use' for copyrighted materials, and do so in a way that removes some of the business revenue from Viacom and others.

IMO, Viacom and others will simply have to get used to it, or be part of it if they want to stay in business.

Re:With the purchase of YouTube, Google has

[stratjakt]

Their real problem is that the public at large do not respect copyright as Viacom and others would like to define it.

Yes, they do. You don't, and most slashdotters dont, but many people, I'd wager most, do. I know a guy, who I'd describe as typical, who was apprehensive about borrowing a blockbuster tape I'd rented to watch - because he hadnt paid to rent it.

People are not naturally thieves, despite the fact that shoplifting happens every day. Most people - good people - would feel ashamed after walking out of a store, and realizing they forgot to pay for something. Many of them go back to make up the difference. They need no law officer to make them do this, their conscience is enough.

Now of course, we're very left here. So we don't believe in "good" or "evil" or "consciences" or "morality". Everything's relative. Spiderman 2 sucked, therefore I shouldn't pay for it. Britney only has one good song, therefore I shouldnt pay for her CD. It's a bunch of excuses and relativistic bullshit lies.

They recognize that the show they're watching took resources to make, actors and crew were paid, sets were built, locations were rented, make up was done, etc. They feel guilty stealing that. Yes, they feel actual guilt. They feel it is a moral wrong to watch that show for free, when they know it's against the owners wishes.

Yeah, there are assholes who have no problem sneaking in the fire exit at the movie theater. It happens, it doesn't mean movie theatres shouldn't charge admission, and shouldn't prosecute people sneaking in.

Why would "the public" embrace iTunes, when they were so used to getting mp3s free? The public was clamoring way to pay for music online.

"The public" will feel that viacom has been wronged - that google wrongly (and knowingly) allowed their copyrighted content to remain online, because google knew they could profit from it. Google knows they profit more from Daily Show clips than they do from Anne McEmo's video blog.

Re:With the purchase of YouTube, Google has

[eratosthene]

Look, I'm not gonna comment on whether or not file sharing is wrong. But I am reaaaaaaally tired of hearing it compared to shoplifting. When you steal a physical object, you are denying someone else the chance to legally purchase that same object, and it is clear that you are denying profit to the creator of the object. However, when you make a digital copy of something, you are not denying anything from anyone. If I make a copy of your DVD, you still have the physical media. Plus (and this is definitely arguable) I'm not really denying any profit from the content creator, if I never intended to purchase the DVD in the first place. So really, the content creator is just unhappy that someone is consuming their creation for free. I know quite a few artists (granted, they aren't huge media conglomerates) that would be overjoyed at a few extra thousand people liking their work, whether or not they paid for it.

Re:With the purchase of YouTube, Google has

[caywen]

"Their real problem is that the public at large do not respect copyright as Viacom and others would like to define it." A lot of people do not respect regulations as the SEC would like to define it, but that doesn't make those people right. I think it's silly to argue that Viacom is wrong because people want to change copyright laws so they can get free stuff.

Re:With the purchase of YouTube, Google has

[maxume]

Decade? When your biggest asset is your highly mobile user base, 'leads' don't matter very much. There are plenty of people who can make a beefy back end system, and the front end isn't exactly groundbreaking.

Re:With the purchase of YouTube, Google has

[Art3x]

Don't forget, intellectual property is _not_ a natural right. It is an artificial right to stimulate invention. Read the Constitution.

The very phrase is flawed. Intellectual (thought) property (ownership). An impossibility.

So, I used to think that a copyright holder was infringed if anyone did anything that decreased the amount of money that the holder made. But that is not even the intent of the law. The law itself admits that it is a balance -- a balance of encouraging people to publish stuff (copyright) and letting the people not be too encumbered (fair use).

For example, whistling a tune while walking down the street is, according to the letter of the law, a public performance. Videotaping your kid's birthday party at Chucky Cheese while Puff the Magic Dragon plays over the speakers is technically creating a derivative work.

My point is, there is a balance. "Intellectual property" is an invention itself, to stimulate invention, publication.

The judge should weigh how much Youtube scares authors, creators, artists from publishing their stuff.

Re:With the purchase of YouTube, Google has

[ClassMyAss]

If the people in a democratic society have no desire to provide and have enforced artificial protection for intangible assets, then intangible assets will not be protected. There is no right or wrong about it - intellectual property is not a thing, and the fact that we protect it in our society as if it is one is actually somewhat strange.

In a democracy, the only things that are not subject to the whims of the crowd are those things that are considered inalienable rights. In the US, this more or less comes down to the Bill of Rights. So I absolutely disagree with you - if the people don't want copyright protections to be enforced upon them, then the people should be able to make it so.

And anyhow, these content providers are to blame for their own problems - if they would just figure out a freaking way to distribute their videos with their advertisements attached, this whole problem would go away. I mean, it's not like Joe Consumer ever actually pays Viacom a penny for watching their garbage...

Re:With the purchase of YouTube, Google has

[Mr2001]

When you steal a physical object, you are denying someone else the chance to legally purchase that same object, and it is clear that you are denying profit to the creator of the object. Furthermore, this is the one and only reason that stealing is wrong. If theft only involved making a copy of an object--walk up to a car, point your magic wand at it, and drive off in a copy while leaving the original exactly as it was--then there'd be nothing wrong with theft either. A world where that was possible would be a utopia, with enough food, medicine, fuel, and other goods for everyone who needed them. The fundamental "wrongness" of theft is the fact that it deprives the rightful owner of the stolen item, not that the thief gets something for nothing.

Viacom or YouTube?

[phalse phace]

Depends on who we're suppose to hate today...

Go with YouTube

[AKAImBatman]

10 years ago, the music industry became aware of a little thing called "MP3s". They offered the potential of distributing music through online channels. But rather than embrace it as a new business outlet, fraught with exciting new opportunities and possibilities, the music industry tried to squash it. Before they knew it, Napster was created. So they quashed that. Then GNUTella was created and they could quash that. Then Kazza, and BitTorrent, and Limewire, and so on and so forth.

In the end, the music industry could not put the genie back in the bottle. It was only the introduction of iTunes that saved them from imploding.

I see a lot of parallels here. While YouTube videos may seem like a bad idea for the old distribution models, they are increasing the amount of exposure that many shows are getting. Comedy Central's hosts have been getting more famous by the day, thanks to YouTube, and CBS has managed to promote personalities like Craig Ferguson by releasing videos themselves. I can respect Loudback's position on this, but there's simply no room for stalling the market. The forces in action WILL demand a way, whether YouTube is the vehicle or not. It's better to embrace them than it is to fight them.

If you'll excuse the overused term, it's time to innovate!

Re:Go with YouTube

[stubear]

You're missing, or purposefully ignoring, the fact that a lot of broadcast content is being made available for free on sites like NBC.com or Comedy Central. iTunes and XBOX Live Marketplace also offer broadcast content for a nominal fee. As I'v been saying for years and years, the culture of copyright reform isn;t about getting content easier, it's all about getting shit for free. I've also been saying for years that music should NOT be distributed via digital files because you are not going to get hi-quality audio and you're likely going to be linked to a specific media player. Lo and behold, iTunes comes out and guess what? if you purchase music from iTunes you have to listen to it on an iPod or go through some convoluted hoops to rip to another format, thus degrading the quality of the audio even further then the already shitty quality Apple sells you. Buy the CD and rip i tto any format you want, learn to like the other non-radio hits you hadn't heard before. Maybe it's just the generation I'm a part of but we grew up loving music and albums, the art, the songs, the bands. That and perhaps the pot helped a little, I don't know.

Re:Go with YouTube

[stratjakt]

So what?

It's up to viacom what to do with their content. It may be in their best interest to put it up on youtube. It may not. It's their choice.

It might be in your best interest to post all your home videos. It might not. But it's up to you, not me, CmdrTaco or even Google.

YouTube made its billions violating copyrights, as did napster. This "user-created" is just hot air, I bet every one of us' first exposure to youtube was watching some commercial productions. We all know that practically all of the vapid "video blogs" are worthless.

Re:Go with YouTube

[dorath]

NBC also actively posts thier own stuff on YouTube.

Re:Go with YouTube

[mrchaotica]

It's up to viacom what to do with their content.

No it's not. It's up to the public what to do with the public's content. It is only by the public's grace, expressed through copyright law, that Viacom has any privilage of distribution of the content it creates at all.

Re:Go with YouTube

[AKAImBatman]

It's up to viacom what to do with their content.

I agree. Which is why you won't catch me uploading anything that belongs to them. Unfortuantely, not everyone is so observant of copyright law. Which means that many, many, many people will look for outlets through which they can share clips they think are funny or cool; irrespective of the copyrights held by the owners of that content.

Minor amounts of infringement are something that one can protect against. But when it's widespread, it quickly becomes impossible to contain. If it's not YouTube that acts as the vehicle, it will be someone else. So it's better to change your business model to take advantage of the new market forces rather than hiring more (expensive) lawyers.

Re:Go with YouTube

[sylvainsf]

Actually much of the copyrighted material IS available for free on comedy central's website. I don't have TV and I regularly watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report on comedy central's site. The problem is that YouTube/Google could very simply filter uploads titled "Colbert Report date/here" or whatever and they aren't because they get so much advertising revenue by REDISTRIBUTING the content. If users are clever and name it something else, that's out of their control, but YouTube/Google hasn't even tried.

Re:Go with YouTube

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes - but let's innovate legally.

Currently, as you point out, the law is out of touch with reality. I don't think it follows that we should just ignore the law, because that just leaves the people who are in the right with respect to reality on the wrong side of the law. And it is unfair to all of the outfits that would try to respect the law but can't possibly compete with likes of YouTube, or dare I say Microsoft, who blatantly ignore the law and get away with it. We should respect the law and work to bring it into agreement with reality at the same time.

Many people will read this and think that I am incredibly naive to believe that you can run a successful business while respecting the law. That's a cynical attitude and I don't know what to say to it. That is the kind of attitude that gives 'corporation' a bad name.

Re:Go with YouTube

[AKAImBatman]

Yes - but let's innovate legally.

I think you misunderstand my statement. I don't mean innovate new services like YouTube, I mean innovate new business models to take advantage of new paradigms like YouTube. The world around a business changes. Unless businesses adapt, they'll fail when others meet the challenge instead.

I agree wholeheartedly about doing things in a legal way. But that doesn't mean that the whole world does. Heck, YouTube does not intend to be a haven for copyright infringement (you'd think its limitations would work against such infringement) but it ended up getting misused and abused by many, many people. When that happens, it suggests that a change is in the air. You had better catch up, or you'll get left behind.

Re:Go with YouTube

[that this is not und]

So content creators are the publics slaves.

"Why don't you put us all into solitary confinement until you get what you're after?"

(paraphrased from The Prisoner)

Null Concept

[Toonol]

"Actively Allowing?"

I'm not sure that's even a valid concept.

Here's my idea..

[CashCarSTAR]

If any of the infringing material that Viacom claims, are things that are not currently comercially avaialble, Viacom should lose control of 100% of their IP, all released into the public domain.

Viacom were able to profit on our culture. They're not allowed to drop it down the corporate memory hole.

Betting the odds...

[lpangelrob]

Considering Viacom is a 52 to 1 underdog, I'm going to be prudent and pick Google.

Comedy Central

[truthsearch]

Comedy Central is owned by Viacom. Didn't Comedy Central ask YouTube/Google to remove all of their content and they complied? Then they changed their mind and asked them to put it back up. How can Viacom now claim that Google's not complying? Doesn't the Comedy Central incident prove otherwise, or am I missing something?

If you ask me...

[Otter]

After several years of constant hype about how Google employees are the smartestest people in the world (because they make, y'know, some nice, not-quite-finished Javascript apps) and how free lunch and other perks provided by the bestest managers in the world make those employees even smarterer...!

It's reassuring to see how poorly they thought through this YouTube thing instead of getting their ducks in a row beforehand. the content providers, though, are exactly as shortsighted as one would have thought.

Re:If you ask me...

[LunaticTippy]

Google might have done this on purpose. If they play their cards right it could change everything, and to Google's advantage.

YouTube, please

[DemonWeeping]

I think that it is up to the copyright holder to defend the copyright lest lose it. This is how it has always been with intellectual property. Why do you think Asprin is the general name for acaetasalacitic acid?

I had a 10 second video of myself juggling on TV, with two seconds of that being Dave Attel mocking me. Because it was on Insomniac, Youtube pulled my video without even asking me if I had rights to post it. There seems to be no way to dispute this.

Re:YouTube, please

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=OAd_vpsufRU

Short of it is if your video was unjustly taken down because of Viacom, then the EFF wants to hear from you. Sounds like you'd be a great case.

Re:YouTube, please

[terrymr]

That's trademarks, not copyright.

YouTube's

[icecow]

It's time to move away from the dark ages, period.

Without the entitlement to make million dollar crap movies, oh what would we do with our time. We'd be forced to do something else. Oh the whoa, the terror. By locking down intelectual property we give up something else. I don't want to give up that something else.

Neither side

[Todd Knarr]

I'm not on the side of either Viacom or Google. I'm on the side of the law. The law, specifically the DMCA, spells out what responsibilities Google has, and what Viacom has. Viacom's argument here is that, while Google lives up to it's responsibilities, Viacom finds living up to theirs inconvenient and therefore Google should be saddled with Viacom's responsibilities too. Sorry, Viacom, but that's a matter for you to take up with Congress (who wrote the law).

Re:Neither side

[apathy maybe]

Fuck the law.

And because it has been too short a time between hitting reply and submit, I will elaborate.

The law is flawed. The law was not created with your best interest at heart (unless you happen to be a corporation, wealthy person or otherwise have a lot of power in society). In fact, in cases where the law is obviously flawed (even by the standards of this society), it is your duty to break them. If you truly believe in the law, you would then accept punishment for that act (civil disobedience).

Me, I'm not a martyr, I don't like jails.

Re:Neither side

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's nowhere near that cut and dried.

DMCA Safe Harbor protections have a number of pretty stringent conditions attached to them. For example:

"512.c - 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" - What YouTube does is not simple storage of material, but they transform it (transcode it), organize it (group it with similar content), index it, and present it.

"512.c.1.b [the service provider] does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity." - Do running ads, building future monetizable traffic and building brand equity by superimposing a logo and branded controls amount to a financial benefit?

"512.c.1.a [the service provider] does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing" or if there is such knowledge "acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material" - If discovery of server logs were to reveal that there are searches made by any YouTube or Google personnel for well-known Viacom brands that were not followed up by removal, that could also be a disqualifier.

While it's not a given that YouTube is disqualified from DMCA protection, neither is it clear that it qualifies for such. Based on the above there are, I think, better than even odds that a court would find YouTube doesn't fulfill the requirements for Safe Harbor.

Re:Neither side

[Todd Knarr]

Well, on the first one, the counter-argument is that my own Web-host does the same thing to my Web pages. They're uncompressed when I upload them, but if the requesting browser supports it the Web server will gzip-compress them for download. That would, by what you present, disqualify my Web host from the safe-harbor provision. Yet the case of my uploading static Web pages to my Web host to be downloaded by requesting browsers, where the Web host doesn't actively approve content, is exactly the circumstance envisioned by the authors of the safe-harbor provision.

For the third, yes, if Google/YouTube is actively looking for material and taking action based on what they find then they get excluded from the safe-harbor provision. But mere searches aren't quite enough to show that, since they can be done unofficially by employees not acting in their official capacity, or they might have been done as a consequence of a notification (in which case they clearly wouldn't disqualify Google from the safe-harbor provision, it's simply not reasonable to hold that by complying with it's obligations under that section Google sacrifices the protection granted by that self-same section if it complies).

