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Viacom Says "YouTube Depends On Us"
Anonycat writes "Michael Fricklas, a lawyer for Viacom, has an opinion piece in the Washington Post laying out Viacom's side in their $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube. Fricklas asserts that the DMCA's 'safe harbor' provisions don't apply because YouTube is knowledgeable to infringement and furthermore derives financial benefit from it. He also argues that putting the onus of spotting infringement onto the content providers represents an undue burden on them. Fricklas caps the argument by stating, 'Google and YouTube wouldn't be here if not for investment in software and technologies spurred by patent and copyright laws.'"
Grokster, if you recall, was explicit about saying that the company was guilty of contributory infringement only because they *encouraged unauthorized copying. The argument that "they benefited" from this copying was insufficient to that holding. Now here's the argument again...
Double dipping with the same argument should just get a case thrown out on the same day it's filed.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I've watched plenty of Colbert and other Viacom clips on YouTube, but I think it would still be valuable without them. I frequently view non-Viacom stuff, so saying that YouTube is dependent upon Viacom is an overstatement.
Al Gore still has the one up on creating the internet. We should all just sue him.
Anonymous Cow.
They know Grokster doesn't really apply. They are pushing the envelope, and hoping to widen the precedent. If they can, it makes future legal battles much easier. Of course, it also eliminates DMCA protection for anyone who makes a profit, thus eliminating the only thing about the DMCA that was good for consumers.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
lobby Congress to alter copyright law in the USA to change the duration to something more reasonable, like 50, 60, hell, even 70 years from the date of original publication, I'd be more sympathetic to their case. With the current: "nothing from the date of the creation of the Mouse will ever enter the public domain situation", I've got zero sympathy for copyright holders.
They need to take responsibility and self police. The company started out as viewer clip oriented but when large numbers of copyrighted clips started appearing they looked the other way. They had to know this was coming they were just milking the situation as long as they could. Given the volume of copyrighted clips they are ineffect claiming them as assets but they have no right to gain benefit from them. They can just say tell us what is copyrighted and we'll take it down but you might as well have a warehouse of a few hundred thousand items with say a third of the items that belong to another company. Is it reasonable to say just tell us what is your's when you removed the items without their permission. It's obvious in this case what belongs to the wronged party but you are saying you'll only return the items the other party identifies. They need to start an approval process like most other sites. Some one has to review at least part of the clip before it's posted. This should be done to begin with to avoid illegal content from being posted. I'm not talking copyrighted I'm talking kiddie porn and such.
We all know the real reason youtube is here is for candy mountain.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Let's file a class action suit against Viacom! After all, they do depend on us, the consumer...
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Strangely, it appears YouTube will continue to be supported by me because of the non-infringing material. Actually, in my opinion, all the Viacom, et. al. material makes it difficult to find the real gems.
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
From the summary:
Oh please. You want an easy solution. Setup a website where users can create an account, provide contact information and then search the web and/or P2P networks to report instances of copyright violation. When a particular instance has been reported a certain number of times have a real person check the link to determine if a violation has occurred and then take appropriate action. Reward the volunteers who are reporting the violation with points for those instances where a verified violation has occurred and after a certain number of points are accrued reward users with a free DVD or CD from the catalog.
The amount of money that the RIAA and MPAA would save if they implemented this kind of system would more than offset the free DVD's or CD's they would be giving away if their own figures on losses due to piracy are real.
With the Internet, you've got a whole army of users who can be the watchdogs for you. All you've got to do is give them an incentive and have a verification system in place to weed out fake entries.
It's going to suck for viacom when youTube calls Stephen Colbert to the stand. He's highlighted original content from youTube, He had representatives of a small comnercial venture (the band OK go) on to talk about how they used youTube to publish an Ad (their music videos), and he has multiple times asked people to make fair use parody content going so far as to make green screen segments to make it easier.
True, to an extent. Without copyright, we would have computers, and the hardware makers would have created operating systems and software inorder to sell hardware.
Not so sure computers would have progressed so rapidly without hardware patents though. Perhaps they would, but there has been a lot of microchip development from smaller players who would have been elininated by the big companies if they hadn't had any patents.
Especially since the DMCA specifically provides the RIAA with this handy tool. The only thing they have to do to have any content pulled is claim their employers own the copyright. No need to prove it, no need to show any kind of evidence, no official papers needed. They send any ISP a letter saying: the content on page X is ours, the ISP pulls it, since they can't prove who owns the copyright at all, so they'll just take the easy way out. At the moment, they have more to fear from the RIAA than from their own users. (Isn't that nice? You pay these people and they serve another master. That's for another post, though.)
Now they want to take this a step further and have the ISPs police their own network, without any interference from the RIAA. In short, they want to sit back and have you throw your money at them.
The arrogance in claiming that Google wouldn't exist without Viacoms patents is beyond me.
This lawyer is obviously trying to cram the square peg of the DMCA into his round hole. Does Google know that, in general, some people put content up on their site that they're not supposed to? Sure. Does Google get revenues from advertising? Sure. But Congress already contemplated both of those details when they passed the DMCA.
Google may know that, in principle, some of the videos that people have posted are in violation of copyright law. But they don't know which ones, or who the copyright holder is, until they get a DMCA takedown request. This was an intentional feature of the DMCA, to protect service providers from the actions of their users. The sheer fact that this protection is necessary is a clue to any service provider that some of their users will, in principle, post content that violates copyright law.
