iFilm Infringement Could Blunt Viacom's YouTube Argument

Radio Silence writes "Infringing videos on iFilm could undermine Viacom's case against YouTube. Although it's arguably not a nest of infringement like YouTube, iFilm appears to host more than a handful of videos for which its corporate parent Viacom does not own the copyright. More importantly, Viacom isn't engaging in the kind of proactive infringement identification practices it expects of YouTube, which may cause problems for them in court. 'if Viacom isn't willing to take the same steps with iFilm that it wants YouTube to take with copyrighted content, Viacom may have a harder time making its case before the judge presiding over the case. "It would have some persuasive value with a judge if YouTube says 'look, they're ranting and raving about all this infringement occurring on my site and they're not doing anything about it themselves,'" said copyright attorney Greg Gabriel.'"

Comments

p0wned

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha. Viacom just got p0wned.

Re:do

[ArsonSmith]

But your honor, if I was speeding then the cop had to speed to catch me and pull me over. You should let me off and charge him!!!!

Re:Skeletons

[notasheep]

I find your argument interesting in that you probably wouldn't want it extended to other types of businesses. For example, we hold bars accountable if they serve alcohol to patrons who appear to already be intoxicated - they can't turn the other way and keep serving to people because if they do they are liable for what that patron might do. Another example: Imagine there's a business next door to your house that is set up to allow people to exchange (or share) drugs - not likely, but this is an example. A legal use for this could be people exchanging/sharing aspirin for cold medicine. If it was known that a good number of that businesses patrons were exchanging heroin for cocaine I doubt you would accept their position of "We set up this environment, but if laws are broken it isn't our responsibility...it's up to you." You would probably expect them to set up some process to ensure illegal activities aren't taking place. You wouldn't expect the process to be 100% effective, but you would expect some sort of efficacy.

Again, I know my example is a little bit of a stretch, but where do we draw the line on culpability?