The second one is the only one where Viacom has any solid arguments. And even there, the advertising and such isn't specifically attributable to the infringing activity. It's global to all activity on YouTube, including all of the vast sea of non-infringing material put up there by creators. I guess the question then is, is it reasonable to say that the safe-harbor provision was intended to block all financial benefit to any entity wishing to take advantage of it? If it wasn't then Viacom seems to end up having to show that the majority of content on YouTube is infringing somehow, that YouTube knows this and that YouTube encourages it at the expense of encouraging legitimate uses. That's the Grokster standard, IIRC, and I don't think Viacom can do that without a devastating response from Google.

Re:Neither side

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried being on the side of the law in 1955 but everybody stopped riding my bus. :-(

Re:Neither side

[ZachPruckowski]

Congress didn't write the law, the IP barons did. They were the ones who set up the system and got it passed by WIPO and Congress. They came up with the idea of the "safe harbor" provision in the first place to try to make ISPs cooperative, and it's now biting them in the ass.

Re:Neither side

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress wrote the DMCA? Not quite. MPAA lawyers wrote the law. Congress just passed it.

Re:Neither side

[catbutt]

The US legal system is strongly based on case law (a.k.a. common law), where courts have wide discretion in interpreting law, especially when there is no precedent set by a higher court. As opposed to most other places, which are based on statutory law.

So the fact is, the law isn't really known until a decision in this case is reached.

what is cheaper?

[roman_mir]

I wonder if that billion dollars would have been enough to actually buy all of that content from the copyright holders and to assign it to the public domain?

Oh, and the question "Whose side are you on?" can always be properly answered "I am on my side."

Fuck Viacom.

[Tackhead]

And now that we've got the question of "whose side am I on" out of the way...

> On the other side, Jim Louderback, an editor-in-chief of PCMag says that Lance doesn't know what he's talking about: with all the content available online for free, Viacom can kiss those investments goodbye.

On the gripping hand, all of Viacom's content is available online for free by means of high-resolution DiVX-encoded .AVIs by means of .torrents anyways, and Viacom's "investment" isn't worth the share certificates it's printed on.

From an investment perspective, it's more profitable to monetize some of that in the form of ad revenues for the privilege of downloading crappy-resolution .flv videos through YouTube than to monetize none of it at all.

The DMCA is a throwback to the era when "getting web hosting" cost a relative fortune compared to "getting access to the Intertubes". As such, having one's ISP nuke one's self-hosted .mpg or .avi was a reasonable deterrent.

We now live in an age where P2P makes it impossible to "take down" content jointly hosted by dozens of .torrent seeders, and in an age where the number of YouTube users vastly outnumbers the number of copyright lawyers that even Viacom can bring to bear. Google is operating in good faith, and complying with the DMCA. But even their auto-DMCA-takedown-request-bot can't keep up with the fact that for every copy of a video found by a Viacom landshark, there'll be a dozen more fans to replace it. It's a giant game of whack-a-mole, and we all know how well that worked against spammers.

In the meantime, Viacom should be thankful that Joe Sixpack is willing to play whack-a-mole with its landsharks, using YouTube-hosted shitty .flv files as a playing field... rather than playing the same game with other filesharing mechanisms and .mpg and .avi files using codecs more open than Flash.

Oh, and just because I like the sound of it... "fuck Viacom".

Youtube WANTS to damage online video

[Anonymous Coward]

This lawsuit isn't about the shows. It's about damaging online video's popularity. They've seen what the RIAA is going through, and they're trying to nip it in the bud.

Sides? Sides?

[SQL Error]

Never mind sides. I'll be over here selling popcorn.

Google FTW

[R2.0]

Google gets to point to the DMCA takedown provision and say "Look - Congress passed this law with specifically this situation in mind, and we have followed the law." Although Google's libility may not be eliminated by the DMCA, it is a powerful arguement.

I think Viacom is suing for the same reason Google didn't come to an agreement - they both WANT to go to court. Viacom wants that provision of the DMCA struck down, and Google wants it upheld. The "Beeliion" dollars is the sign - it's just a random number to get them into the court room.

Nice summary

[Z0mb1eman]

"Viacom can kiss those investments goodbye."

The summary seems to say that Viacom can kiss (potential?) online video investments goodbye. The PC Magazine article is talking about traditional investments from cable operators which might be lost if the content is available for free online.

"actively allowing uploads"

Well, gee, that sure sounds worse than PASSIVELY allowing something. That phrase is what made me actually go to the article, to see if a PC Magazine editor can possibly use wording like that. (I was actively relieved to find that wording nowhere in the article).

Ahhh, forget it.

Ditto

[mrchaotica]

The choice is very simple. Why? Well, let's go look at the single justification of copyright in the first place:

"To Promote the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts..."

Well, who's "promoting progress" here? YouTube! Therefore, YouTube is right and Viacom is wrong. QED.

Corporate profits or some fictional "entitlement" for copyright holders are irrelevant bullshit.

Re:Ditto

[apathy maybe]

Nicely played.

As I said above, in the current system, copyright should not be more then five (5) years.

Lifetime or greater then lifetime copyright does not encourage creativity. (How the fuck does having a life +50 (+75) encourage an author to write more once they are dead? How does it encourage their inheritors? Fucking corporations.)

I am on neither side

[baomike]

Which ever one first decides to provide some interesting content gets my vote.
In the battle of the inane vs the vacuous there are no winners.

Depends on the judge

[gravesb]

It really depends on the judge. A good judge will look at the DMCA, the Grokster decision, then how much user created content is on YouTube, decide YouTube doesn't actively encourage infringement or rely upon it as a business plan, and will tell Viacom to police YouTube, as is the intent of the DMCA. A bad activist judge will correct this "injustice" and find against Google. Either way, Viacom loses out long term. This is a stupid law suit.

Google is right, Viacom is wrong

[skoaldipper]

The fact that youtube is making a concerted effort to remove that content shows good faith. The fact that youtube needs the protection of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (probably moreso than any other online provider)...

which offers some protection to sites that do not necessarily control the content their customers are posting and, more important, do not know what's being added to their sites. Viacom says YouTube knows. I say Viacom is shooting itself in the foot.

...and that Viacom itself has been shown to be tagging youtube material like that "Steakhouse" home video some slashdotter linked to from a journal entry a while ago.

Lance is right - Viacom is shooting themself in the foot here. What do you expect googletube to do? Viacom themself can't identify their own material properly. What judge wouldn't take that into account? I reckon (a compromise) by some change to googletubes upload policy will help settle this out of court.

bitter much?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Then YouTube turns around to sue a website for copyright infrigement, for allowing you to download the YouTube content - that they don't even own."

Lemme guess, you used to be the owner/member of said website that got owned by google? I remember several sites that would hotlink to youtube content and then place all of their own ads around the youtube video, before youtube stopped them.

This is called pretexting

[dr_strang]

Viacom is suing because they want part of Google, they want a piece of the action.

That's like asking...

[pak9rabid]

...if you're going for the Nazi's or the Allies

Re:That's like asking...

[teh_chrizzle]

that's an excellent point... whom in your opinion would the allies be?

Re:That's like asking...

[iamacat]

Godwin!

Re:That's like asking...

[Fordiman]

I dunno, but I can posit that Viacom is the Empire, and YouTube are the rebel forces.

Hopefully..

[QuantumG]

Google will pay for some lawyers and appeal this all the way to the supreme court who will say "I love YouTube, it's the shit, you fuckers can go spin" and that will be the end of copyright as we know it.

Re:Hopefully..

[apathy maybe]

While I appreciate the sentiment, I doubt that it will happen. Judges are there to enforce the law. The believe in the law (otherwise they would not be appointed). They might side with Google on this one, but it wouldn't be the end of copyright as we know it.

Who ever wins, a corporation wins.

Re:Hopefully..

[QuantumG]

Nothing is black and white in copyright law. All Google has to do is cast a little legal doubt and then the issue is up to the Supremes' discretion. They pretend to be all rational, but they are humans and they let their own personal biases guide their decisions.

google

[atarione]

the safe harbor provisions of the DCMA are pretty clear.

http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi#QID 125

on second thought "clear~ish"

but at the end of the day youtube has been taking down infringing materials when advised of it presence on youtube.

Viacom seems to want to basically destroy the safe harbor provisions of the DCMA.

Re:google

[Stonehand]

Whether it's 'clear' depends on what your definition of 'apparent' is.

There seems to have been a user who was uploading content titled things like

"Survivor - Fiji - Series 14 - Episode 1 - Part 4", tagging it with 'survivor', 'E1S14', et al. Parts 1..4 in length appear to add up to a plausible single episode. Does this make it apparent infringement?

Re:google

[catprog]

What about if someone does their own travel diary called it survivor. And that was their 14 travel destination?

Viacom is misguided

[Cracked Pottery]

They are pulling damage figures out of their ass. If anything the appearance on YouTube increases the appreciation of their programming. Naturally they would like to like to stream them through their own advertiser supported network. Damages should not be an issue, just copyright honoring.

Re:Viacom is misguided

[teh_chrizzle]

They are pulling damage figures out of their ass.

and just where else would you pull estimated damages for unauthorized sharing from?

everyone in the intellectual property business pulls damages out of thier ass... that's standard operating procedure. the IP business is about selling stuff that doesn't really exist... it's stuff you pull it out of your ass and sell to other people. clearly, if someone distributes your imaginary product without your authorization, you can sue them for all of the imaginary sales that you have lost out on. as long as we are working in the realm of the imagination, you might as well imagine big and try to jack google for a billion dollars.

Re:Viacom is misguided

[mcrbids]

everyone in the intellectual property business pulls damages out of thier ass... that's standard operating procedure. the IP business is about selling stuff that doesn't really exist... it's stuff you pull it out of your ass and sell to other people.

Perhaps your tune would change some if you'd spent a full year of your life, working 8-12 hour days pulling a full novel "out of your ass".

clearly, if someone distributes your imaginary product without your authorization, you can sue them for all of the imaginary sales that you have lost out on.

Except that, if you spent a year planning, writing, and editing the book, you'd hardly call it "imaginary". And if it really was imaginary, why would anybody else care to copy it?

Oh wait a minute, it's not imaginary?

as long as we are working in the realm of the imagination, you might as well imagine big and try to jack google for a billion dollars.

Viacom invests many millions of dollars to produce these shows "out of their ass". Clearly, their shit really doesn't stink since so many people want a piece of it. What Viacom should be focusing on, though, is how they can grab the YouTube phenomenon and run with it, rather than try to stop it.

Re:Viacom is misguided

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting in bold and italics makes it TRUE

You may have actually had a point. But I just think you're an abnoxious asshole.

Re:Viacom is misguided

[Stone Pony]

"the IP business is about selling stuff that doesn't really exist... it's stuff you pull it out of your ass and sell to other people"

So true. Because South Park just sort of happens, the individual elements gradually coalescing - in curious defiance of the entropic principle - into a coherent form which can be recognised as a television programme.

Same thing with The Daily Show. John Stewart doesn't actually exist at all: he's a transient phenomenon which just happens to manifest at exactly the right time to interact with the random people who wander in off the street and coincidentally stand in front of the cameras that, purely by chance, are positioned in the building which houses all the production facilities that mysteriously dropped out of the sky one day for no apparent reason.

None of this requires any money to set up. No-one involved needs to be paid, no administrative or creative effort was expended, no costs of any kind accrued. So you're completely right that it's an imaginary product that only a money-grubbing whore could possibly try and profit from.

Well, it's either that or you're a drooling simpleton.

Re:Viacom is misguided

[teh_chrizzle]

Perhaps your tune would change some if you'd spent a full year of your life, working 8-12 hour days pulling a full novel "out of your ass"

i don't have to worry about that. i have a grownup job. i work 8-12 hours a day for assholes and no one will ever ask me for an autograph. if you are so worried about people taking your imaginary product, perhaps you should get a grownup job too, or maybe you should diversify your offerings with stuff that can't be easily duplicated. or better yet, thank your lucky stars that you are able to make a living as a writer and that you don't have to get a grownup job like the rest of us.

let's say that i "steal" your book... as in i tried to pass it off as mine and make money from it. is that really what youtube does? can you really watch a YouTube Productions Ltd. of "Desperate Housewives" in HD quality?

no, you can't. you have to watch shitty clips that are in no particular order. i can see that the TV networks are in real danger.

now, let's say i took your book, and said to everyone i know "mcrbids wrote a cool book and i want you to read it... here take this shitty copy of part of it." if it was a hardcopy book that would be fine, but if it was a PDF the shit would hit the fan.

how can you say, with confidence, that the 10, 100, or 1000 people i gave the PDF to would actually have bought the book before i gave them a digital copy? how many of them would say "thanks! i was just about to pay money for that." you can't, therefore the damages you claim are imaginary.

on the other hand, i can say with relative certainty that if i emailed your book to a thousand people, at least one of them would go out and buy it. especially if it was good enough for me to bother copying and distributing it in the first place.

people treat intellectual property the same way that they treat real property. that's just how it is. you can waste your writing time fighting that battle or you can find a way to capitalize on it. the choice is yours. the only difference between you and viacom is that viacom can afford to sue for billions and all you as an aspiring writer can do is cry about it.

Viacom invests many millions of dollars to produce these shows "out of their ass".

have their ratings suffered? don't they get paid by the networks before the shows go on the air? has some network threatened to drop the show as a result of youtube? won't the shows end up on DVD and in syndication eventually where there are profits from those sales just like every other studio? if anything, viacom can justify raining the price of it's show to the networks thanks to all the buzz on the net over their fabulous shows.

how much money does viacom need to keep producing shows? how much do you need to write a book? is a billion dollars really justified?

is there value in putting your life on hold to create something of value forthe world to enjoy? of course there is. are the people at viacom doing the same thing that the aspiring writer is doing? hell no. they are a huge corporation with billions and they are only interested in making more billions. i'm a little light on sympathy for giant media companies at the moment.

artists need to make livings in order to keep producing, but at some point in the pursuit of a living it stops being about the art and starts being about enriching the lifestyle. it happens to artists and it happens to people with grown up jobs.

i think suing google for a billion dollars is a clear message that it's stopped being about the art for viacom.

Re:Viacom is misguided

[hacksaw5150]

If anything the appearance on YouTube increases the appreciation of their programming.

I'm sure it does but that's not the issue. The issue is YouTube is hosting content that is owned by Viacom, content that YouTube did not ask for permission to use not paid for it.

Re:Viacom is misguided

[Fordiman]

I'm not going to argue your point; it costs money to create content. The problem I see is that Viacom are suing over low-quality clips of their work. As far as I'm concerned, a clip is not infringement; it's free advertising.

No, seriously. When was the last time you saw a full ep of the daily show on YouTube?

Ok, ok. So YouTube is making advert money off these clips. I doubt its as much as Viacom is claiming; their work - their 30 second to ten minute clips make up a tiny portion of YouTube's content.

Re:Viacom is misguided

[teh_chrizzle]

Well, it's either that or you're a drooling simpleton.

i am an oversimpleton thankyouverymuch.

