Google to Viacom - The Law is Clear, and On Our Side

An anonymous reader writes "Google responded to the opinion piece in the Washington Post by a Viacom Lawyer with a letter to the editor titled 'An End Run on Copyright Law.' Their strong wording sends a very concrete message: 'Viacom is attempting to rewrite established copyright law through a baseless lawsuit. In February, after negotiations broke down, Viacom requested that YouTube take down more than 100,000 videos. We did so immediately, working through a weekend. Viacom later withdrew some of those requests, apparently realizing that those videos were not infringing, after all. Though Viacom seems unable to determine what constitutes infringing content, its lawyers believe that we should have the responsibility and ability to do it for them. Fortunately, the law is clear, and on our side.'"

Comments

Analysis from the Future

[CheeseburgerBrown]

Optimistic: one day our grandchildren won't believe us when we tell them how ridiculous the state of intellectual property law was back in the early 21st century.

Pessimistic: we won't be allowed to tell them, for copyright reasons.

Re:Analysis from the Future

[iminplaya]

I just can't wait to see when Disney loses rights to their very early stuff, that will be a laugh and a half.

That won't happen. They will ask for and receive extension after extension.

Re:Analysis from the Future

[NeoManyon]

For an interesting and somewhat chilling read on what the future might be like if we follow the pessimistic path then read "The Right to Read" by RMS. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Here's the beginning:

For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college--when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.

Re:Tag this:

[theStorminMormon]

Seriously, that is ownage like I've never seen between large corporations before.

It looks like Google did in fact know exactly what they were doing when they bought YouTube. Right now Viacom looks pretty much like they just stepped on head of a rake and got whacked in the face.

If there's one thing you can say for Google, they know how to stand up for sane copyright law.

I was on the Mad TV site...

[iPaul]

And clicked on the "you tube" link from the Mad TV site only to find the content had been pulled from You Tube and Mad TV's account was suspended. (I don't know if this is still the case, as this happened a few days ago). I assume Mad TV had originally posted the material, since the link to You Tube was from the Mad TV official site. Anyway, that's not the only one I've come across where legitimate content, posted by the right hand of one company, was ordered to be pulled by the left hand of the same company. I think that You Tube represents a significant opportunity to get Viacom's content out there for people to watch. It's a shame they can't come to some sort of agreement. (And it's a shame Viacom doesn't like the law they helped pay for).

Re:This requires some translation:

[Orange Crush]

This translates to "Drop your lawsuit or you're guaranteed to lose. Besides, our market cap is much bigger than yours so we can simply buy you to make this go away. Na na na na na na!"

Nah, Google doesn't want Viacom to drop the suit. Google was gunning for this fight and they want Viacom to come at them swinging hard. It's a fight Google is likely to win, but it has to be a fight otherwise it won't resolve anything and the rampant DMCA abuse will continue.

Re:Tag this:

[Xtravar]

If there's one thing you can say for Google, they know how to stand up for sane copyright law.

That's because Google's entire business model is based around using other people's copyrighted material.

It's a symbiotic relationship where Google can use pieces of peoples content to advertise over while simultaneously causing that full content to be consumed, making the creators money.

What a strange new world...

If Viacom can't do it, they shouldn't expect ...

[Augusto]

... others to do it.

It has already been shown that ifilm contains material which they don't own the copyright. Viacom, can't police that material, why should anybody expect google to do what the originator of the lawsuit is crying about?

And google does have a way to report questionable material, you hit the "flag as innapropiate" and choose "Other terms of use violation". In addition the same button has a link for copyright owners to object to the material. That really seems fair enough to me.

The only technical solution would be to filter words, which is a stupid alternative. As I may want to upload parodies of "Steve Colbert" instead of actual video from his show.

The Real Problem

[Lord Balto]

The real problem with copyright law is that large corporations are allowed to possess them. This is just another example of the much larger problem of large corporations being allowed to do anything an individual can do. Even in your example, the author doesn't necessarily own the copyright. Often, it is the publisher that does so, which is good if a lawsuit is required, but it limits the author's future right to do what they wish with their work. In short, why is a company that has not produced anything creative allowed to take advantage of a legal right that was supposedly enacted to protect creativity? Perhaps these corporations should only be allowed to possess limited copyrights that only extend to the first production of the work in question, with all rights thereafter reverting to the artists who created the works. I have no absolute solutions, but I really think this needs to be looked at from the point of view of what would actually increase creativity in the real world and not just in the corporate bizarro world.