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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.'"
Does it really surprise anyone that Viacom has skeletons in its own closet?
Do as I say, not as I do...
This guy's the limit!
Viacom is suing YouTube for infringing on Viacom's copyright. Viacom is not infringing on its own rights on iFilm. If other people aren't happy w/ iFilm's infringing contents, let them sue Viacom. Two wrongs don't make a right.
I believe the law takes things case by case.
The judge should see if the first has a case, and tell the other "if you want them to do the same thing, you need to sue them".
If I hit someones car with mine, and then they hit my car, I can certainly file a claim. If they want damages, they need to file back. They can't just say "we both hit eachother so theres no claim at all". Sure the damages might be equal, but most likely not... for instance, comparing YouTube to Ifilm are not equal at all in infringement. The article aknowledges YouTube has many more infringing content.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Is it reall a valid argument to say "See, the guys that are suing us for breaking the law are breaking the law too?" Doesn't that make both of them guilty, rather than let You Tube off the hook? Personally I think the whole suit thing is more than a little bogus, but it doesn't make sense to me that this argument hold true...
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Keep in mind this is not the "they did it too!" defense. This is the "What you're asking is unreasonable, see even your own company can't comply!" defense.
That would be true if they were suing for something that was obviously illegal in the first place. However, it's important because they're trying to argue that something ambiguously legal is actually illegal. The DMCA has a provision that indemnifies companies like Google from lawsuits if users upload copyrighted material. All they're required to do is take it down once they've been notified, which they have been doing. Viacom is arguing that they shouldn't have to police YouTube, and that Google should be pre-screening content. What they're essentially saying is that the "Safe Haven" clause of the DMCA is not legal. But if they're doing the exact same thing, it makes it much harder to argue.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Your argument would be true if there was some law that would require YouTube to install filters. However, Viacom is asking a court to order GooTube to do this as a matter of public policy. When making considerations about public policy, judges would probably be persuaded by the argument that if it's too burdensome for the plaintiff to do it, why should the defendant do it when there's no law mandating it?
iFilm has been purchased by Google, and is now being sued for $1 billion by Viacom. Film at 11... (oh wait its copyrighted by Viacom, never mind!).
I'm not sure the judge will or should accept a tu quoque ("you're one too") argument. If A steal's B's car, and B steal's C's car, A is not off the hook for car theft.
I think more to the point is the question of when Viacom became aware of YouTube, and what steps they took when they found out. Even if Google is found guilty of violating DMCA, if Viacom didn't take reasonable looking steps (e.g. using DMCA takedowns), Viacom is going to have a hard time arguing astronomical damages.
I'm not saying Viacom has to defend its IP to keep its rights. I'm saying that if their actions look like they weren't all that concerned, it makes the notion they lost a billion dollars worth of revenue a bit hard to swallow. If Viacom was issuing takedowns like made, and just couldn't keep up with the new postings, it might be credible.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Good thing you are not the courts then. Because, "they did it too" is one of the primary defenses against assault with a deadly weapon -- if some guy is punching you in the face, then you have justification to hit back with anything you've got. If he was just standing there, doing nothing, then you've got no justification to assault him.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
It also means, if they win, the are setting good precedence for the people who want to sue them
if YouTube could say, "We take proactive steps to limit infringment, and respond within our stated guidelines to complaints of infringement. Viacom does neither." YouTube could be seen as coming up short on the limit side...They do, however, as far as I can tell, jerk videos pretty quickly upon a claim of infringement.
There is a significant difference though. In the case when someone is assulting you, there is an expectation that you should be able to defend yourself and any type of assult done in defense would be justifed. With ViaCom/Google, if ViaCom is being "assulted" by Google, it doesn't mean that ViaCom can turn around and "assult" someone else. Your example would be better if ViaCom started to share Google-owned videos. But even then both companies would be found to be violating the other's copyright as neither infringement would be justified.
Shouldn't this be against the two that created YouTube? Seems all of the parties involved are violating another patent by having websites period
Viacom should get over the fact that Google bought YouTube and think of another way to strangle the masses for a buck.!