Same thing with The Daily Show. John Stewart doesn't actually exist at all: he's a transient phenomenon which just happens to manifest at exactly the right time to interact with the random people who wander in off the street and coincidentally stand in front of the cameras that, purely by chance, are positioned in the building which houses all the production facilities that mysteriously dropped out of the sky one day for no apparent reason.

those facilities were built for one very apparent reason: to make large amounts of cash for everyone who works there.

it's true that you need a bunch of overpriced shit to make TV shows... why do you think that is?

is it because quality people, facilties and equipment cost lots of money?

is it because those prices are inflated to keep new innovators out of the TV business?

is it because media conglomerates have show business and investment banking ass backwards?

i think the answer is "yes". yes you need money for the best stuff, yes media companies collude to keep prices high and competitors out, yes big media forgot that show business is the business of making shows and not the use of shows to produce tons of money.

i think that viacom sees the writing on the wall and they want to stall the coming new-media induced price war for as long as they can.

the funny thing is... i don't think there will *be* a pricewar. do you think that people are calling and canceling their cable subscriptions and saying "i don't need comedy central, i have youtube!"?? do you think that companies like coke are going to stop advertising on TV and start advertising on youtube?

it's not like youtube clips are cutting into viacoms TV business. their programming gets into more people's hands without costing viacom a dime. it's free promotion. they should be happy that people are bothering to do it for them in the firstplace. it's not like youtube or it's users are saying that the daily show is their creation.

the world of content production is in chaos right now. the old way of using overpriced people, equipment, and facilities to produce a relatively small number of shows is giving way to more efficient methods of production and distribution. just like the gutenburg press replaced the scribe to produce way more copies of the bible that were of significantly lower quality. the fact is that thanks to the internet, content can be produced and distributed by any drooling simpleton. check out youtube sometime, it's full of them.

a glut of low cost, low quality, and low value content is not a direct threat the the existing high priced high quality content market. neither is taking your high cost, high quality, high value content and dumbing it down for the internet. it might cause the consumer to question why there are so many ads, but the 85% of the TV watching world won't notice or care.

Re:Viacom is misguided

[Mr2001]

Perhaps your tune would change some if you'd spent a full year of your life, working 8-12 hour days pulling a full novel "out of your ass". If I had spent a full year of my life working 8-12 hour days to write a book, without anyone having promised to pay me for my time, merely hoping to sell a bunch of copies later, then I'd be an idiot and I'd deserve whatever I got.

See, there are really two fundamental types of work: service and manufacturing.

In a service job, first you come to an agreement with someone about what you'll be doing and how much you'll be paid for it, then you do it, then they pay you for it. If they don't want to pay you an amount you think is fair, then you don't have to do the work at all: you can spend your time doing something else. If you do the work and they don't pay, then since you have a signed contract and you know exactly who's at fault, you can easily take them to court and prove your case. Finally, if everything has gone smoothly and you'd like to get paid some more, you find someone else who wants your service and perform it again for them.

In a manufacturing job, first you make a physical product, then you find a customer who wants it, then you negotiate a price, then you transfer ownership of your product to them in exchange for money. You can get away with doing the work before finding a customer because a physical product can be physically controlled: if the car you just made is stored in a garage, you simply have to keep people from taking it out of the garage before they pay, which is practical thanks to the laws of physics. (Not just practical, but sensible: the product can only be in one place at a time, so someone has to own it. Information, OTOH, doesn't work that way.) And finally, just like before, if you sell your first car and you want to make some more money, you make another car and sell it to someone else.

Some people, however, want to have their cake and eat it too.

They want to pretend they're selling a product, so they do a bunch of work for free and hope to get paid for it later, but they skip the whole bit about controlling their "product" until it's sold: if you broadcast a song over the radio, you're essentially giving free copies away to everyone who owns a radio.

Even worse, they think they're exempt from the basic principle that if you want to get paid again, you work again. They want to write that One Big Hit and milk it for the rest of their lives, eternally selling copies of something they wrote decades earlier. Sorry, but that isn't working, it's gambling.

Viacom is shooting themselves in the foot

[mdvolm]

When there are TV episodes available for free on YouTube (whether sanctioned or not), doesn't this make them more available for people to watch? And if more people watch them, and like them, then doesn't that mean more potential viewership during the actual broadcast, with commercials?

Viacom should just say "thank you" to Google and move on.

Re:Viacom is shooting themselves in the foot

[Anonymous Coward]

Robin Hood isn't a valid defence.

Google/Youtube of course.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

What does CBS/Viacom want? Google doesnt have technology to magically scan pixel patterns and match them up to CBS tv shows when someone uploads a video.

Google takes down material when asked.

It is that simple.

Anything else expected by CBS/Viacom is unreasonable and impossible to do.

Google should just kick CBS and Viacom and all of its properties off of Googles search engine.

BTW CBS was partnered with a search engine for a while. One.com or something like that. I forgot what the hell it was called but you would win points the more you searched which would enter you in a monthly drawing for a million dollars.

Perhaps CBS is just pissed off that their investment was a complete failure thanks to Google's dominating power.

These companies dont get it. Its a new generation of media. Things are different, and laws much adapt as do the companies... to the new way we access and share media. The internet is a lonely place without video, music and text.

Posting a video on Youtube is the way things are, and have evovled. It's not a crime, its a new use of technology. Its a way to say "HEY man.. check out my new audio tape... this song is great" and then you play it for your friend.

Now we can say "hey world.. check this out... i liked it, maybe you will" or "I made this funny edit of wolf blitzer saying stupid things"...

Its just a new world. Laws need to lighten up not tighten down. There's a great benefit to having your video being displayed somewhere. I would think CBS would be greatful for the free publicity, plus the fact that they dont have to invest money to host that on expensive servers with demanding bandwidth expenses.

Its free publicity. Eat it up. Not clamp down

Re:Google/Youtube of course.

[caywen]

"Google doesnt have technology to magically scan pixel patterns and match them up to CBS tv shows when someone uploads a video" There are ways of fingerprinting video content in a reliable way. http://www.business-sites.philips.com/contentident ification/about/article-15207.html So, yes, Google *can* magically scan pixel patterns and match them up. They've got billions of dollars, a huge supply of PhD's and coders, and immense amounts of hardware. They even have a "don't be evil" mantra, which never seems to specify a "to".

Re:Google/Youtube of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Its a new generation of media"

Yeah, right. A new generation of crappy flash9 home videos...

Re:Google/Youtube of course.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I understand you can detect those silly code dots they put in etc.. but i'm thinking any automatic pixel pattern detector will have a hard time with the compression. Plus it would need to reference a constant updated database of all media because companies would want to use their own codes per show/movie so they can use that data to figure out how and what to sell to us :)

Do you upload the video to youtube as flash? or does youtube convert from mpg,dv, avi to flash for you?

Re:Google/Youtube of course.

[karnowski]

> Anything else expected by CBS/Viacom is unreasonable and impossible to do.

If it's so impossible then how is it that YouTube is so successful with keeping off porn? Google could employ staff to analyze uploaded content before it was made available (they may do already) and make a judgement on whether it's likely to be infringing or not. It will never be perfect, some infringing material will get through and some non-infringing material maybe rejected, but it's a reasonable effort that I think the courts are going to require of Google.

Schadenfraude, anyone?

[R2.0]

Yeah, Google is SOOOO stupid they didn't se this coming, when everyone and his retarded sister was publishing pieces on it.

Or

Google has a plan, and it's a feasible one, and you are just pissed off because you're not bright enough to figure it out, much less work at Google.

Re:Schadenfraude, anyone?

[SeattleGameboy]

Nobody ever plans for a $1 billion lawsuit against them.

I don't care how rich the company is.

Re:Schadenfraude, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do if you know you can win.

In which case it wouldn't matter if you were sued for a hojillion billion dollars.

Falling for the *IAA Cool-Aid

[Mike Kelly]

What happened to "Fair Use"? If there's a relevant passage in a book, can I not quote it? Is Viacom complaining about entire episodes or just small portions. For example, if there's a bit about John Stewart ripping on D. Chaney, I don't see the difference between that and quoting a Shakespeare soliloquy (well... one is written better...)

Besides, if it's a good bit, wouldn't I want to see more? Isn't that free advertising?

Re:Falling for the *IAA Cool-Aid

[stratjakt]

Entire episodes, entire movies.

This will escalate past viacom, the rest of the MPAA players will get involved. I'm thinking they don't want word to get out in the media that you can watch practically any movie on-demand on youtube.

Porn videos on youtube are purged right-quick, with no notice from any copyright holder. Obviously they check all the content as its put on.

Google knows when it's seeing something thats obviously a commercial work. There's no reason for them to allow full length hollywood movies to be posted, except for their profit.

Re:Falling for the *IAA Cool-Aid

[Stonehand]

What happened to "Fair Use"? If there's a relevant passage in a book, can I not quote it? Is Viacom complaining about entire episodes or just small portions. For example, if there's a bit about John Stewart ripping on D. Chaney, I don't see the difference between that and quoting a Shakespeare soliloquy (well... one is written better...)


Entire. And uploading content to a popular public network is wide-scale distribution and public performance. "Fair use" has some limits, you know -- it's not a blanket license to do anything so long as you're not directly charging money, despite the fact that many Slashdotters think otherwise. Go see Stanford's site on it.

Besides, if it's a good bit, wouldn't I want to see more? Isn't that free advertising?

It's not really legal to rip the fourth consecutive hamburger out of the hands of a morbidly obese stranger and throw it on the floor, either, even if it's good for them.

youtube will prevail

[N3wsByt3]

Youtube has carrier status, which means it isn't responsable for the content third parties put on it. According to USA law, it has to remove copyrighted material when it's notified about it by the copyrightholder. It's long been established by the courtsthat one can't sue carriers for what others do with it; you have to sue those who actually put it there (and carriers only need to act when notified about the infringement.

What people might think off, in regard with succesfully sueing a carrier, was in the latest Supreme court decision, which noted that a P2P-program was at fault for copyright-infringement. However, that case was validated with the specific reasoning that (the people behind) the P2P-system *actively* promoted copyright-infringement (e.g.they said 'use us for illegal downloads', etc.). It was not a matter of holding a carrier responsable because it was used for illegal purposes, but it was it's purported goal.

This case is different, since youtube does not actively supports illegal material to be put on there; the question of 'does it do enough?' has no bearing on it, just like Sony v. Universal Studios (aka the Betamax case). What remains is, that youtube has to delete all copyright-infringements it get notified of, just like all other internet- and webproviders/services.

Since youtube is supported by google, they have the muscle to fight back - and win the case. Of course, changes are that, along the line, they well cut a deal which makes both parties happy, and save the legal costs.

Bah, I told Google this would happen b4 youtube

[CrazyJim1]

I told them they should be in the buisness of obtaining media rights to do on demand style television online. I told them online video is the next big thing. If Google loses this lawsuit, it will show I was right in two ways. :)

I'm not on anyone's side though, it's an interesting case if you look at it. For example a Slashdot poster's comments has no affiliation with Slashdot. But what if a Slashdot poster started posting links to free DVDs you can burn on your home computer? Is Slashdot at fault for allowing a forum for that to happen, or is it the poster... Makes you think.

Whose side are you on?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on whose side the terrorists are.

"Reparations"

[Atario]

Translation:

If they're dumb: "total universal control"

If they're smart: "a piece of YouTube's action"

Wrong

[RingDev]

Napster got nailed not because they allowed users to share pirated bits. They got nailed because they ADVERTISED that fact. P2P sharing is not illegal. Setting up a service that advertises and knowingly facilitates pirating IS. YouTube is not advertised as a place to go for pirated videos, it is advertised as a place for individuals to post videos, and they are actively working to prevent permitted copy written material from appearing.

If that distinction does not hold up in court (or if a deal is not worked out prior to judgment) then it could set up a dangerous precedent that would likely soon lead to the RIAA going after P2P networks, open FTP servers, IRC servers, Usenet, etc... instead of individuals.

-Rick

pleh, type-o

[RingDev]

"...working to prevent permitted copy written material from appearing"

should read

"...working to prevent unpermitted copy written material from appearing"

Makes a little more sense that way.

-Rick

Shark Jumping

[camperdave]

I would be more interested in knowing if Google has jumped the shark?

Google is (for me) first and foremost a search engine, quick loading and accurate. Secondly, it is a source of maps. As long as Google does those two things, it will never need to jump a shark to hold my interest. I don't use it for email, or document processing, or video, or any of the dozen+ secondary functions that Google offers (except for the unit conversion/calculator tool, but that's integrated into the search).

Re:Shark Jumping

[apathy maybe]

Pretty much for me also. Except I just use the search (and sometimes News, but that is basically an extension of search).

I use Yahoo (and others) for email (two accounts from 1998 and 1999), OpenOffice.org and Abiword for document processing and so on.

I "need" Yahoo to exist (for the two mentioned email accounts), but I don't need Google. They provide a nice search engine that is fairly accurate, but I'm thinking about moving to Yahoo. Why? I've been moving around a bit recently, Sweden, Switzerland. But I only speak (and read) English. And the Firefox search bar defaults to google.com which directs you to a country based Google. Which is fucking annoying.
(For those who don't know, you can actually modify the search from the address bar to go where you want. So I could use it to goto google.co.uk, but I actually use it for a metasearch. I want to know how the fuck I modify the Search bar search!)

Re:Shark Jumping

[HardCorePawn]

If you're using Firefox 2, you can create your own OpenSearch Plugin.

I was lazy, and couldnt be bothered doing it myself, so I used IE7 Add search providers functionality... and clicked on the 'View XML' link.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
<ShortName>GoogleUK</ShortName>
<Description>GoogleUK provider</Description>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding><Url type="text/html" template="http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&amp ;q={searchTerms}&amp;meta="/>
</OpenSearchDescrip tion>

Note that /. is screwing with the code above, so it may not work if you copy/paste, and that firefox doesnt seem to want to open the 'View XML' link... but IETab fixes that problem. You can also add a fancy little icon by following the format on the OpenSearch page linked above

Then you just put the XML into the searchplugins directory... something like (if you're using Windows):

C:\Documents and Settings\[UserName]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[ProfileName]\search plugins

And Robert is your mother's brother.

Re:Shark Jumping

[apathy maybe]

Thanks, I'll look into it.

Stupid timer.

Short clips are fair use...

[FunWithKnives]

One thing that many seem to be forgetting is that short excerpts are defined as fair-use. I believe that if Viacom actually does succeed with this lawsuit, it will set a very bad precedent. The majority of videos that have been taken down so far have been short clips, and thus fair-use compliant. I actually tried in vain recently to look up the clip of John Stewart's take on Senator "Series of Tubes" Stevens and Net Neutrality. It has been taken down (probably many times), and yet I am fairly certain that it would fall within the boundaries of fair-use.

I support the removal of full content, such as movies. It does not make a difference if they are chopped up into ten minute segments or not, because it is quite simple to put the full movie back together again. Regarding full television shows, though, I am still unsure. I believe that the boundary is blurred at that point. However, short clips of shows or movies should not by any means be removed. It does not matter if it is in order to placate the parent corporation or not. I hope that Google makes this one of the cornerstones of their defense, and really drives it home that fair-use is actively being usurped.

Re:Short clips are fair use...

[TodMinuit]

One thing that many seem to be forgetting is that short excerpts are defined as fair-use.

No, they're not.

Re:Short clips are fair use...

[yali]

One thing that many seem to be forgetting is that short excerpts are defined as fair-use.

No they're not. The amount of a work that you use is only one of four factors that go into defining something as fair use. Other considerations include transformative value - for example, using a piece of someone else's work in order to comment on it or parody it. Most of the kind of clips you're talking about aren't transformative at all -- the meaning and significance of 2 minutes of Jon Stewart online is largely the same as those same 2 minutes within the context of a 30 minute show.

Re:Short clips are fair use...

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck them both, We will still get the audio and video we want.

Re:Short clips are fair use...

[zipwow]

How much "commenting" is required? If I upload 2 minutes of Jon Stewart with "OMG, this RULZ", is that enough? What if I say, "This was one of the funniest, and saddest, clips of the last several months"?

What I'm driving at here is that the article you link to (as all articles about fair use) reads more like how to prepare for a jury trial than it does about how to obey the law.

-Zipwow

Re:Short clips are fair use...

[Anonymous Coward]

What about comments people put under the clip?

Re:Short clips are fair use...

[Cyno]

Then why is it legal for me to time-shift Jon Stweart on my Tivo at home and show it to my friends?

They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want laws so strict that its technically illegal for me to even show content to my family, yet have me agree that these laws are somehow sane. When technology reached a point so I could have a movie library on my fileserver they give us a new law, the DMCA, to prevent us from "stealing" their content, even after we have paid for it.

How is redistributing "news" clips not educational? Is the point of copyright to protect each and every second of audio, video and thought that goes into a product? Why do we allow people to repeat what is said on TV? Its all high value copyrighted media that belongs to a few large corporations who we should love for giving us the privelege of purchasing a few minutes of their most popular content at premium prices. They even tell us what is popular and who we should watch. It seems to me like they only want me watching Jon Stewart on pay per view, or steal it from a friend who has cable, but only if we don't fast forward through the commercials.

Besides, I'm finding people on youtube more entertaining than Comedy Central:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDHN1gBkx0M

YouTube is cool, check out the reply videos and schtuff. People are awesome!

Re:Short clips are fair use...

[bungatron]

Comments provide transformative value. Recontectualising video clips in groups to infer and collate new meaning is transformative value. The broadcasters could set up an initiative to do this, but they haven't. I say power to youtube for providing this functionality, amongst everything else it provides, for free.

Google's unbelievable stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

They must have known this was coming, yet bought YouTube anyway. What were they thinking? I could not understand why they bought them at the time, as this was so obviously going to be the result. How will this benefit Google? I must be missing something, or perhaps the folks at Google just aren't as clever as I thought they were. There's got to be something we don't know. Perhaps Viacom interests have concealed control of Google?

Who should Win? We should Win.

[Gonarat]

My knee-jerk reaction is to say that Google should win, put I think this case needs to be looked at closer -- this is a good example of the future meeting the past.

On Google's side:

They are complying with the DMCA takedown notices. The problem is, as soon as one takedown is done, another copy goes up under another title or user name. It is like playing whack-a-mole.

Not all of the content is simply copies of content available on the air. I have seen some well done "Music Videos" (i.e. Clips from different movies/TV shows set to various songs) and some interesting stuff like the (fake) Titanic II film promo.

YouTube video is low quality. I would rather watch a full TV show on a real TV set rather than YouTube.

Google is in business to make money.

On Viacom's side:

The material does belong to them. Having to keep issuing takedown notices is a pain in the ass, and takes up a lot of time and money.

From Jim Louderback, also of PC Mag - Jim's Column - Providers such Viacom have agreements with Cable and Satellite providers stating that only x% of their programming can be on line (x is typically 10% or less), so having all of this video online could open them up to breach of contract.

They are in the business to make money.

On My Side:

It is good to have access to content without a lot of restrictions. Like it or not, content put out by Viacom, the RIAA, et. al. becomes part of our culture, and should not be totally locked up. The problem is, where should the line be drawn? I think Viacom should allow clips and derived content, but I can understand wanting to keep some sort of control over it.

I want as much content as possible for as little money as possible (I already pay for Internet and Satellite, so I have access to most of the Viacom channels)

Solutions?

So what is the best solution? There has to be some happy medium where everyone can get at least some of what they want. The RIAA has been fighting p2p for at least seven years now, and has nothing to show for it but declining revenues and increasing hatred by the public. Why would Viacom and/or Google want to end up in the same boat? If Viacom wins, they will look as greedy as the RIAA and the public will find other places to post content. If Google wins, Viacom et. al. will just lobby for changes in the DMCA, which already stinks enough as it is. So what to do --

1. Settle this suit by Google offering Viacom a reasonable payment to cover posting of material. At the resolution that YouTube uses, neither Viacom or the Cable/Satellite industry should suffer. Most people would rather watch shows on a nice TV instead of a small YouTube window.

2. Figure out a way to end the content wars once and for all. This includes the RIAA's ongoing war against p2p and along with the YouTube crap that is going on also. It is time to quit suing and put the Lawyers to work actually doing something constructive for once in their lives -- fixing copyright so that it works in the Internet era. This may involve a small monthly fee along with my DSL bill -- I wouldn't mind paying $5 to $10 per month to allow for legal p2p downloads, YouTube viewing, etc. Forget DRM -- it just penalizes your customers and doesn't stop "piracy" anyway.

The market has changed, and resisting change isn't working. It is time to quit trying to turn back the clock, and time to move forward. The VCR didn't kill the Movie Industry (quite the opposite -- take that Jack V), quit bitching and get to work. Otherwise, Viacom, the RIAA, et. al. will end up committing slow suicide.

Your call guys.

Rant over.

Betamax decision?

[riceboy50]

I think YouTube is probably covered by safe harbor clause in the DMCA that has been mentioned by others, but to a lesser extent they are probably going to be helped by the Betamax precedent which stated that video recorders offered substantial non-infringing uses and are therefore admissible. The difference was that Napster had almost zero non-infringing uses.

Well Exactly!

[NickFortune]

I agree. It's not a simple either/or question. Does Viacom have a right to protect its copyrights? Yes! Is one billion dollars in damages sensible, sane, or in any way indicative of the damage to Viacom's earnings? Absolutely not. I mean they could protect their copyrights with a simple injunction and a token payment to cover legal fees. But no, they've got to go all SCO and look for a billion dollar settlement.

And for that sort of money, you have to suspect that they're after more than just getting their stuff removed. I don't know whether it's just greed, dislike of Google or that they want to destroy YouTube. But I have to say that I don't really care.

As far as I'm concerned, Viacom's IP isn't worth one billion dollars of anyone's money and for them to win would be a serious miscarriage of justice. IMHO, YMMV and IANAL; but if TFA wants to know who's side I'm on, then that's who, and that's why.

Now if Viacom want to drop the amount they're suing for to something that makes sense in this parallel universe, then I might change my mind. Otherwise, Go Google!

Re:Well Exactly!

[bismark.a]

Not that I disagree that a billion dollars is huge money, but I beg to differ about indicative damage.

Let me tell you a story. Imagine a store selling stolen televisions for dirt cheap on the high street. Millions of them. Even if they claim to have bought it in the first place from their clients before reselling it to their other clients, are they lawfully doing legal business?

Before we take this analogy to the digital "UGC", first I want to add my doubts that *most* of the so called "User Generated" content derived from media, has anything useful done by the user on it. And secondly, if you create a new Porsche, from stolen parts of other Porsches, does that make your Porsche legal? No? What about if you rent Porsches and then chop yourself a new Porsche from its parts? Is that one at least legally okay?

Now lets take this analogy to the User Generated content. Lets leave the fact that 99% of all main stream media derived "UG" content is actually just copyright theft by the "User". If an artist (or his agent) sells his art (or music, movie ...) to the masses, we as a society grant the artist copyright, to encourage them to publish and distribute their art. This right enables them to make a living out of creating (or managing the creation) of their art, and benefits the society as a whole, in being able to enjoy the artists' creation without requiring his presence.

Do the 1% (or less) of the masses, have a right to deny the artist (or their agent) their means of livelihood, by using their content, and/or depriving them an opportunity of publish or license their content for similar usage, just because they bought their song on iTunes for a buck? I don't think so.

Now, lets put aside all this DCMA protection, and copyright related spin http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-725609124 7456149593 that people like Dr. Lawrence Lessig want to (or are paid to) spread. Would you want to have high street stores selling dirt cheap stolen televisions on a mass scale and get away with it? Would any sane person buy their argument that the store only bought these televisions from their clients, who did not want it anymore. And that if they are proven to be stolen, then they would remove them from sale. And that the onus of checking that the television is stolen is not on the store, but the poor chap who was mugged? Just imagine if you were mugged like this, then how many such stores you will have to visit and scan to find your old TV.

Now someone please tell me why the hell should Google (however cool their products may be) get away with copyright infringement, conveniently done for them by their "users", supposedly under the pretext of a DCMA?

I say, slap them with a billion here, and many more billions to come. (Then I can buy those bloody GOOG shares in peace :-), and for cheap. Or maybe not ...)

Re:Well Exactly!

[InfoVore]

Absolutely not. I mean they could protect their copyrights with a simple injunction and a token payment to cover legal fees. But no, they've got to go all SCO and look for a billion dollar settlement.

And for that sort of money, you have to suspect that they're after more than just getting their stuff removed.

And like SCO, their real goal isn't to remove their copyrighted works from the hands of others. Their real goal is to force Google into a settlement that leeches off a steady stream of cash from Google. I'm sure that along the way they will hint to Google that they would consider dropping the lawsuit if Google licensed their copyrighted content for use on YouTube. They will put on some bizarre restrictions that will make the cable companies happy. The Billion Dollars is just the opening high bid.

If Google is smart (like IBM in the SCO case), they won't bite and they will let their lawyers drag it out until the bitter end.

-I.V.

Re:Well Exactly!

[Oligonicella]

"Their real goal is to force Google into a settlement that leeches off a steady stream of cash from Google."

Just like Google is leeching a steady stream of cash off of their products. Unfair, how?

Re:Well Exactly!

[catprog]

Are you advocating a system where if you get sold something YOU have to contact anyone who may of had it stolen before you do anything about iy.

Re:Well Exactly!

[NickFortune]

Imagine a store selling stolen televisions for dirt cheap on the high street. Millions of them. Even if they claim to have bought it in the first place from their clients before reselling it to their other clients, are they lawfully doing legal business?

First of all, you'll notice that I'm not arguing that no law has been broken. Secondly, theft is a different crime, and different laws apply.Thirdly the situation is not comparable; if your high street store is selling a copy of my television, and I still have the fully functional original, then I'm probably not going to get too bent out of shape over it. Doubly so if they're selling tiny low qality copies of my television.

Do the 1% (or less) of the masses, have a right to deny the artist (or their agent) their means of livelihood,

You know I'm trying to imagine someone saying "Dude! No way am I buying the next season of CSI on DVD. Not when YouTube has five minutes from the middle of a random episode in all its grainy, compressed, low-res glory". I can't see it happening, somehow.

I say, slap them with a billion here, and many more billions to come.

Right! Because they... because... You know, now I think on it, you never did get around to making the case as to why that figure was even remotely justified, You just rehashed some tired old RIAA trolls, rolled out a couple of sloppy, emotive analogies, and then dropped in your opinion as if it logically followed.

Sorry, no sale.

Re:Well Exactly!

[MeNeXT]

It's called a pawn shop.

What I like is how you throw "stores selling dirt cheap stolen" in there. You have convicted them before you even started your argument. There is more none commercial content on Youtube than there is "stolen" material.

What gets my goat is that we have Disney who can go and "steal" dirt cheap material and profit from it. What people fail to mention is that all the art which is coming out today is based on societies collective past. Artists are given the right to create work and they should profit from it. Why don't we extend these rights to all. The secretary who created those form letters. The plumber who repaired your house in order for you to sell it. Why do they only get paid once?

I have Peter Pan on VHS. Did I not pay for the license? Why do I need to pay for the full license to the DVD and then again for Blue-Ray and again for HD-DVD? Is it the license or the product that I'm paying for?

We have come to place more value on this abstract stuff than we do our own health. Show me doctors who have amassed similar wealth as some artists.

Our generation has sold our children's heritage. Could you see them creating a Cinderella story which will not be challenged by Disney?

I say, granted I do not have much sway, that if Viacom wishes to retain all, then they need not release it. Another option is to invent it from scratch. The roads, the film, the stories, the language, and everything else they use that others who have come before them created.

We need to roll back copyright to 10 years of protection, or so. You've made your money now let others benefit from your work as you benefited from the work of others.

Re:Well Exactly!

[Anonymous Coward]

Although 'leeching money' is always a good motivation, I'd expect Viacom to have a more strategic reason to sue Google for this.

I think their motivation is very clear: they want to kill the Youtube business model.

The original Youtube got out of the liability issues, like Napster, by selling to a bidder with deep pockets before they got sued out of existence. More importantly than the billion dollars in cash, a victory on this lawsuit would make the Youtube model of ad-supported video distribution unviable for parties outside of the existing content production/distribution clique.

Even if they settle for substantially less, with a precedent where Google lost/settled, no business would want to buy or build a system for user-provide content like Youtube. Controlling user-uploaded content tight enough to avoid such liability would become too expensive / unviable. They'd make deals with content co's (like Viacom) and provide videos from those traditional sources, and control of content distribution would go back to the same old hands.

I think they want their 'future' back. They want Internet video/tv on-demand to be as they have envisioned (and not implemented) since the early 90s, back when 'broadcaster' and 'viewer' were clearly delineated.

Re:Well Exactly!

[Anonymous Coward]

But then Viacom are getting free advertising from YouTube, so they should pay for that.

And so you get a huge amount of farting around with paper money chits to find out that there's no money moving just friction with everyone taking their cut.

Re:Well Exactly!

[bismark.a]

Are you advocating a system where if you get sold something YOU have to contact anyone who may of had it stolen before you do anything about iy. When we buy music, movies and other media, what we are sold is the right to use it for personal use. Not republish it on you tube for Google to please 100 million users a day and make big bucks on rising profits and stock prices.

Re:Well Exactly!

[bismark.a]

the situation is not comparable; if your high street store is selling a copy of my television, and I still have the fully functional original, then I'm probably not going to get too bent out of shape over it. Doubly so if they're selling tiny low qality copies of my television. Hey, the television owner here is not the person who buys songs for personal use for a buck on iTunes. It is the artist who puts his life long effort at getting good at what he does and bringing it to you for your personal use *only*.

And the theft (or what you want to euphemise as only *copyright infringement*, which is just another name for theft of copyright) does affect the rights of the artist to publish the content himself in whatever manner he pleases. For instace, refer the case of small pictures on Google News that Google *lost*. And fair use is a sensible thing, but in real fair use, the owner of the copyright is often attributed with a due reference. It stops where entire songs or clips or movies are available for 100 million users, and only removed if the owner actually runs through 100 hoops to raise a flag about his content being pirated.

You know I'm trying to imagine someone saying "Dude! No way am I buying the next season of CSI on DVD. Not when YouTube has five minutes from the middle of a random episode in all its grainy, compressed, low-res glory". I can't see it happening, somehow. Yes, but those five *interesting* minutes from the middle of a random episode in all its whatever form are not Googles property to publish. And is it fair use? I think not, because those collection of 5 minutes of clips can be marketed and made for profit, which is not Google's for free keeps.

As a corrollary, do you think Google or anybody else can fill their site with such 5 minutes for all the movies in the world and get away with it? Just because the users upload the copyright infringing content on GOogle's site, does not mean that Google is not liable for hosting it for 100 million people to use it.

Re:Well Exactly!

[TapeCutter]

Yep, copyright is a "Mickey Mouse" system! Every school in the nation should have a MM club where kids turn up in pirated MM clothes and reads aloud from "Through the looking glass".

"Show me doctors who have amassed similar wealth as some artists."

Dr. Evil, but I think he's on their side.

Re:Well Exactly!

[NickFortune]

Hey, the television owner here is not the person who buys songs for personal use for a buck on iTunes. It is the artist who puts his life long effort at getting good at what he does and bringing it to you for your personal use *only*.

