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Viacom Looks For Google Staff Uploads in YouTube Logs
Barence writes "Viacom wants to know which YouTube videos have been uploaded by members of Google's staff, in what could be a potentially explosive aspect of its copyright infringement claim against the search giant."
Surely there must be a few viacom employees (or employees of its partners) who have either watched or uploaded or both (and I am talking about copyrighted crap) videos to Youtube. How about looking for them?
Hell how about looking for MS employees? or Boeing? Might as well look for everything..Good luck Viacom /spit.
I think Google should check to see if any of Viacom's staff have been uploading videos while they are at it. Could be interesting...
If someone's employee goes above and beyond the call of duty to help you, that reflects on them as a company.
If the employee screws you over, that reflects on them as a company. Say a middle manager denies you your refund on a defective product. Now, to listen to several people above, "What problem is it of the store's that the manager ignored consumer protection laws?" - should the manager be sued or personally liable? Of course you'd go after the company.
If you get screwed by an employee out of their mandate (say, copying your credit card number down, something clearly not in their job description), you still don't go after the person. You'd be suing their employer for the actions of their employee on the job. Vicarious liability. (Of course, the employee would also be guilty of criminal charges.) Any loss inflicted on the company would either be picked up by civil suit between employer and employee or professional insurance, etc.
Why would this be any different?
I agree that YouTube is an excellent way to popularize Viacom's content, but that's not the only business concern of relevance here.
Viacom wants to use YouTube-esque short clips of its videos as a revenue source. And, if Google's employees are uploading infringing content, then YouTube may be actively hampering Viacom's ability to earn ad revenue from its original works. Comedy Central, for example, offers years of Daily Show, Colbert Report, and South Park clips that are supported by ads. YouTube is likely limiting Viacom's ability to capitalize on its intellectual property by substituting for Viacom's in-house video service. That is textbook copyright infringement.
Totally unscientific survey: my 4-year old daughter prefers to browse YouTube than television. Admittedly she tends to follow pop videos. But she prefers the mouse to the TV remote.
If it's true that people use YouTube to watch clips from TV programs, then Viacom are even stupider than I thought...
But stupid or not, this seems to be the start of the TV industry joining the music and movie and telecoms businesses in attacking the open Internet.
I wonder what kind of Internet my daughter will have when she grows up.
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I've been using hulu.com for a lot of stuff. I really don't mind the ads playing every 15 minutes or so. They're unobtrusive, no louder than the show, and they're not the same one every time. Plus the quality is substantially higher than youtube even if the selection isn't quite the same. It's how I get my Daily Show fix every day. The only trouble is the money goes to Mark Cuban but it's a small price to pay.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin