YouTube Fires Back At Viacom

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "As we say in the legal profession, 'issue has been joined' in Viacom v. YouTube. In its answer to Viacom's complaint (PDF), filed Friday, YouTube says Viacom's lawsuit is intended to 'challenge... the protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") that Congress enacted a decade ago to encourage the development of services like YouTube.' It goes on to say that the suit 'threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression.'"

Comments

FP?

[dosius]

Now YT, bring back xenutv1 (since you cancelled it because of the original xenutv that you cancelled because of a Viacom complaint) and I might consider calling it even.

-uso.

Re:FP?

[catwh0re]

Basically like this: CoS are paying YT a nice lump of cash to advertise on their site. So YT in return for this cash reinstate the CoS account. Money talks, no business has morals when it comes to cash.

Re:FP?

[SanityInAnarchy]

no business has morals when it comes to cash. Sorry, I call bullshit on that one.

It is a sad state that most businesses have obligations to shareholders, but to suggest that all businesses only care about cash must, by extension, mean that this is true of all people.

I'll grant you "most", but the way you (and others like you) are wording this makes it an excuse. It's not, especially for a company which claims "Don't Be Evil." Shame on Google, shame on YouTube, and shame on you for giving them an excuse.

Re:FP?

[erroneus]

IF censorship was all that China did, I wouldn't care so much... censorship doesn't work. It's the official brutality, murder and the treating people as beasts of burden that bothers me.

Scientology is a complete fraud... no argument there.

Re:FP?

[SanityInAnarchy]

IF censorship was all that China did, I wouldn't care so much... censorship doesn't work. It's the official brutality, murder and the treating people as beasts of burden that bothers me. But, censorship is all Google is doing here. They're not brutalizing, murdering, or mistreating people, as far as I know.

They are associating with the PRC, so maybe guilt by association, but it's not as though the PRC would stop just because Google refused to censor. They'd just block Google, and everyone there would use Baidu instead.

Re:FP?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

It is a sad state that most businesses have obligations to shareholders, but to suggest that all businesses only care about cash must, by extension, mean that this is true of all people. I disagree with that statement because

(a) an individual can choose, in any given moment, between self interest and trying to help someone else, but

(b) a corporate board of directors and corporate officers are pretty much required to choose the corporation's self interest. So a corporation -- if not closely regulated -- is essentially a sociopath with perpetual life.

Too bad

[dunezone]

Even if Viacom were to win this, they would still be losing out.

Where is the first place I go to find clips of a show? Youtube. After that I head off to google in hopes of finding it somewhere else.

Would I go over to Comedy Centrals website? SpikeTV? MTV? No, because these sites are cluttered with garbage and intrusive AD supported video players. I usually get lost at these sites anyway.

Also, I'm 22, the perfect demographic for these opportunities and you've seem to have alienated us over the years with your garbage websites.

Viacom's case

[TheRedSeven]

Viacom's case seems to be based on the fact that it's too hard for them to keep up with all the copyright infringing materials posted on YouTube, and therefore YouTube should bear the burden of distinguishing what is and is not infringing. This is just silly. The burden under the DMCA is clearly on the part of the copyright holder, and that's the only thing that makes sense for companies who simply offer services of hosting.

The only other point Viacom has is that YouTube transfers all video into their own 'proprietary' format and then 'copies' it (by which, I assume, they mean "show it on multiple instances of XYZ web browser"--or maybe backups). This is akin to saying that WordPress has its own proprietary format for blogs, by which it copies and distributes information. What a joke!

And things get funny toward the end of the response, too. YouTube denies point #24, which reads:

Defendant YouTube, Inc., is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in San Bruno, California.

If you can't even get that right, you may as well just give up!

My prediction (and hope) is that Viacom loses this one quickly and effectively.

Re:Viacom's case

[Score Whore]

Viacom's case seems to be based on the fact that it's too hard for them to keep up with all the copyright infringing materials posted on YouTube, and therefore YouTube should bear the burden of distinguishing what is and is not infringing.

I'm curious. Let's say ChoicePoint decides they'd like to do more business. So what they decide to do is establish a website called ReportOnConsumers.com. Where anyone can upload a document about anyone. Of course they want to make it possible for people to properly police their information and control who gets access to it, so they provide a nice email where all you have to do is drop them a line proving that you're the person identified in a particular posting and they'll go ahead and remove it. Of course anyone can reupload it immediately. All you have to do to control it is continually review every posted report and submit a proper takedown request.

Still think like the idea of the responsibility being yours?

In the end they will simply pay a license fee.

[Frosty Piss]

Even if Viacom were to win this, they would still be losing out.

Where is the first place I go to find clips of a show? Youtube. After that I head off to google in hopes of finding it somewhere else.

Remember that Google is no longer (and hasn't been for quite some time) the warm and fuzzy "do no evil" startup it originally was. Now, from a business standpoint, it is like any other multi-national. This is about money, and in the end if Google loses, they will simply pay a license fee.

Re:I would not be too sure about that.

[DrEldarion]

The difference here is in the fact that Google has way, way, way better lawyers than the defendant in that case.

Re:The best part was left out...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

At any rate, this won't be so much a case on the evidence (it's pretty open what YouTube does) but on law. Expect a few tons of legal opinions on both sides and pretty much a guaranteed appeal to the Supreme Court. What I would really expect is a settlement. Viacom has made a mistake here. They usually don't take on people who can fight back. They are going to get destroyed if they don't back down.

Re:Slashdot = idiots

[Vexorian]

I find it amusing you simultaneously think slashdot = idiots yet you apparently worry a lot of about your karma...

Viacom is arguing, among other things(*), that when the procedure is combined with anonymous users and the enormous scale of sites like Youtube that copyright is effectively nullified as an unintended side effect of how YouTube is complying with the takedown procedures, and that congress did not intend to nullify copyright.

So, they are basically saying they don't have enough control of the internet, and that such situation should be declared as unfair by the congress, so that everyone making a site with thumbnails has to totally screen out every thing submitted by any user for copyright infringement.

So, copyright is not enough to them, they also want the world to police their own copyright for them.

They will probably win that argument, because it's clearly true.

Besides of how "true" it "clearly" is, the fact remains that the entertainment industry is spoiled and cannot stand a channel of distribution they cannot control, so they are wrong in my book. Also, what the heck? How is youtube or any web site supposed to know something is copyrighted? It should seriously be the author's responsibility to protect his own imaginary property.

Youtube Scares Viacomm Shitless

[Greyfox]

It's not their copyrighted material that scares them. What frightens them is the potential for any person to create content which people find entertaining. More entertaining, in fact, than anything Viacomm can possibly come up with. It's a means of media distribution that they don't and can't control, and it frightens them. They would be quite happy if it just disappeared, and they're going to mount any attack they can to make that happen.

First the lawsuits will start. I suspect those will fail. The next thing that happens after that is that someone will try to create a competing web site that completely misses the point and puts restrictions on users uploading content and tries to add DRM and advertising to any videos that do get uploaded. Then some gigantic media conglomerate will try to buy and bury Youtube. If all that doesn't work, they'll likely just give up and live with it. Not many companies make it past all that harassment though.

Re:Youtube Scares Viacomm Shitless

[JoshJ]

This is /., so:
If I steal your car, it is wrong because you no longer have it.
If I press a button and make a copy of your car; you still have it and are in no way harmed.

Re:The best part was left out...

[nametaken]

I wouldn't say he's generalizing. He said, "Maybe not".

I think the point was that a jury will not always decide what we expect they would, or should, decide.

Re:Is the goal destruction of the DMCA safe harbor

[Kjella]

Well, we'll see how that argument spins as I think YouTube will play that as "We have gove above and beyond what's required by law at the insistance of copyright holders, yet they demand the impossible. While this process is imperfect, removing it because of increased liability would cause a massive surge in piracy which would hurt the plaintifs. Causing damage to themselves in order to recover it through the legal system is an abuse of the legal system and should not be permitted". I think Viacom would hit a brick wall very quickly if they tried as everyone would drop their filtering on the spot, with very little sympathy towards the copyright holders from anyone.

Just one more reason....

[joocemann]

...for us to establish serious penalties for invalid litigious activity. The fact that everyone is suing everyone, for money, sickens me, and is an extreme waste of our judicial resources. Add traffic violations that are not in line with the 'intent' (and thus the constitutional explanation for the law), and you've got a glaring systematic problem.

Re:The best part was left out...

[Kjella]

What I would really expect is a settlement. Viacom has made a mistake here. They usually don't take on people who can fight back. They are going to get destroyed if they don't back down. Honestly, I think they're too full of self-importance to even consider it. They're going to get all out there like in the Sony vs Betamax case with statements like The "VCR is to Hollywood what Jack The Ripper was to women" -Jack Valenti, only against YouTube. I really hope they got what it takes to take this all the way and hopefully set a precedent that'll keep them at bay for decades. And I think they're completely oblivious to what they're really walking into.

No Big Deal

[jgc7]

The lawsuit is for $1 billion... which is a whopping %0.6 of GOOG's market valuation. Win or lose, it is not all bad for google. If they lose, their competitors will get shutdown because of the legal precedence; they will be the last man standing. If they win, they get to continue as usual.

I don't think Viacom stands a chance... they need to show "willful, intentional, and purposeful" infringement. The case rests on data as a percentage basis, how many views turned out to be infringing content? 60%? 30%? 10%? 2%? IMO, if the answer is 60%, Viacom should win. If it is 2%, they should lose.