Exactly. It's a bad analogy.

Yes, but those five *interesting* minutes from the middle of a random episode in all its whatever form are not Googles property to publish. And is it fair use? I think not

Is it worth a billion dollars? I think not.

Re:Well Exactly!

[AbbyNormal]

And CD Burner companies, and VCR companies, and harddrive companies and microphone companies and camera phone companies.
YouTube is a tool. They are complying with existing laws and all take down notices.

Re:Well Exactly!

[catprog]

So what your solution for taking the infringing media off youTube.

According to your stolen TV analogy when something is uploaded Google has to go to everyone and ask if that work is infringing. And that is for every item.

Re:Well Exactly!

[InfoVore]

I didn't say it was unfair. I said if I was Google, I would drag it out in the courts. Exactly where did you read in the unfair part? Its business. Fair/unfair has nothing to do with it.

Two giants are about to start beating on each other. Best to stay out from underfoot.

- I.V.

Re:Side? What side?

[Anonymous Coward]

One multinational corporation vs. another multinational corporation. Why should I care?

This is known as the "I had lasagna" side.

Here's my view of the situation

[91degrees]

Google have offered a deal to Viacom. Viacom have rejected the deal.

It's unlikely that people are choosing low quality segments of video on Youtube rather than watching broadcast quality shows on television. The impact on Viacom is small.

Maybe Google didn't offer a reasonable amount. Maybe this lawsuit is just part of the negotiation. Both sides know it could backfire horribly.

Google are profiting indirectly from the infringement. The DMCA safe harbor provisions may still be enough to protect them. It would seem unreasonable that the onus is on YouTube to prove that every single clip it shows is licenced by the copyright holder. I believe courts can use reasonableness as a factor in interpreting laws.

Google are in a much better position than Napster, since despite Viacom's Rhetoric, there's a decent amount of user created content there.

If Viacom lose, then Youtube has no reason to offer them any substantial deal.

I know enough not to speculate too much on how court cases will go. They can be unpredictable. Personally I want YouTube to win. Otherwise the service may end up non-viable, and video-clip on demand is a useful service.

Algorithm for copyright detection

[aeschenkarnos]

Has anyone come up with an algorithm with which to determine whether a given video clip breaches copyright law (taking account of fair use defenses)? How about one to determine if a given picture is porn or not?

Thought not. Viacom is essentially asking Google to do something that is impossible.

Re:Algorithm for copyright detection

[Stonehand]

Fair use defenses are going to be largely obliterated by public-performance, commercial impact, and general lack of anything that qualifies as fair-use (such as transformation or criticism).

Also, do you really need an algorithm to decide that something tagged
"" "ExSy" might possibly be Episode X of Season Y of PTS when the title also says "Popular Television Show - Episode X, Season Y, Part 1" ?

Tired of the legal boilshhet !

[Anonymous Coward]

I have told creators of "intellectual property" for many, many years that if they don't want their work copied, shared, modified, distributed, enhanced and/or appropriated by others, they have no other choice but to keep their work to themselves. It's not "fair", but it's reality. If you're dumb enough to show your work to other people, then you lose the right to cry when it gets "stolen".

Let me make this clear - there is no such thing as "intellectual property" beyond the limits and definition of the law ... and the law is an ass. Law is ink on paper. Law is worthless. Law is more changeable than the weather and more malleable than warm butter. An idea cannot and will not be owned, ever, anywhere, by anyone ... and no legitlation will ever change that fact.

If it's "out here", then it's free to consume by anyone hungry enough to reach out and take it. If you think you "own" what you just tossed into the open, then you're too stupid to breed.

Flame me. I dare you.

Whose side?

[Nom du Keyboard]

Whose side? Screw Viacom. Once they're broadcast it over free television, they're not allowed to restrict or charge for it again. Clear enough?

Re:Whose side?

[TodMinuit]

Once they're broadcast it over free television, they're not allowed to restrict or charge for it again

WOW! I didn't know we could come up with laws out of our ass!

I deem it illegal to speak the word "flauga". So shall it be written, so shall it be done!

Just another completely friviolous lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Where would we be without frivolous lawsuits? Well, the coffee at McDonald's would not be cold anymore. But anyway.

This is nothing but a frivolous lawsuit. If Viacom were interested at all in making money from the content, they would sell it. But no. They do not. The only way to get so much of this stuff, at all, is from Youtube.

Well, there is a good chance that Viacom might end up effectively lying in the courtroom enough to get Youtube censored. I suggest that you download your favorite stuff off of there before it is gone.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong CLEAR TO ME

[Nom du Keyboard]

but this is pretty clear cut

What's clear to me is that, if they could, Viacom and the rest of the industry would like to charge you every single time you ever watched a piece of their content. They haven't managed to yet devise a successful system to accomplish this (remember DIVX DVD's, or RCA SelectVision videodiscs that actually wore out on use), but they have never given up on this dream. And these kind of lawsuits are just more small steps along the path to the Utopia of having full control over every second of music, and every frame of film forever.

Half and half

[damista]

I'm in two minds. On one hand, I can understand Viacom wanting to protect its "property". On the other hand, music video are ads for the artists and they should be happy about some free advertisments. Also, why did Viacom not sue YouTube before they were bought by Google? Because they knew there wasn't much to get? Now where Google owns YouTube, there's a lot of money make. This practice reminds me of patent trolls, who only start enforcing their "intellectual property" once a product is established and successful, in other words: As soon as there's money to be made.
 
Not licenced content on YouTube is nothing new. The discussions about it have been going on way before Google took over YouTube and if Viacom claims they weren't aware of it until now, they're lying.
 
Considering this, I hope the case gets thrown out of court, setting a signal to others to make their claims when they become aware of the violation of their rights and not when it starts getting worth claiming.

Viacom

[JackMeyhoff]

Google was asked to take them down, they didnt, now they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. If Viacom win this, this is just 1 billion, then watch the other media companies follow suit, GOOG stock is going to plumet when that happens and thus their market capital. Viacom has licensed their content to Joost, and thus they need to protect that agreement and their licenses. If google cannot manage their service, perhaps they shouldnt be in that market? It is rather arrogant if Google and fanbase just think they can get away with it. What is their defence? Purchasing power wont work with Viacom now. They kindly asked Google to comply, now they bring out a bigger bat to play ball. "Im sorry your honour, thats not my stolen car car in the garage that I was polishing and waxing then locked the doors".

Re:Viacom

[JackMeyhoff]

"car car" yes yes I I know know.

Take the Public's Side.

[twitter]

The courts will find that Viacom has been wronged, that Google has not done enough to protect the rights of copyright holders, and that Google owes Viacom reparations.

"Reparations"? I suppose the copyright warriors think they are at war. I just wish they would defend their own best interests instead of big dumb companies that have nothing to do with them. "Rights of copyright holders," they must think they are freedom fighters too. The double talk is thick here.

Viacom and other large publishers have and continue to harm the public though outrageous copyright laws and greed. Most of the shows should already belong to the public and Viacom should be ashamed that someone else managed to make money off of it while they sat on their ass. There's obviously a large demand for the works, and Viacom should have been making money off of it ten years ago instead of being afraid for their cable TV franchises which have not really suffered at all.

100 year copyrights are absurd and most of their "investments" should already be public domain. The original makers knew the content would belong to the public sooner than later and made their shows and their money anyway. Those who have "invested" in content that has been retroactively "protected" deserve to be burnt. They want to own your culture and decide who can use it to express themselves, fuck them.

At the same time, it's pathetic that Viacomm and other publishers have not come up with a business model better than suing the crap out of others. What do they tell their investors, "Teh people at Google are the smart and we are the dumb but we will make it back though lots of litigation"? Where's the Viacomm download channel for people who just have to have 20 year old music videos?

Anyway you look at this issue, Viacomm is a loser and they have harmed not just their investors but the public at large. The public has had enough of it and is routing around the damage with free content. That free content competition is the real target of this lawsuit.

Obligatory Fistful of Dollars quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Viacom on the one side, Google on the other, and me right square in the middle. Crazy bellringer was right, there's money to be made in a suit like this.

Too bad IANAL. :)

Re:Your analogy does not fit at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's okay, Anonymous Coward. We understand you're a retard and can't comprehend the original poster's reasonable analogy.

It is not google's right

[caywen]

The silliest arguments I have been reading are things like "Viacom benefits from YouTube, therefore Google isn't doing anything wrong" and "the copyright holders can request to have the stuff removed, so what's the big deal?"

It's not Google's right to index/distribute/host copyrighted content without consent. They want an opt-out model for copyright holders rather than opt-in, which is pretty shady.

BTW, I don't buy for 1 second that a company with that much brainpower, cash, and tech prowess can't prevent copyrighted videos from entering their system. They should ask CNET how they prevent pirated software from entering Download.com.

Re:It is not google's right

[tomstdenis]

Simple, moderate the damn thing. It'll also cut down on the rampantly stupid "kids try to kill themselves" stunt videos [*]. Thus cleaning up the scene.

[*] They should package those up and sell them as a premium package or something.

Tom

Re:It is not google's right

[caywen]

Right, exactly. Moderation would reduce the infractions down to manageable levels for copyright holders and avoid this whole mess. But I suspect that Google is afraid of having its $1.6B investment turned into a tremendously overpriced ebaumsworld.com.

Re:It is not google's right

[penguinoid]

The silliest arguments I have been reading are things like "Viacom benefits from YouTube, therefore Google isn't doing anything wrong" and "the copyright holders can request to have the stuff removed, so what's the big deal?"

Because part of the fair use guidelines include how the derivative work affects the work in question.

And because of the structure of the DMCA and because Google is not posting the content themselves, so long as they take down content within the legal limits when given an "opt-out" (takedown request) they are free of responsibility.

Re:It is not google's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be silly. They have consent! Google goes by the model that all the video is copyrighted. The people who submit it claim that *they* are the copyright holder or have permission of the copyright holder. Viacom is claiming that users/copyright holders who submit their videos to google should not be taken at their word, i.e. that the consent is invalid. When you consider that SCO has been in ligitation for what seems forever to work out what copyrights are theirs and what are others, it would be crazy to expect a computer program to be able to work out who the owner of some bits is.

Re:It is not google's right

[Cyno]

Viacom has to provide evidence that Google has damaged them to the sum of $1.2 billion. Somehow I suspect the damages to be a lot less, if any. Google is distributing, at best, lesser quality time-shifted copies. I doubt anyone can claim their flash based player competes with the experience of from the original DVD. And that is the only content Viacom distributes that has any value, IMO. Google/YouTube isn't distributing many full length movies last time I checked. The only ones I've seen are old or potentially out of copyright / free to distribute in their respective countries, etc.

I just think this whole world-wide economy with copyrights and patents and laws is a bit too complex for some old-timers to get a grip on. The local laws may not apply everywhere. Google's content comes from everywhere. They even put up blocks to prevent some content from crossing borders that might fall in a legal gray area, covered by copyright treaties and such, what more can we ask? That they simply stop distributing all content until its owner is verified and contacted for approval? I guess the alternative might be for them to simply link to the content that can be served from their respective countries and let Viacom sue each of the posters individually.. somehow I think Viacom prefers attacking Google directly for profit. Doubt many posters have $1.2 billion to pay for the damages they must be causing.

A possible hint

[camperdave]

Type about:config into the address bar. This brings up all of Firefox's configuration. Somewhere in the list is a browser.search.param item. A few of the Google searches I've done on some of those terms brought up some interesting pages. I didn't find anything specific, but it may be a starting point for your own research.

Re:A possible hint

[apathy maybe]

Been there, done that. That is how I know to change the address bar search thing.

I think the answer below yours might be onto something though ...

Re:Your analogy does not fit at all.

[Random Destruction]

It was not reasonable at all. A more reasonable analogy would have been stealing the plans for how to make the competition's car, and just building those instead of designing your own.

what you mean is...

[beinrhythm]

Imagine if I own a parking garage. I'm an innocent small business owner with no knowledge of investigative police work. Yet I am being sued because some moron parked a stolen car in my garage (which according to good business practices has an open-door policy). Perhaps you want to arrest the well mannered Ethiopian man who parks your cars as well? No worries, he's a friend of mine, and I shall bail him out faster than you can say "Viacom Is A Senseless Money Grabbing You Know What"...

Re:what you mean is...

[Seumas]

Don't be so naive and ridiculous. Youtube and Napster became huge because of the illegitimate content that was traded over them. Turning a blind eye and claiming "oh noes, we can't do anything about what's going on with our own services!" until they became huge and sold out for millions and billions to legitimate companies is exactly what they both did.

If it were not for the illegitimate content, they would never have acquired the enormous number of eyeballs and accounts on their services which is what, in turn, drove them to be in demand by the corporations that took them over.

Re:what you mean is...

[QRDeNameland]

Youtube and Napster became huge because of the illegitimate content that was traded over them.

While I will grant you the point about Napster, I don't think it necessarily applies to YouTube. YouTube is at best good for short clips, whether copyrighted or not, not so much for anything full-length. Everything I've ever watched on YouTube is either video that the creator explicitly wanted to be there (promotional stuff for bands, etc.) or short clips from TV shows, that while technically infringing, is not any huge threat to the market for the real show and probably even works as promotion, at least IMHO. People who want to "steal TV" are getting it from BitTorrent, not YouTube.

YouTube became a phenomenon because it was the first popular way for people to share short video clips, not as vector to share copyrighted content. Yes, some copyrighted content does get shared, but I really don't see that as the *primary* reason for YouTube's rise, as opposed to Napster where I can't really make that argument.

Re:what you mean is...

[bismark.a]

Imagine if I own a parking garage. I'm an innocent small business owner with no knowledge of investigative police work. Yet I am being sued because some moron parked a stolen car in my garage (which according to good business practices has an open-door policy). Dude, your analogy is all broken here. When people park their Lexus in the parking lot, the garage owner better not let 100 million other parkers drive away their car as and when they please.

Re:what you mean is...

[mysidia]

Unlike Napster, Youtube has copyright compliance policy. Youtube removes infringing content when requested by the copyright holder, and users' accounts can be suspended, which is a meaningful way of removing content if it is found that it was illegally posted.

Therefore, Youtube may enjoy some of the DMCA safe harbor protections, where Napster clearly did not satisfy the requirements to enjoy those protections.

Remember... it's not Youtube that posts offending content, it is some users of youtube.

Do you think DSL/broadband providers like Verizon be sued for damages, and ordered to cease all transmission of copyrighted material over their network, because what made broadband popular might have been the ease with which people could download illegal electronic copies of DVDs [without a proper license to the movies]?

How can you prove that it is "illegal" content which made Youtube popular? Can you show that the owners of the majority of content that is viewable are really harmed by youtube exposure?

Youtube is great for short clips, but it's more suitable for previews -- it is not high enough quality to satisfy someone watching for longer than 10 minutes, and most users aren't allowed to upload videos longer than 10 minutes.

I think in the unlikely event, you see part of a commercial movie you like on youtube, I think you're more likely to buy the real thing in the future. (In other words, one expects to see a positive effect on the market for the content -- how does a 10 minute preview hurt the content maker, again?... Only if the viewer discovers they HATE the movie after watching the preview, and maybe they would have bought it otherwise, just to try it and see if it was a cool movie.)

Re:what you mean is...

[ghostcorps]

While I do agree on the whole (mostly), I have one counter; I work in a corporate environment that blocks everything but newspapers and .google.com (go figure). So of course, I tend to spend alot of time on google vids. If you restrict the search to 20minutes you will find allot of commercial TV. I watch Horizon (BBC Doco series) regularly, and recently watched Hyperdrive series 1. There are other examples as well, but my point is that if you don't have torrents or just need a quick flick to keep your mind from rotting it works a treat.

