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Google Slams Viacom For Secret YouTube Uploads

Posted by timothy on from the when-back-channels-collide dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Reuters: "Google, Inc. accused Viacom, Inc. of secretly uploading its videos to YouTube even as the media conglomerate publicly denounced the online video site for copyright infringement, according to court documents made public on Thursday." As "statements from the corporate counsel's office" go, this post on the YouTube blog is pretty hot reading.

5 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. RTFA, perhaps? Nah, then you can't just say BS. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    "As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement."

  2. Re:Two words for Viacom by bmo · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://definitions.uslegal.com/u/unclean-hands/

    "The clean hands doctrine is a rule of law that someone bringing a lawsuit or motion and asking the court for equitable relief must be innocent of wrongdoing or unfair conduct relating to the subject matter of his/her claim. It is an affirmative defense that the defendant may claim the plaintiff has "unclean hands". However, this defense may not be used to put in issue conduct of the plaintiff unrelated to plaintiff's claim. Therefore, plaintiff's unrelated corrupt actions and general immoral character would be irrelevant. The defendant must show that plaintiff misled the defendant or has done something wrong regarding the matter under consideration. The wrongful conduct may be of a legal or moral nature, as long as it relates to the matter in issue."

  3. Re:RTFA, perhaps? Nah, then you can't just say BS. by Dalambertian · · Score: 4, Informative
    From the memorandum:

    Viacom employees have made special trips away from the company’s premises (to places like Kinko’s) to upload videos to YouTube from computers not traceable to Viacom. See Schapiro Ex. 47 (158:2022); see also Schapiro Exs. 48, 49.

  4. Re:RTFA, perhaps? Nah, then you can't just say BS. by NotBornYesterday · · Score: 4, Informative

    In the supplemantary acticle, Google also alleges that Viacom hired 18 marketing companies to upload clips, and took steps to make the content look pirated. Viacom allegedly even sent employees Kinko's to upload clips, so Youtube couldn't trace the origin back to Viacom. I don't know what evidence they have of this, but if we give them the benefit of the doubt (that's a pretty specific bunch of allegations to simply invent), that would indicate some pretty clear malfeasance on Viacom's part. They were trying to poison the well and not get caught.

    --
    I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
  5. Re:If Viacom wins by metlin · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not as cut and dry as you might think. YouTube has done its share of dirty deeds in this whole fiasco.

    Some choice excerpts include the YouTube cofounders discussing how 80% of the site traffic depended on pirated videos. So, they pretty much did whatever they had to get a massive user base so that they'd get bought out. From the article -

    The basic argument here is a simple one. YouTube's founders hoped to build a massive user base as quickly as possible and then sell the site. "Our dirty little secret... is that we actually just want to sell out quickly," said Karim at one point.

    Now, arguably, YouTube at that time does not equal Google, and one could argue that things have changed. However, don't be so quick to decide without hearing both sides of the story.