YouTube Begins Defense, Seeks Depositions

eldavojohn writes "YouTube has begun their defense against Viacom by first calling on 30 depositions from people like Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert. While the article mentions that YouTube has not revealed what they hope to gain in these depositions, I think Jon Stewart's opinions will weigh in favor of YouTube. Comedy Central's parent company, Viacom, objects to YouTube's hosting of their content. Comedy Central hosts many Daily Show & Colbert Report clips on its own site, bringing in its own ad revenue."

Comments

Re:It's a Tactic

[ajs]

You ask to depose a number of people, hoping that the inconvenience of the process will force the other side to back down. That's why Comedy Central has the Google founders on their deposition list. It's lawyering. Probably not. The goal, here, is to discover exactly what's going to come out in court. Obviously the folks involved with The Daily Show will have information about the impact that You Tube has had on the show, how ratings have been doing, and so on.

Google needs to make the case that brief exposure to copyright violation (while Viacom staff hunts down the content and issues formal complaints to You Tube) has not had a negative impact on the programs that have been infringed. They also need to show that they've been prompt in responding to concerns about copyright violations on their site.

If they can make those two points, they'll have a start to a workable case. The real question is how much effort Google can realistically be asked to put in to make sure that their users don't upload copyrighted material. The answer to that question will have far-reaching impacts on every site (mine included) that allow users to contribute their own content whether text, audio, video or something else.

Re:It's a Tactic

[larry bagina]

this is a "deposition". Before the trial, there is a process called "discovery" where lawyers interview people who might have relevant facts (or sometimes they submit a written deposition). There's a lot more leeway than when calling a witness at the actual trial.