Re:what you mean is...

[sg3235]

His analogy is not broken. He just picked a different crime than you did. His point was that the copyright violation was by the user not the owner. His example was the parking garage owner being charged because someone parked a stolen car there...think receiving stolen property! I think that the one response concerning that youtube was built on people posting copyright infringing works would be equivalent to that garage owner knowing that people took stole cars there, and then got a reputation for allowing stolen cars to be parked there with no questions asked. Someone else can take the analogy from there.

Re:what you mean is...

[elrous0]

short clips from TV shows, that while technically infringing, is not any huge threat to the market for the real show and probably even works as promotion

I would like to second that myself. While I don't condone YouTube "stealing" copyrighted content, I can personally attest that it has piqued my interest in several shows that I might otherwise have missed (that I then ended up watching on regular TV).

Just the other day I was watching some old "Six Million Dollar Man" and "Bionic Woman" clips and it made me realize that these have actually held up remarkably well (I thought they would be totally cheesy after all these years). It made me want to go out and buy the DVD's. Unfortunately, they're still not available on DVD in the U.S. (what's up with THAT?).

Re:what you mean is...

[quoll]

I have to agree that YouTube is popular because of the ability to share short clips. Obviously I don't have official numbers, but anecdotally my friends and family all use it for short clips. I'd been looking at video on it for a couple of years before I discovered that whole TV shows were being put up there (I still haven't watched any).

I'm on YouTube's side, but I believe Viacom are in the right under the law. I see this as a problem with the protectionism inherent in today's copyright law. The law as it stands is being used to maintain the status quo for large copyright holders, and stifle innovation in content production and distribution.

In an ideal world the law would be changed to better reflect the attitudes of the community (isn't that what laws are supposed to do?), but this won't happen while laws are managed by lobbyists, and lobbyists are paid by large corporations who don't want to see things changed. But you never know. Maybe there's something in the law or constitution about the interests of society which YouTube can leverage for real copyright reform. (I can dream, can't I?)

Viacom should just work with YouTube.

[yoyhed]

I'm not for Google just being able to allow all that content to be online while they just sit there making money. I do, however, think that Viacom should approach this the way NBC did and strike a deal with YouTube.

I started watching SNL again solely because I saw some of it on YouTube (on NBC's official channel). I saw some of Viacom's clips on YouTube before they were taken down, and guess what? I wouldn't have ever seen them without YouTube. All YouTube did was help them. The only wrongdoing here is that the clips were probably low quality, and that only Google was making money off it.

If Viacom provided the content at a higher quality and shared the ad revenue from their clips with Google, everyone would be happy! But no, they have to sue for a billion dollars (arbitrarily, I might add) and burn any bridges they had with Google. Then they'll be forced to go somewhere else with their content, and get less exposure than they would on YouTube.

If YouTube goes down, so does LiveJournal, Blogger

[ChaosDiscord]

If YouTube goes down, so does your favorite blogging service provider, be it LiveJournal, Blogger, or even MySpace. Down go the free web hosts like Google Page Creator and Geocities. Down goes the forums, even Slashdot. In all those cases random users can upload copyrighted works in at least text form. Copyrighted works are frequently reproduced without permission or under fair use on those sites.

The key element here is section 512 of the DMCA which was written specifically to protect online service providers in these cases. Congress correctly recognized that the criminal is the user illegally reproducing the work, not the company whose site hosts it without realizing the crime. Without this protection service providers would be crippled by the need to somehow try to filter incoming posts. Even assuming you could write automated tools to do the job, you're asking service providers to dedicate software developers and hardware to acting as police.

The Betamax case made it very clear that technology with legitimate uses should not be banned because some people use the technology illegally. YouTube is full of copyright infringement, but there are also lots of valid things there. People are trying to document government coverups. Other people are fact checking the first group. Some people share their music skills. There are the infamous lonelygirl15 videos, which have since been revealed as a marketing hoax, but certainly doesn't infringe copyright. And the blendtec videos are shameless marketing, but they're legal and fun. (Amusingly, there is even accusations of fraud in the blendtec videos.)

Clearly YouTube is a valid resource, used to legal and positive effect every day. The same goes for the free web hosting, the blogs, and Slashdot.

So, for those people who want YouTube to go down, what could YouTube have done to avoid the liability you feel they deserve. A few guidelines for your brilliant plans: No solutions that require registering a "real" identity; American democracy is founded on anonymous speech. No solutions that occasionally accidentally censor legit free speech.. No points for solutions that cost YouTube significant money (be it spent on employees, sofware, hardware, or other things); why should YouTube pay for law enforcement? Finally, be sure your solution will apply equally well to your favorite blogging service, your favorite web site host, and Slashdot.

A hockey fan's perspective

[GoatVomit]

There's already a saying at hfboards.com that if it's not on youtube it didn't happen. Discussing about dirty hits and such makes much more sense once you can actually see the plays and not just read descriptions from often biased posters. Nhl has also made a deal with youtube regarding highlights of the games so I have a vested interested in google winning the case. I need my daily dose of hockey violence so please google win the case.

Aha!

[psaunders]

I knew there was an important option missing from the archrivalry poll!

YouTube all the way, baby! But only because I let GoogleFight make all my important decisions now, and it seems heavily biased in YouTube's favour. Surprising.

Re:"they both WANT to go to court"

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent point (which is probably why it was missed by most of /.). ;)

Is there a side where Lawyers don't get rich?

[eddy]

If so, I'm on that side.

Re:Who should Win? We should Win.

[Solandri]

On Google's side:

They are complying with the DMCA takedown notices. The problem is, as soon as one takedown is done, another copy goes up under another title or user name. It is like playing whack-a-mole.

I think you've just hit on the real heart of the matter. There has been a huge paradigm shift (yes I know that phrase has been subverted by marketing people, but it's the correct phrase for what's going on). Before there were just a few people and corporations who oversaw 99% of the content seen by the public. Your band or home movies could be a local hit, but to go national or global, you needed the help of the media. The Internet changed all that, and now a 5-year old can, with a few mouse clicks, "publish" a video that could be seen by millions or even more than a billion people.

The power to publish has shifted from the media to the general population.

Legislating things like the DMCA and takedown notices is futile. It's like whack-a-mole because anyone can re-publish what was taken down. It's like declaring piss to be toxic waste. You can pass all the laws you want prohibiting people from dumping it into the ground and sewers, but they're still going to do it anyway. What's needed is a reassessment and redesign of the entire system, starting with some fundamental assumptions about what people are going to do regardless of the laws you pass. Wedding photographers used to shoot weddings for little cost, but charge an arm and a leg for the prints. Then scanners and photo printers dropped in price so anybody could make their own duplicates. So now wedding photographers charge a lot for the shoot, but sell the prints practically at-cost. Stop making laws that try to preserve the old reality when faced with a new reality. Adapt or die.

Note: I take photos, write software, and have a graduate degree in engineering. So I believe copyrights and patents add value to our lives. But at the same time I also see that the old way we used to do things isn't going to work anymore with the cost of duplication rapidly approaching zero.

Re:Your analogy does not fit at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

The analogy was unfortunate because it involved theft(thus rekindling the entire "copyright infringement is not theft" debacle), but it was, in my opinion(and just for the record - I sometimes pirate various types of media and I do believe it's morally OK for me to do so in certain situations, and I would quite strongly agree that copyright infringement is not at all the same as theft in the conventional sense of the word), appropriate. The point was that it seems strange that legal businesses can flourish around what are essentially business models based on illegal acts. Napster is a case in point—I'm thankful for what Napster did for file sharing, but as a business venture, they're a strange tale indeed. "Underground" organizations like the Pirate Bay and various other torrent trackers seem far better suited to the task as organizers of file sharing.

(In my opinion, though, extrapolating from this to Youtube isn't entirely appropriate. There's quite a lot of original, legal content on Youtube. (Do people actually use Youtube for media piracy? I've always found the quality horrendous for any sort of extended viewing.))

Lawrence Lessig

[chainLynx]

Um, instead of ignorantly debating this with IANAL's, consult what the expert has to say: http://www.lessig.org/blog/

Something like iTunes

[jjersin]

I think Viacom is making a lot of sense here. Sure they need to adapt their business model, but they don't have to do it on Google's terms. Google ran into the online video market as fast as they could, and it seems like they are trying to force the world to conform to their vision. What we all need to realize is that there are alternatives. There were, and still are, a lot of ways to get music online, but a lot of these were infringing copyrights, so they have been shut down, cleaned up, or exist because the continue to defy authorities. After a while, iTunes entered the picture and offered downloadable music that people seem to be eating up, while at the same time respecting our current copyright laws, and giving the owners of the content a big cut of the pie. Viacom, I'm sure, wants a similarly sweet deal. Why should they submit to a vision of online video that screws them out of money they could be earning with a different system? It seems to me that google may be acting legally, barely, but that doesn't mean that they will win this case, as the rules they are using to justify their actions could be overturned. Similarly, just because they are a powerhouse and they have a vision for online video doesn't mean that they will be able to force that vision down the throats of every company with a different idea of how things could be.

Re:Something like iTunes

[Todd Knarr]

Unfortunately, if Viacom wins it means the end of Web hosting. Period. You know the Web space your ISP provides? Gone. Cheap basic Web hosting? Gone. Livejournal? Gone. A win for Viacom means any of those would be heavily liable for anything their users did, and they're a much easier target than the individuals responsible for the infringement. The only people who could get Web sites would be those with the wherewithal to own and run their own servers. I'm sure this is exactly what Viacom et. al. would love to see happen, but it's not what the DMCA intended.

Re:Something like iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that if Viacom wins there could be still safe harbors clarified for content/format neutral webhosting services (i.e. Earthlink provides basic/general web access), whereas content-specific services (YouTube specifically hosts video) will have more stringent legal requirements to face. I think any reasonable judge could clarify the law to protect content providers from sites which encourage hosting certain formats of material for an audience (YouTube) without turning the lights off on the internet as a whole. Just like in the Grokster case, Grokster was punished without really causing a large threat to ftp services and p2p sites which issued less copyright infringing inducing statements and advertisements/explanations of their services than Grokster. The law doesn't always work in huge extremes and nuances can be developed. It's not, "Google for the future of the internet" here, really, IMHO.

IINAL

[SanityInAnarchy]

I Is Not A Laywer?

Re:IINAL

[omeomi]

typo...but yes, I suppose "I Is Not A Lawyer" works well enough...

Whatever

[Vexorian]

Hey I would love to post neither like other posts and get tons of free karma, but seriously, I am with youtube here. Simply because viacom winning would set a terrible precedent that will then become a hassle for me.

But really, 2 billion? viacom has already lost since they would never be able to prove that they lost that much, I actually think their plan was to scare and force google to settle and they are actually praying to avoid court...

If Viacom is right, google is right...

[Alascom]

First let me quote the following from http://www.ifilm.com/about/

"In October 2005, IFILM was acquired by Viacom International, Inc., and is now part of the MTV Networks family of brands that includes MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, TV Land, CMT, Spike TV and Logo. As one of the largest global television networks, MTV Networks reaches over 1 billion people worldwide."

Basically, if Viacom wins, Viacom loses since their subsidiary iFilm.com will likely be sued as well by other companies (using Viacom v. Google as precendent).
In a nutshell, the only way for Viacom to win is to lose this case, and they know it. I predict it will never make it to judgement but will be withdrawn before the trial ever even begins.

I have (under fair use provisions) included quotes from their own terms of service for iFilm below. It seems they are quite explicit that they only remove copyright content when provided 'notice'. No filtering, no pre-screening... the same things they claim are easy and that Google should do for their benefit, but they refuse to do themselves. In fact, under Section 6, they don't even promise to let you know they received a take-down notice if you send them one.

This case is over before its even begun, and Viacom will look like hypocritcal fools in front of any Judge they get in front of.

SOURCE [ http://www.ifilm.com/about/terms_of_use.jsp ]
Section 4: OWNERSHIP & PROPRIETARY RIGHTS ...We require users to respect our copyrights, trademarks, and other intellectual property rights and those of others, including other users. On notice, we will act expeditiously to remove content on the IFILM Network that infringes the copyright rights of others and will disable the access to the IFILM Network and its services of anyone who uses them to repeatedly to infringe the intellectual property rights of others. Specific procedures to notify us about copyright infringement can be found in Section 6 which describes our Notice and Procedure for Making Claims of Copyright Infringement...

Section 6: CLAIMS OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
If you believe that any Content on the IFILM Network (including, without limitation, any Posting) violates any of the terms or conditions of this Agreement, please send us a message about it at feedback@ifilm.com. We cannot guarantee that we will respond to your message and we reserve the right to take or refrain from taking any or all steps available to us once we receive any such message.

--
All the above is personal opinion and does not represent the views of anyone... including myself.

I'm on Viacom's side.

[Anonymous Coward]

YouTube's success is akin to Napster's. The sharing of illegal content. You're the copyright owner of something? Tell us and we'll pull it. Napster fought it and failed, YouTube will fight it and also fail. Nothing new here except that YouTube not only provides links to the content but they actually store/host the content. 'nuf said.

Re:Your analogy does not fit at all.

[Random Destruction]

Agreed. I dont think the whole analogy was off, it was just unfortunate he chose the specifics he did.

Not Quite

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I do think copyright is fast becoming an untenable relic of a law, but even so, YouTube has a perfectly good legal basis for what they're doing. Please examine the DMCA's section 512(c) and read the Safe Harbor provisions. I guess even bad laws have to have a few good bits.

Thus, Viacom has to completely ignore the letter of the law as written in the DMCA here and is relying instead on the sort of common law copyright the Supreme Court has pulled out of thin air in recent rulings (i.e. there's no actual law against it but we think it's unfair, so we'll shut you guys down).

So it's true, Viacom might very well win this lawsuit for all I know, but it won't be based on the law as it's currently written, it will be, if anything, from a legal ruling where they attempt to redefine the contours of copyright law based on their own notions of equity if they do gain such a victory.

And hell, if we're going by *that* standard--our own notions of fairness--why don't those of us who would all but abolish intellectual "property" count for anything?

Disclaimer: IANAL.

DMCA++

[Castar]

One of the scariest things that might come out of this is an "upgrade" of the DMCA. I've been reading the stories about the lawsuit, and it's really bizarre to see a tech company defending the DMCA and a content company saying it's a bad law.

Despite the fact that Viacom pushed for the adoption of the DMCA against the tech community's wishes, they're now claiming that it's *too nice* to copyright violators. Since it makes them issue takedown notices and limits the liability of hosting providers, they hate it in the YouTube scenario. They want a new law that doesn't even require takedown notices and instead forces hosting providers to actively police their content for violations - something that's obviously unworkable.

I really hope they fail with this, but it's probably too much to ask. If they win, all content hosts will be in big trouble, and if they lose the entertainment industry will push for a law that will let them win. A scary situation...

Re:DMCA++

[MeNeXT]

There's also a chance of a downgrade of the DMCA...people are a little more aware today.

Re:DMCA++

[Dunbal]

they win, all content hosts will be in big trouble

      No, the content hosts will just move to a country with more reasonable laws, and Viacom will STILL be "screwed" - perhaps even more - because now they could even ignore the takedown notices.

      Personally I'd love for them to get some crazy judge to (try to) enforce this - see the internet go dark, and have the blame squarely placed on Hollywood. Perhaps then the IP pendulum would start to swing the OTHER way... most of the content on youtube belongs to the PEOPLE, even if it's mostly flammable flatulence experimentation.

Re:DMCA++

[fair_n_hite_451]

We're watching a similar situation play out here in Canada. The Canuskistan equivalent to the RIAA actively lobbied for the surchage on recordable media, and the government gave it to them, along with a clearly articulated fair-use policy.

Turns out that fair use policy allows us to download mp3, etc from Napster-like sites punishment free. We can't upload, so we are in effect, a nation of legal leeches.

Now that mp3 players are so popular, most people no longer need to burn CDs of music, so they legally download it, but don't pay the surcharge.

Guess who's arguing against their "bought and paid for" law now?

I dont even feel sorry for Viacom

[unity100]

Let google just remove all viacom stuff. We will move on to watch viacom competitors' stuff.

Re:I dont even feel sorry for Viacom

[Stonehand]

Of course, surely you realize that demonstrating the ability to do this would mean that Google knows how to identify it, which means that they're probably not qualified for the Safe Harbor provision.

Re:I dont even feel sorry for Viacom

[unity100]

oh well, google can say "we dont have the technology to do it in today's world, please put forth your men to identify your content and let us know"

Bullshit.

[SanityInAnarchy]

YouTube made its billions violating copyrights, as did napster.

Huh. So what's YouTube's business model again? What's Napster's?

I bet every one of us' first exposure to youtube was watching some commercial productions.

Bullshit. The first time I even looked for anything possibly illegal was a couple Monty Python sketches and the "Mad World" music video.

My first exposure to YouTube was when Ask A Ninja started doing YouTube for a few of them instead of hosting the files themselves. My second was a beautiful, original piece of music. Since then, I've seen all kinds of things on YouTube, all of them user created, all of them interesting, and all of them legal.

It didn't even occur to me until very recently that someone might even try to upload something illegal, when BitTorrent+DivX looks so much better.

Uh... it's a matter of law isn't it?

[theendlessnow]

Can you copy my stuff without my permission and then redistribute it?

The answer is no (unless I've licensed it for such).

So I think you have to side with the holder of the copyright. Otherwise, it makes the law meaningless.

Didn't we all see this coming when Google bought YouTube... I mean... DUH!!!

Re:Uh... it's a matter of law isn't it?

[Dunbal]

Can you copy my stuff without my permission and then redistribute it?

The answer is no (unless I've licensed it for such).


      But good luck in your litigation against the site the infringer posted the stuff on. If you send them a take down notice, they will take it down - they have in the past.

      Or perhaps you're just being greedy, since you have competing sites that do EXACTLY the same thing (but aren't nearly as popular), and youtube was a) acquired by Google and b) made "man of the year"...they must have plenty of cash, right?

Why doesnt DMCA safe harbor apply in this case?

[jonwil]

Google clearly seems to be removing Viacom content as fast as Viacom sends take-down notices so why doesn't DMCA safe harbor apply to Google?

Re:Why doesnt DMCA safe harbor apply in this case?

[Stonehand]

c) Information Residing on Systems or Networks At Direction of Users. -

(1) In general. - A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), 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 -

(A)

(i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing;


This part might burn YouTube. First, let's note that it is pretty much CERTAIN that YouTube has accumulated enough take-down requests that they probably have a pretty damn good idea of what kinds of TV shows might be replicated in full, unauthorized, on their service. So it shouldn't be easy to find them, right? In other words, they have knowledge that people are uploading episodes of popular shows...

Yry a search for, say, '24 Season 4'. I just got 276 hits. The very first one appears to be a TWO HOUR SEASON FINALE episode according to the metadata. It's even tagged '24'. Yeah, I know it's Fox, not Viacom. Doesn't matter unless Fox has authorized uploading.

That says that they're not even trying to filter searches, to prevent content from reappearing with completely honest and easy-to-find descriptions, or to notice when a tag refers to content that they've almost certainly been warned about.

It's even described

After Jack fakes his own death, he is forced to go into hiding. In the final moments of Season 4 Episode 24, he has what will become his final conversation with Palmer in an emotional scene, before walking into the sunrise and ending the season. (more)

Google parses and classifies content for its core business. The user has just explicitly told them that this is 'Season 4 Episode 24' and tagged it '24'. This isn't some video with a misleading description with the uploader posting links to it on his personal web page. Can they plausibly claim ignorance if

(a) they've been notified that full episodes of '24' are being uploaded,
(b) users are tagging content '24' and accurately describing it
(c) it's a 2-hour recording?



(ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or


The above may well cross 'apparent', considering that the uploader has accurately and sufficiently described the content.


(iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material;


They're still allowing searches that trivially find infringing content.


(B) Does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity; and


It might be argued that they're financially benefiting from people viewing the content and building up their DoubleClick profiles and getting ad content.


(C) upon notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.


This they do reportedly do -- for a particular instance. But clearly, they're not making any effort to disable access to other instances. It might be argued that 'material' would include essentially identical uploads of the same original content, or that the 'disabling access to' might include tinkering with the search. It might also be argued that re-uploading of the same video basic content (ex. similar length video, similar description, tags suggesting infringing...) once they've been notified that it's infringing, might be considered 'apparent'.

Cart before the horse?

[TechnicalFool]

So if I steal a car and use it in a robbery, the bank can sue Ford for making cars easy to get hold of? As far as I'm aware, YouTube do remove copyrighted content when they find it. This has "shooting the messenger" written all over it, and it seems a popular past-time for some. And in reply to an earlier comment, the reason USENET (and NNTP in general) survives so well is because it's completely decentralised, there is no one owner (unlike pretty much every other p2p or distributed network) and it's spread over multiple jurisdictions. People have routed around repressive regimes before with networks like this, and they'll do it again.

Whup de doo, that's one server down.. now for the other several hundred.

Re:Your analogy does not fit at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's okay, Anonymous Coward.

you are wrong Anonymous Coward!

Time loop

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's inevitable that Youtube will lose, then it's equally inevitable that the sequence (Napster, Youtube, ...) has more than 2 elements.

People will keep writing ways to share multimedia online (especially now that they've seen the Napster and Youtube guys get rich), ad infinitum ... until the big multimedia content companies either die, or figure out a way to live with them.

I don't know.

[anduz]

But it sure looks like slashdot desperately needs more chaotic aligned people! ;)

YouTube FTW

[tubapro12]

My sockpuppets and I are all for YouTube!

Civil War?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Whose side are you on?

I'm with Punisher.

Don't care either way

[pandrijeczko]

YouTube is full of:

Music videos - IMHO music videos were the worst thing that ever happened to music anyhow, apart from actual live concert footage.

Funny adverts - in other words, ***VIRAL MARKETTING***. This means that people can stop wasting my valuable time sending me funny adverts via email.

Personal videos - if the people making those videos actually had anything interesting to say or do, a TV or film company would have bought the rights to it and made it professionally.

Yep, I'm a middle-aged old grouch but I never missed YouTube before it arrived and really won't miss it when it's gone.

As for Viacom, they own Paramount (amongst others) who own the Star Trek rights - which they have completely messed up since Gene Roddenberry died anyhow.

Both Viacom and YouTube can die.

youboob

[blad3runn69]

lol and to think google paid over a billion dollars for the priviledge of having its pants sued off. Nice move :)

Take a closer look at the big picture

[Whuffo]

Let's see now - how many online video services does Viacom own and operate? More than one; I'll leave the names for others to fill in, it's enough for this message to establish that they're actively competing with YouTube.

With that background in place their lawsuit looks a bit different, doesn't it? They're suing YouTube for not doing more than the law requires in policing videos on their site. That's also more than Viacom does in policing videos on the sites they own, too.

So call it a copyright suit all you want, but it's really Viacom using the courts to beat up on a competitor. What they're claiming is noting more than what their "legal" department could scratch up on short notice.

I really hope YouTube defends themselves vigorously and makes an example of Viacom. And I can also hope that the courts lay some heavy sanctions on Viacom for misusing the legal system in this way.

Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I can steal anything I want and post it on the Internet for the world to share in. Whether it is some useful database that my company purchased, software that I have installed and want to share, music or movies. Anything I want to publish, the Internet gives me that right.

Now some upstart greedy corp wants to say that YouTube has less rights and they can't have this stuff? Why not? Someone went to the effort of grabbing it, uploading it and making it available. Of course, they can't be caught because it is anonymous. So why should YouTube suffer?

It's all free anyway, isn't it? They broadcast it for everyone to have, forever.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong CLEAR TO ME

[recharged95]

"the industry would like to charge you every single time you ever watched a piece of their content."

blame capitalism...

anyone who runs a business can relate to this strategy.

Because Copyright Law is Wrong.

[twitter]

Why should google be above the law, just because they're a /. fave?

They are not above the law and have not broken it, but that does not make copyright law right or moral. Google is everyone's favorite, despite years of fierce competition from immoral and well fininced rivals. Laws follow public opinion and people's moral sense. In the end, the big dumb publishers are doomed because what they do is wrong.

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong CLEAR TO ME

[Anonymous Coward]

YouTube has made a fortune by blatantly ignoring the law, which clearly respects Viacom's copyright. It is not fair use. Maybe we don't agree with the law, but if we are just going to ignore it then it will lose its meaning. Which would be a bad thing, because laws are there to protect our rights. The example that YouTube and Napster have set is that if you want to be successful you should go out and do whatever you can get away with and try to become powerful enough so that by the time it comes back to you it doesn't even matter because you are effectively above the law. You might get sued for a fraction of your wealth, but the FBI is not going to raid your house and take your hard drives. A lot of people out there reading this will say, yes, that's exactly the attitude you have to have in order to be successful in business. I think it is a bad example. If I tried to do that in my personal life, I would be in prison. Of course, this is also a failure of our legislative system which has failed to give clear guidelines, but I think that YouTube was clearly overstepping its legal bounds and they knew it.

The argument that Viacom would like us to pay every time we watch a piece of their content is irrelevant. I don't want to see that happen and so I will fight any legislation that supports it and I will support legislation that makes it more difficult. If Viacom ignores that legislation, than I expect our legal system to enforce its laws and penalize Viacom accordingly.

Re:Who should Win? We should Win.

[zoftie]

I think why viacom is upset about google, is because the youtube takes the jelly out of viacoms doughnut. suddenly viacom doesn't hold the controlling stick of the content they purchase / produce, and that is the crux of the problem. Another way looking at it, is for content there was one mode of delivery, through commercial cable vision. It was very centralized and producers were few and watchers were many. Now with so called web 2.0 model and cheap bandwidth, more people are able to deliver to other people in the world whatever informational material they want.

This is not taking sides, rather, standing back and looking back a horse whip business at the dawn of the car era. Will Viacom embrace and further the fundamental change in way they do content business or will they still try to coerce new and better into old and worse, as in for consumer, model. In the end it is the invisible hand that will smash those who don't obey it.
2c

Re:Your analogy does not fit at all.

[bismark.a]

Nice trick with the misleading "stealing cars" analogy. The problem is, nothing is stolen by Youtube. You might want to think about things a little bit before you make up analogies that have nothing to do with anything. The analogy is only a little misfit, but very leading. Here is a better one for you to wrap your head around with:
"Imagine if I started up a car dealership and instead of paying for my own cars to stock my dealership, I let my clients (some or conveniently many, of whom who may be thieves) sell me stolen content from the rich dealer down the street. Then I polish and sell those at dirt cheap prices and, once I had sold enough of these stolen cars, I have enough customers and money and attention that I could afford to go legit."

Does this ring enough alarm bells in your ears, or do you prefer to buy cars cheaper, even if they might be stolen?

Re:Who should Win? We should Win.

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem:

It doesn't matter if the content isn't available on the air or not as long as Viacom owns the material. Take that away from Google's side.

Problem 2:

Google's service is designed to allow people to upload videos. The big break was Lazy Sunday. Google will likely be construed as "on notice" for copyright violations for all clips. Even if they weren't, the presence of the tags does put them on notice (whether or not the tags are accurate), as would the popularity of the video (though this would be more of a supporting factor, not a dispositive one).

Problem 3:
Quality doesn't matter. In fact, GooTube's BIGGEST PROBLEM is that they process the uploads and show the processed files. That's why they don't qualify for the safe harbor provision: they're not simply showing uploaded files; they're showing files that they themselves processed.

Problem 4:
The burden is on GooTube to show why it would be unreasonably difficult to implement a simple tag or filename filter (extending problem 3). The success of their AdWord program, however, wholly negates this argument. After all, if they can do contextual ads, why can't they do contextual tag searching on videos?

Now, Viacom:
Problem A:
Viacom didn't breach by the presence of videos on YouTube; the exclusivity/online rights would limit how much stuff Viacom could make available, but Viacom can't legally be held responsible for the illicit acts of others (unless they are required to prevent such acts in the contract). This takes away a lot of the urgency.

Problem B:
Damages. 1 Billion seems excessive, given that YouTube is essentially the online video clip market. Viacom will not be able to prove lost profits here.

Problem C:
Damages again. Courts require that damages be exact. You can't fudge or overestimate numbers; that's a violation of the constitutional right to due process (in this case, GooTube's right).

Likely Winner: Viacom, but not for $1Billion

Re:Who should Win? We should Win.

[stubear]

Either intellectual property is tangible property and your horse and buggy analogy is incorrect or intellectual property and your horse and buggy analogy is irrelevant. You can't have it both ways. If IP is property then the situation woudl be akin to a Woolworth's coming into the horse and buggy factory, taking all the buggies they want, and selling them without giving any money to the horse and buggy manufacturer. If IP isn't property then your analogy is irrelevant because, well, you're compaing apples to oranges here.

Google embraces copyright

[ClosedSource]

The last line on Google's website says this: "©2007 Google"

If Google believes in copyright, I won't dispute it.

Editor-in-chief? Makes me wonder...

[Ansoni-San]

The first article/opinion piece was considerably coherent and was mildly informative. But the second one, which I would call a comment, really had nothing valuable in it at all. All it was was a guy misquoting, twisting, and picking at specific parts of the first guy's opinion piece whilst paying no attention to context. I don't know who reads PCmag but 4 word quotes with no context is a blatant disrespect to their readers.

Here's what I think. Google never refused to obey the law, they're adhering to the DMCA just fine from what I can see. If Viacom would tell them where all the uploaded copyrighted content is like the law requires...or for that matter if anyone would alert them to it and point them to the copyright holder then they WOULD take it down.Viacom do not want to, they'd rather sue. This sounds more like Viacom and Youtube disagreed in their talks and Viacom ran off to tell the teacher on Youtube. I think the court's job here is to give them both a slap on the wrist and order them to play nice and work towards a working solution.

Of course, this could bring in to question the legitimacy of Youtube which would be a bad thing for everyone. At worst if there were a bad ruling towards websites, where a lot of users upload content of questionable legality against the will of the site owners who are actively fighting such activities, it would be devastating to all. It would lead administrators of such sites to become so draconian it would be like an indirect censorship of the internet. Which leads me to thinking that Google's current position could be the only position which gives a decent balance between copyright owner's rights and the people's freedom. This is definitely an issue which needs a lot of consideration.

Hopefully the courts who are (well I certainly hope) qualified to interpret and influence law will be able to provide us with a magical balance which serves the people and preserves copyright's original purpose. The sad thing about this though is that I don't dare hope for such a thing. They're such a let-down sometimes that I can only dream of hoping we get something better than the worst scenario.

There's one last thing I'd like to say. A corporation is not a "person" outside the scope of the rights we, through our government, grant them. To equate their social status to that of a real live person (which I feel a lot of people do) outside of a specific court/legal setting is just plain stupid.

