Slashdot Mirror
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."
What Viacom is doing is absolutely pointless. Want to make money? Have free downloads of *all* your shows on your website. And upload a bunch on YouTube too, why? Because YouTube is an easy way to watch videos, and I believe that Google will pay you to have ads in your videos.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
While I dislike the action, it gives Google (and ever other major corporation) a reason to care about my privacy rights. Hate the means; love the ends.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Common sense aside, uploading copyrighted videos is clearly against any corporate internet use policy. Why should Google be held liable for the illegal actions of its employees? It's not like Google encouraged its employees to upload the Daily Show. If that doesn't hold up in court, you just got yourself a convenient way to screw your employer (convenient if, for example, you were planning on leaving the country).
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
If it was uploaded by Google's staff as part of their paid job, then yes, Google is intentionally infringing their copyright.
But why would Google be blamed for an employee acting on his own to upload something?
Hmm, just RTFA. With a company the size of google I don't see how just demonstrating that an employee is uploading copyrighted content is good enough. Just because the janitor / cafeteria lady / lead developer for Blogger is doing it doesn't mean that the people in the YouTube group knew they were. (I'm saying this knowing full well that Viacom is just trying to legally prove what everyone else already knows - of course the YouTube guys know people are putting copyrighted stuff on there.)
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Would staff be posting Viacom material from their work place? More likely if any video was posted to Youtube, they would do it from their homes, which are NOT under googles (or any other employers) control. Viacom could therefore go jump at making tenuous connections between being employed by company x, and company x endorsing some behaviour.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
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'll bet Google is thinking that maybe keeping identifiable logs isn't such a good idea now...
Towards the Singularity.
what the internet has done to intellectual property is pit the little guys against entrenched dying large corporate machines. usually all the little guy can do is run and hide. but when its corporate machine versus corporate machine cast in the role usually occupied by the little guy, this is good because google can throw clout into a fight where the little guy can only hope to be popped like a zit. so precedents can fly out of this that can protect the little guy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
...that they really don't care about their copyrights, they just want the cash. After all, why else would you go after the people with more money rather than the people with the most infringements.
...they're individuals. Doesn't this go against Viacom's original claim that they weren't trying to identify particular individuals?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
But that's a good reason for Google to look for Viacom employees uploading infringing content. One defense Google can raise is "Plaintiff can't keep it's own employees from doing X. How can they then in all fairness expect us to do what they can't or won't?". And yes, judges do listen to arguments like that. It can leave a plaintiff having to walk a very fine line or risk having their demand thrown out as unreasonable (by their own admission) or barred.
Google should just buy Viacom
Are you saying that Viacom is a bunch of whores? Dude, I like whores! The difference between Viacom and a whore is, whores are less dishonest.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
is information you don't have to protect.
If I were Viacom, I'd certainly be upset about Google making money off of my property (which is what's happening in reality), but instead of getting into a legal battle with them, why not work with them? Lets face it, Viacom is part of a dying distribution model. I think part of the frustration stems from the fact that regardless of how you provide your content, it will ultimately be uploaded to YouTube. But if that's the case, why not provide ad-based content through YouTube? Ideally, a situation like this makes everyone happy, and I'm sure Google would be happy to work with you. Eh, just a thought, I'm not economist or anything.
Though I don't understand why it matters if I uploaded something on my own time or not. I was allowed to do all sorts of things on my own time. Sure, I probably couldn't start another search engine, but if I wanted to upload a couple short clips from Comedy Central or whatever, who cares? If it's 10pm at night and I'm at home using my own hardware, what the hell does it matter that I work for Google? I mean, sure, if it's not Fair Use, they could come after me personally, whatever. But I fail to see the connection to my workplace.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Even if Google purposefully used Viacom's content that is no reason Google should have to give away it's property, the log files for usage statistics. If a walmart employ steals a CD from Target, that doesn't give Target the right to start stealing Plasmas from Wal-mart. This is a wide-net search for illegal activities of private citizens as well as international viewers. To me that is a clear violation of the 4th amendment. The judge should have ruled that it is the burden of Viacom to find the specific videos that violate their IP rights and notify YouTube of infringement. At that point either the video is taken down or they pay off Viacom to use the video on a case-by-case basis. If I were the Viacom CEO I would work out a deal where Viacom would either sell high-quality clips or better yet offer them in exchange for the user statistics inorder to better judge who likes certian shows so they can use more targeted ads during their TV and full-length web showings. It seems to me that many big Corps care more about using their power to bully people around than they do about actually making money, or to increase profits in other related markets. Ex. A Record label that owns CD producing factories have more incentive to kill mp3's since 10 CD sales gives them a higher net profit than 100 iTunes downloads. Personally I like watching HDTV better than crappy web videos for full-length TV shows, but in case I miss the broadcast of "The Office" it's nice to watch it on the web the next day at work so that i'm not out of the loop for the next broadcast.