There are only two steps in the gathering of ultimate knowledge. Open your eyes and, RTFM!
Our own government prosecutes pornographers while overseeing the sale and rental of porn. Consistency was never a virtue of any standing government in modern times.
You can be both a "thief" and a victim of "theft". I am not saying that YouTube is engaging in theft. I am simply saying that the fact that Viacom is engaging in behavior more egregeous than the one of which it is accusing YouTube does not in any way change the fact of whether or not YouTube is stealing or even harming Viacom. Just so we are clear, harming someone who is harming someone else is still harmful and unlawful.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Being someone who uses neither YouTube or iFilm for his viewing pleasure, it amazes me how much consternation the idea of copyright infringement causes in the marketplace. Remember the VCR? That was supposed to spell doom for television -- people would now tape their favorite shows and watch them endlessly, and wouldn't watch re-runs on TV. Duh!!! It then dawned on the networks that this could be turned to their advantage, because fans of shows would gladly buy merchandise, special video mixes, and eventually DVDs of their favorite shows.
Now everyone's up in arms over copyright infringement on the Internet. They need to get with the program. If you don't want people posting these things to YouTube/iFilms, then post it yourself! Make it easily accessible and readily available. Charge a subscription and then over subscribers video clips from their shows they've never seen, or short video pieces that were made for the Internet. And get over it! Once you're product goes out into the market, that's it. You can scream "copyright infringement" all you like, but people are going to record, copy, and share your material whether you like it or not. So find a way to cash or shut up.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
iFilm doesn't have RSS feeds for Daily Show episodes or Colbert Report. I've put together these two feeds using Dapper and Feedburner: Daily Show Clips on iFilm (http://feeds.feedburner.com/DailyShowiFilm) Colbert Report Clips on iFilm (http://feeds.feedburner.com/ColbertReportiFilm) Link to blog entry on this
While this is embarassing for Viacom, the unfortunate (for Google) reality is that if Google bites on this and points it out, it's bad for Google.
Google's big defense right now is the safe harbour provisions in the DMCA. Their legal argument is, they aren't required to put in safeguards so they can't be held liable for not doing so. If they, in some motion brief, go and point out that Viacom isn't safeguarding and how hypocritical that is, then Viacom in their reply can say "Oooops, you know, you're right, we're not, our bad, we're sorry, we'll pay reparations. And now, Google, since you've agreed it's a bad thing we've both done, you can pay reparations to us for your infraction too".
The media companies themselves aren't stupid. Look at the All-Time Most Viewed on YouTube. We've got OK! Go (a band signed with Capitol Records/EMI, an RIAA member), Nike, SNL (NBC), My Chemical Romance (a band with Reprise, a Warner Bros. label, also an RIAA member). Record labels are on it, production companies/ film studios, and a heck of a lot of networks. Here's a short list of partners.
YouTube (and sites like it) should be treated a bit different than the Napster of old. It holds a lof of other advantages over "old piracy", all of which is extremely useful to owners of the copyright:
There's a lot more to this, of course. But networks (finally!) aren't being total idiots. As far as I know, the three major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) all let you stream shows for free through their sites. Other networks may be doing the same thing (to some extent, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, Comedy Central, and the Sci-Fi channel do this). I don't think YouTube is the be-all and end-all in matters of online media. I'm speaking alot about them just because they're referenced in the article and they're the 'Video_blog Portal 2.0' (or whatever) that I'm most familiar with.
It gives me some hope that user response seems about as positive as Napster and the media conglomerate's response has been a hell of a lot more tempered; consumers get content for free, media creators/owners/distributors lose less control. Sure, crazy DRM schemes still pop-up, but this gives me hope that we're progressing positively. I'll take non-intrusive DRM as long as it does no harm and I get content for less (or free), not for the same price or more.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
...all are equal, just some are more equal than others. At least a variant of it. :)
In addition to what my sibling poster said, the reason you can act in self defense is because in so doing you prevent injury to yourself. Viacom, by infringing copyright, is not preventing the injury that YouTube is supposedly doing to it, so it wouldn't be justified under the self defense doctrine.