BNETD

[LinDVD]

Since Viacom basically owns Blizzard Entertainment, who was able to shut down BNETD, I default to Google...

Sounds to me like Google is okay

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

From what I've heard, Google is meeting the letter of the law. If true, Viacom's should seek relief in the Congress, not in the courts.

The U.S. can't afford to piss off Google

[Anonymous Coward]

It's in the U.S.'s best interest to make Google and all new tech companies as HAPPY AS POSSIBLE. What does pissing off Viacom matter? They're inexorably tied to the U.S.; Google isn't.

Ummm... you're talking out of your ass

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm liable - wether I knew they uploaded it or not. "

There's more than a reasonable case made, ironically, by the DMCA that as long as YouTube follows DMCA takedown notices that there is a safe harbor in the law. Your opinion doesn't change that. Neither does mine, but what I can say is that Viacom be involved in a lot of lawsuits and seems to settle a lot:

http://www.dailyhaggis.com/2003/07/08/spike-lee-vs -spiketv-lawsuit-settled/
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/070122/0206077.html
http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/lawsuit-between -vh1-and-liza-&-david-fizzles-an-end-1785.php
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB11704750557 2997191-E8lh6c1jyY_4v0U_jLlgu4YnUQk_20070210.html
http://play.tm/wire/click/185873
http://www.acls.org/exdab.htm
http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/24/stern-cbs-sirius- cx_gl_0524autofacescan12.html

Sometimes they even commit fraud:
http://www.legalnewsfeeds.com/RssFeed/newsDetailed .php?Category=Business-Litigation&ArticleID=513

I'm suggesting that Viacom sues regardless of their real legal position. They're a "sue first and then hash it out" company. I'm guess Google wins this after a judge strongly suggests the law is on Google's side.

Well, sure

[tkrotchko]

"However, they are exploiting that protection."

Sure, just like the RIAA is exploiting the same protection when they file these John Doe lawsuits.

I think most people are missing the point. I think Viacom is looking for more money than Google actually makes over the content. How much could a single advertisement be worth on YouTube? 10 cents? I'm guessing Viacom wants more than 10 cents per view. Their other deal with another video company seems to have fizzled for the moment.

I'm not shedding any tears for Viacom. Google for "Viacom Settle" and you'll see dozens of cases a year where Viacom is suing or being sued. It's seems to be a standard practice for them. This is nothing new.

How?

[tkrotchko]

"Even if they're not correct, YouTube is on notice that the video may contain copyrighted content."

At first I was agreeing, but the more I thought of it, the less it made sense.

Let's say the tag was this:

  Buck Rogers Flying Saucer 1938

Can I deduce that it may contain copyrighted video? How precisely could you do that?

Or:
    Dynasty Evans

Well, it could be Linda Evans in Dynasty, or it could be a video about a business dynasty by the Bob Evans company.

These two examples would be trivial, except that if you multiple the problem by 10's of millions of videos, the problem seems insurmountable.

Unless the tags says this:
    Copyrighted Material By Viacom That shouldn't be here

Then I see how you could tell. But otherwise, I don't see how you could reasonable tell copyrighted material was uploaded.

Worse, even if you had someone view every video, that person would have to be miraculous and judge that maybe something has a copyright. Unless the video actually says (c) 2007 VH1. Either that or you assume everything is infringing, and then just shut the website down because there is no real way to tell what is copyrighted and what isn't.

I think the problem is more difficult than it appears.

Just pay Viacom

[joe_n_bloe]

$1 billion? Who cares. Google should just give Viacom the money without admitting anything, and go on with business as usual.

Google owes nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Google owes Viacom nothing. All it has to do is take down infringing content (and better, keep it off). One billion dollars is bullshit! It might take Google 1 billion to keep the offending crap off of youtube, but keeping it off is all that Google has to do. Even so though, Viacoms claims are spurious and ill-concieved. There might be movie trailers on youtube, but there are movie trailers in a thousand other places on the net. YouTube does not allow anything over 10 minutes. No first run movies, no complete shows. 10 minutes maximum, and most of it user provided. How many films does Viacom have that are less than 10 minutes? Does it have any? How many does it have that are more than 10 minutes? Is it more than 98%? Seriously, how is YouTube damaging Viacom's business? I've seen infomercials run on TV for more than 30 minutes!

Re:Who should Win? We should Win.

[zeon]

You are right that you have to prove actual damages to get actual damages. But, Viacom could get statutory damages because the copyrights were register before the infringement occurred.

just to get links to viacom displayed prominently

[gregconquest]

This lawsuit could be an attempt at getting better negotiating terms for viacom with youtube/google. The end result of all this: searching for South Park, Daily Show, etc. on youtube will generate the usual list of videos, but it will also prominently display a link at the top of the page pointing to viacom's own video feeds saying something like, "Why not go direct to the source and see the full videos at Comedy Central/ . . ."

Re:Viacom has always been right, google=uncompany

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever the case, it doesnt mean it's okay to sell crack.

Legitimate market of physical goods traded voluntarily: Bad
Bullygang "market" built on the paradox belief that data can be both broadcast and controlled: Good!

Gnutella never squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

They did never manage to squash Gnutella.

It's the oldest living decentral p2p network and it still thrives and continues to evolve.

To get some easy to understand information on it, and why it is far more efficient today than in the past, please have a look at Gnutella for Users:
http://gnufu.net/

Re:Gnutella never squashed

[AKAImBatman]

They did never manage to squash Gnutella.

Doh! That was a typo. It was supposed to say, "couldn't". Bad keyboard, bad! :P

Sell out? Sounds more like extortion

[mapkinase]

Napster had a choice - sell out or be completely stopped.

I am predicting that within a year PirateBay will be sold. Non-scientific prediction.

I'd agree except for one thing

[FritzTheCat1030]

When they are asked to take stuff down, they do. Beyond that, they have no obligations to police the shit out of the site.

The only problem is that they already do "police the shit out of the site." Upload porn onto Youtube and see how long it lasts. Google has shown that they are fully capable of removing unwanted content on their own. The thing is, they don't really WANT to remove the copyrighted content because they know it's valuable to their business.

Of course, IANAL, but I suspect this is what is going to be the big problem for Google.

Re:I'd agree except for one thing

[Mr2001]

What makes you think Google/YouTube is actively policing their site for porn clips, rather than responding to the clips being flagged by users who stumble across them?

FTA

[b1ufox]

From TFA - "Viacom vs. YouTube - Whose Side Are You On?"

YouTube ...err i should say Google ..period :).

Me for Viacom

[SuperDre]

Well, I'm for Viacom as I think the creator/publisher of the content should decide what can be viewed on youtube (or any other public videosite).
If it's your content that is shown on those sites and you didn't give permission then it would be wrong for any judge to say it's ok, because that means that as a contentcreator you can kiss your investments goodbye.. and ofcourse it would make way for just ripping a dvd an putting it up on youtube with no problems, because the same verdict would mean it's ok to publish copyrighted content without consent from the creator... (the ammount that is asked by Viacom is another story)

I'm with...

[LaminatorX]

Captain America!

google can and should get kicked in the arse...

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is allowing crap to be pirated like crazy via youtube... just like they wanted to do with books in the not too distant past... just like they do with the google cache on almost all websites on the internet... they don't give a damn about copyrights at all. They need to wake up and start taking responsibility, and obeying the law.

Google claims that it does no evil, and then it keeps doing this crap... it's getting old. The folks that started google probably also ran napster back in the day and download movies left and right... do no evil - yeah right.

A Solution

[yahiatt]

The public would rarely pay for something that they could get for free ,so companies should try to control the situation rather than blocking it ( which over years proved ineffective ), to do that Viacom (as well as others) should open an account at Youtube where they could share revenue from the ads posted on there section ,Which will discourage people from posting the copyrighted materials cause its already there , for free ,and from the owner(quality guaranteed) .

And this would raise the number of there sales since people may get addicted to there products and figure out that its worth it to pay to get the TV quality , and actually enjoy the luxury of sitting back and get brainwashed with the content with few or no action from the user .

If that didn't stop people from uploading the copyrighted videos , Google could make an applet that will calculate how much profit they gained from each individual video since it was posted , and when the real owner reports the violation he could get the revenue from that video , then it would be worth it for the owners to employ an army to search Youtube for there copyrighted materials .

This way , we ,the public , could still enjoy the riches of YouTube , and the evil companies could get there pockets full of cash (if they have big enough pockets)

They should not sue for copyright infringement....

[Anonymous Coward]

...but for showing their copyrighted material with such crappy quality.
Seriously, how much damage can they get for something with so poor quality that you have to watch it in a window the size of a stamp to get decent resolution?
A "billion" dollars? I don't think so

You could get a better video if you recorded off TV with your cell phone, and posted that.

YouTube works best for 2-3 minute outtakes of shows, I might watch a 2 minute clip of Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, but I wouldn't dream of going there to catch last night's show. For that, the quality is not good enough. Besides, I have Tivo.

I'm for Google

[kurt555gs]

One thing that isn't mentioned by the Viacoms of the world is fair use. The should be no royalty needed to show clips. Google is not broadcasting TV, they are not showing movies, THEY arent even showing the short clips in low quality 3" across.

How greedy can a company such as Viacomm be?

In any case the people that post this have a right to because the videos are generally excerpts which are protected under fair use and no royalties are owned to anyone, 2nd I think this format ( low quality small size ) should be protected under fair use as well, but we will see on that.

I think this whole thing is just baseless greed on Viacom's part.

Cheers

Re:Viacom is right, google is wrong CLEAR TO ME

[tbannist]

Not only that, if they could they'd charge for every time you thought or talked about anything they had ever made, thought or talked about.

The theory..

[paranatural2002]

..that Viacom LOST something from their content being on YouTube is laughable at best. If anything at all VoaCom gained as each post on YouTube is an effective commercial for each show. I know I have been turned on to many shows that I've seen via YouTube. But you know what? Never have I ever been once tempted to not watch the Simpsons because I saw a 30-second Homer D'oh complilation. ViaCom is still headed by old men who think in old, rigid ways and will never understand how to function normally in today's changing world.

who's the real infringer

[Norny]

It seems to me the people who post the videos in the first place are the copyright violators, not Google. One of the things that might come out of this case is websites posting the IP address of the poster along with the post - then it'll be a lot easier to go right to the copyright infringer. Maybe next Viacom should sue DVR manufacturers for them making a copy, or people who save copies of shows on VCR. The home copies aren't making a pay-per-click ad profit, but they're probably cutting in to DVD sales. Copyright law is outdated anyway.

Overlooked

[tbannist]

Amongst all the arguments over who's right and whether Google is profiting from Viacom or not. There's a couple things that have been overlooked:

1) Viacom split off most of it's assets to form a new corporation, CBS Networks at the start of 2006. Now it only owns the rights to Paramount Pictures' movies and TV Shows, MTV Networks' shows and BET's shows.

Notably most CBS TV shows are not included in the package that can be sued over, the most attractive things to redistribute would seem to be Viacom's movies, but only a masochist would attempt to watch an entire movie on YouTube. Much of the content that airs on Viacom's MTV Networks and BET are music videos which they don't own the rights to in the first place. The majority of the content I could find of Viacom's property tended to be remixes of their shows/movies to create a music video. In other words, there seems to be a small percentage that is their actual copyright material available and the majority is fair use use of their copyright material.

2) Viacom just signed a deal with Joost to distribute it's copyrighted content for free to end users.

This is really the heart of the lawsuit. Joost is likely paying Viacom for the right to distribute Viacom material. I would guess Google didn't offer them enough money as part of their proposed agreement so Viacom has decided to make an example of them to boost future tribute payments.

The point being that Viacom's doesn't care about it's materials being distributed for free, they just want a bigger piece of GooTube's action than GooTube is willing to offer them. They likely figure a little legal pressure will strongarm Google into coughing up that extra cash, and if it doesn't well, they'll hurt a company they don't have any financial interests in and scare everyone else into giving them more money in the future. It's an investment in the future, really.

In the end, this is just more of the typical corporate gunboat diplomacy.

More silly justifications

[Anonymous Coward]

"Google takes down material when asked.
  It is that simple."

Not really, because there is profit involved (Google's profit from ads).
Which, by the way, is the exact same way Viacom operates.
Funny that you don't see the similarities -- chastizing one while letting the other off the hook.

Should Viacom sue for a billion? Probably not.

"Posting a video on Youtube is the way things are, and have evovled. It's not a crime, its a new use of technology."

Yet another justification for poor behavior.
Ultimately, what is being posted is someone else's property.
You may not like that fact, but a fact it still remains.
You may disagree with how they manage that property and create a business case for it; but don't use that to justify poor behavior. Consume elswhere or create your own content and license it how you wish.

"Its just a new world."

I keep hearing this, but how is this the case?

"There's a great benefit to having your video being displayed somewhere."

Probably, but who are you to force someone into that line of thinking / business model?

If I started a media company, I would probably agree with the idea of sharing the video but the important distinction is that I would still WANT TO HAVE THE CHOICE OF HOW TO MANAGE MY PROPERTY.

"Google should just kick CBS and Viacom and all of its properties off of Googles search engine."

Yeah, because supressing people who disagree with you is in the "don't be evil" line.

Dude! You are Crazy.

[fuzznutz]

And the theft (or what you want to euphemise as only *copyright infringement*, which is just another name for theft of copyright)

It IS copyright infringement. You are the one "euphemistically" calling it "Theft." Theft of copyright would mean stealing the legal RIGHTS to be able to republish the works. Since Viacom still maintains their copyright, it CLEARLY has not been stolen. Nothing has been stolen. Working yourself up into a lathered frenzy doesn't change anything either. The so-called crime (actually it is a civil tort, not a crime) is that some Viacom works have been published without permission. The legal question is whether or not Google is responsible for the actions of its users.

For instace, refer the case of small pictures on Google News that Google *lost*.

WRONG!!! First of all, they lost a case for publishing news summaries from online newpapers, not small pictures. Second, Google the company, was creating the summaries, not independent users. Third, it was in BELGIUM, not the US. Fourth, Belgian law may not provide for common carrier exemptions like US law does, not that it would even apply for that particular case anyway, which was about fair use.

You have been drinking the RIAA kool-aid for too long. You are confusing legal issues. Your rabid reaction to a not so cut-and-dried case demonstrate you clearly have no understanding of what exactly copyright is. Next time, leave the thoughtful commentary to your betters.

Alternative

[pravuil]

So what's Viacom's alternative to what Google/YouTube already have? Seems like a lack of ingenuity on Viacom's part.

A Plague upon both of their houses

[Ward Griffiths]

Got no use for the corporate level of either organization.

User involvement

[maop]

Obvious copyrighted material is the front page of Youtube all the time. Youtube could make identifying copyrighted material easy by using the community policing. People could vote yes or no if they think a video is violating copyright. Only trusted users should be allowed to do this such as people with an videos and subscribers of their own. User involvement has kept kiddie porn off Youtube. It can work for copyright infringement as well.

Re:If YouTube goes down, so does LiveJournal, Blog

[Anonymous Coward]

To my knowledge, there is nowhere near the amount of pirated, copyrighted material posted illegally on LiveJournal or Blogger. I haven't read many paragraphs, chapters, or whole copyrighted books or magazine excerpts on these services.
    On Myspace, a lot of the infringing material is embedded YouTube videos!

Re:enough with the distasteful ANALogies

[Douglas Goodall]

I am getting tired of hearing about asses. How about some actual clevel debating and less name calling.