Re:The best part was left out...

[Venik]

When a judge is expected to hear a case dealing with a highly technical subject and the judge knows that he will most likely not be able to understand the technological side of the arguments - what is he likely to do? Sometimes I read the various trial documents posted here and I am amazed that there seems to be a great number of judges so well versed in the latest computer technologies to take on such complicated cases. Do they really understand the abracadabra coming from various expert witnesses, or do they just pretend to understand as a face-saving measure? I understand that many judges are well-educated, but a Renaissance Man is hardly a substitute for a network engineer.

Re:What nonsense

[cswiger]

"I really don't know why the US allows civil proceedings to be heard by a jury of peers at least a judge would have some level of intelligence."

The founders had enough experience with corrupt judges to not blindly trust them....

Whitelisting vs. Blacklisting.

[Spy der Mann]

Let's say Youtube is a huge storage house where you put many boxes. The problem is, you don't know what the boxes contain until you actually open them. Labelling each box (i.e. for a screenshot) isn't any guarantee - remember the rick rolls disguised as "cool stuff"? The videos were carefully crafted as to show a non-rickroll screenshot.

Searching by tags and title is no guarantee, since some videos are blatantly fake (i.e. latest anime series X episode Y that actually have a previous episode - the comments in these ones are hilarious to read) or can contain fair use material. Perhaps they're parodies which redub the entire episode, so even developing a "video fingerprint" for these wouldn't be accurate.

So how is youtube going to implement a filter for copyrighted stuff? The answer is simple: They just can't.

So the only choice to determine whether a video is an illegal copy of a copyrighted work or not, is to watch it.

So - viacom complains that there are tons of copyrighted videos in youtube. Could you please explain how youtube, with its limited human infrastructure, keep in pace with all the copyrighted videos uploaded daily - no, every minute?

So yes, there is something youtube can do to improve the situation - disabling accounts which repeatedly upload illegal videos. But how to handle situations where a company doesn't like a video ABOUT them and post a DMCA complaint (i.e.e Scientology, creationists)? Will the uploader be banned just by using free speech? Clearly, each case needs to be handled separately, and that takes a lot of time.

In the end, it only comes to two choices: Check each video before it's made available on youtube (yeah right), or keep the current approach of taking down videos on every DMCA complaint.

So this is not about youtube "assisting piracy", it's about viacom not wanting to spend a penny in hiring people to search youtube and file DMCA complaints.

While I usually agree with your posts ...

[celtic_hackr]

I have to disagree slightly here due to what I call "weasel phrasing". While you're absolutely correct that directors and such have a legal duty to do what is in the best interest of the shareholders, it doesn't necessarily follow that grabbing all the cash you can get is in the best interests, nor is making as much money as is humanly or inhumanely possible.

In fact, I would say that being a good corporate citizen is in the best interests of the shareholders. Of course there is plenty of room for many opinions here, because the phrase "best interests" is open to as many interpretations as there are people. While some interpretation are clearly wrong and illegal, there is still a very wide range of perfectly valid opinions.

It is statements like yours that give companies the excuse to be as bad as they want, and I for one disagree with that stance.

I will now be prepared to see you blast all of my reasoning out of the water. :D

Re:While I usually agree with your posts ...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I have to disagree slightly here due to what I call "weasel phrasing". While you're absolutely correct that directors and such have a legal duty to do what is in the best interest of the shareholders, it doesn't necessarily follow that grabbing all the cash you can get is in the best interests, nor is making as much money as is humanly or inhumanely possible. In fact, I would say that being a good corporate citizen is in the best interests of the shareholders. Of course there is plenty of room for many opinions here, because the phrase "best interests" is open to as many interpretations as there are people. While some interpretation are clearly wrong and illegal, there is still a very wide range of perfectly valid opinions. It is statements like yours that give companies the excuse to be as bad as they want, and I for one disagree with that stance. I will now be prepared to see you blast all of my reasoning out of the water. :D There's nothing wrong with your reasoning. I'm all for corporations being good citizens, whether it is or is not in the best interests of the shareholders' bank accounts. I would hold up Ben and Jerry's as a shining example. It did a lot of things which may have cut against the bottom line, but in the long run the company did fine.

And of course there are many examples we could give of the opposite; corporations which were supposedly acting in the shareholders' best interests, but their behavior got them into trouble with the law, and ultimately led to their ruination.

But I was just describing the reality of the American legal system, which basically instructs directors and officers that the one duty they have -- in their capacity as directors and officers -- is to their shareholders, and which does not recognize any other duty they might have to other 'stakeholders', such as (a) employees, (b) venders, (c) customers, and (d) society.

If you were installed as the head of a large insurance company sitting on a bunch of money, and started giving it away to help society, you watch what would happen to you. It wouldn't be pretty.