Apart from that, it's also the case that the self defense doctrine, at least in the US, is explicitly spelled out in the statutes. There isn't any similar affirmative defense for copyright infringement.
http://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+license+fi
As I've said before, even though I think Viacom is on the wrong side of the DMCA, the fact that YouTube can and does filter may cause Viacom to win some of its civil claims.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Viacom's iFilm is a direct competetitor to Google's YouTube. And I thought Microsoft was evil! This is a case of a company suing its competetitor for legal ("safe harbor") standard industry practices that they use themselves. Pretty damned sleazy. Worse than Microsoft (not as bad as Sony, at least they didn't root my box!)
Unlike most here, I read the above comments and must say that most of you guys are so full of crap it's coming out of your ears. I'm getting pretty damned tired of hearing copyright infringement referred to as "thieft". It is NOT thieft; not in the US, any way. The idea of "intellectual property" is, in the US, unconstitutional (Article 2 section 8). Nobody owns a creative work, not even its creator. You own NOTHING. What you posess (not "own") is is a limited time monopoly on copying, NOT the work itself. I do not own the song I just wrote this morning, I only own the right to copy it.
Intellectual "property" is a damned lie. It is not property in any sense of the word.
Unauthorized reproduction of a copyright work is illegal, but it is not theift any more than smoking pot is thieft (unless you stole the dope). Shoplifting a CD is thieft; posting it to Kazaa is not.
The (foreign owned) multinational corporations like Sony and Viacom want you to believe that freedom is slavery and war is peace. Orwell's 25 years late. Smile, you're on corporate-sponsored candid CCTV camera! Big corporation is watching you! And you fucking morons defend the evil Satan-worshiping sons of bitches. WTF is wrong with you????
To further on what has been said, you also should keep in mind that the law in most districts only allows for a proportionate response as self defense. If someone slaps you you are not justified in taking out a gun and shooting them (and self defense rules don't apply). In a not-so-extreme version: if someone about your size is hitting you with their fists, you are not justified in using a lethal weapon (knife, broken bottle, etc...).
There are lots of funny rules about what the different levels are, and there is a lot of special-case situations (black belts in martial arts have to be very careful about what they do, the training often counts as a lethal weapon and is an excuse to call it premeditated).
shemales for hire make the most in the sex for cash industries....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Upload infringing content to iFilm.
Well, someone has to say it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This lawsuit will not set any legal precedent because it will be settled out of court. Why? Because it's simply a negotiation tactic by Viacom to get more from Google. The other content companies have already signed revenue sharing agreements; Viacom wants the same but more with more money. Viacom thinks that this lawsuit a way to convince Google that YouTube needs to pay more.
not sure the link will copyP A584&lpg=PA584&dq=transvestites+%22make+more+money %22&source=web&ots=umPNLTs1nK&sig=m2aHbdgAhigsuRtX SqfWLvQHKf8
P A584&lpg=PA584&dq=transvestites+%22make+more+money %22&source=web&ots=umPNLTs1nK&sig=m2aHbdgAhigsuRtX SqfWLvQHKf8
http://books.google.com/books?id=stId9oZVqIkC&pg=
http://books.google.com/books?id=stId9oZVqIkC&pg=
see the last line, where it reads
"In some places, these prostitutes are very popular."
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
posted same link twice.. meant one to be
http://www.nycgoth.com/more/sex_industry/
"and pre-op transsexuals; she-males are in high demand among the Sex-for-Cash crowd"
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The copyright is enshrined in our history with the noble goal of "encouraging the progress of science and the useful arts." Unfortunately its real goal was to protect the investment in mass manufacure and distribution technology of the Printer's Guild, who controlled the presses - now the the entities who get the most out of copyright haven't created much of anything but plastic and paper - for the same reason. The availability of free content on the Internet is proof positive you don't need an economic incentive to get humans to create. The concept was never true to its goal and has become pretty unworkable in an age where the the "tangible medium of expression" requirement of copyright includes ephemeral media such as RAM and magnetic drives.