And yes, Google gets revenues from advertising. But the DMCA requires that the financial benefit that a service provider gains be a direct benefit from the infringement. Numerous free web hosts (Angelfire, Geocities, etc.) have been foisting ads on the people who view their users' web pages for years, and some of the content on those web pages infringes on copyright. This puts those web hosts in exactly the same position as Google, yet those web hosts have never been sued, because the financial benefit those advertisements provide is indirect to the infringing content posted by their users.
The only thing left that the DMCA requires is that a service provider take down infringing content upon receiving a takedown notice, and Google complies with those notices in a timely fashion. Whether Viacom likes it or not, Google qualifies for the safe harbor provision, and this lawyer guy is full of... hot air.
click on vieos.
click on All Time under Time.
click on Top Rated on Most Viewed.
Lets all look for Viacom clips shall we.
Hmm, there are a few that *might* be infringing - I'm going on Video names here alone.
Hardly depends on viacom here.
The overwhelming majority of stuff looks like the standard youtube crap.
AHHHH!! I understand Viacom's problem - they cant distinguish their crap from the rest of the crap.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Let's all drive Viacom out of business and see if YouTube is still around. Works for me.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Only in America could a Corporation have the audacity to suggest...no, not suggest, *say* that technology has been spurred by patent and copyright laws. Perhaps it was, originally, until they got a hold of the fact that it could be used, along with corporate-leaning litigation laws, to stifle competition.
Following this, I'm assuming that Viacom is going to announce that a lack of national health care has made the country healthier by forcing Americans to take better care of themselves.
Nonsense. The best 30 seconds of the show (or movie, or whatever) is the LEAST valuable part. It's the part they give away, constantly showing over and over again in clips and trailers, trying to sucker you into watching the rest.
And while posting the last 30 seconds of Citizen Kane might be obnoxious, it certainly wouldn't necessarily be a copyright violation. Besides, by now doesn't everyone know that "Rosebud" was Kane's;lAS ){A*R7}}}}}}}}}d}}d}}d
NO CARRIER
Just stroll through the most-viewed clips every now and again and tally up home-made vs capped videos.
That's missleading. You need to know what percentage of the traffic the top ten make up as a whole before you can say that Google is living off other broadcasts. The best indicator of this is netflicks, which goes through the entire catalog of film much more than you would expect. The "blockbuster world" is an artifact of previously inferior distribution that was unable to keep up with people's broad tastes. The number one clip may make up less than a fraction of a percent of viewership. I can't tell you for sure because the top ten can easily be rigged.
The smaller the number of blockbusters are relative to total viewership, the easier they are to rig. A company like Mediasentry could be hired to botnet demand Viacom clips and strengthen the Viacom lawsuit. Surely an honest entertainment company would never do anything like that, would they?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I sent the following comment in to the Washington, Post:
Mr. Fricklas' comnents are, for lack of a better term, a whiner who doesn't like the law as written and wants to sue to get something from the courts that the legislature has clearly denied him. His point that You Tube has knowledge of copyrighted content is not relevant. As his own statement has made, Congress gave sites immunity under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act for sites that quickly take down infringing material. He has not said that Youtube is not removing material when requested; indeed, my understanding is Youtube removes tens or hundreds of thousands of reported clips all of the time. Here, also, he is in effect saying that because Youtube has the capacity to remove material either because it is unlawful or in some way undesirable, Youtube is infringing because of the very controls it is required by law to have to remove infringing material! If Youtube didn't have controls to remove the material, I'm sure that then he'd be claiming that it was not properly designed to comply with the law!
He also writes, "Is it fair to burden YouTube with finding content on its site that infringes others' copyright? Putting the burden on the owners of creative works would require every copyright owner, big and small, to patrol the Web continually on an ever-burgeoning number of sites. That's hardly a workable or equitable solution."
The only problem with his argument is that that has been the exact requirement for the past 200 or so years that copyright has existed; the copyright owner is required - and has always been required - to police his copyrights - and no amount of whining about how a requirement - in existence for hundreds of years - to be changed because he doesn't like it is valid. I'd like to remind this lawyer of a comment by the U.S Supreme court regarding how one obtains one's rights over something:
My guess is that this whole lawsuit is nothing more than a bargaining chip so that Viacom can make more money off their content. Since, like so many other whiney losers, he can't figure a way to negotiate in the marketplace, he goes running to the courts to try and get what he can't win at the bargaining table.
Paul RobinsonGeneral Manager
Viridian Development Corporation
Arlington, Virginia
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
I don't watch Viacom's crap on MTV, CBS or Nickelodeon and I wouldn't care one bit if they disappeared from the Internet entirely.
YouTube depends on Viacom?? more like "YouTube a threat to Viacom"
ALL of the big media companies are scared of the Internet because it is breaking the monopoly they have on the flow of information and eroding their customer base of both viewers and advertisers. This has less to do with content than it does with undermining the emerging competitor at all costs.
After I wrote a prior piece here, I realized a great (bad pun) quote that sums up Viacom's lawsuit.
Viacom's lawyer, in effect is saying, "All YouTube are belong to us!"
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.