Dueling Summary Judgment Motions In Viacom v. YouTube

Posted by timothy on Sunday March 21, 2010 @09:27PM from the well-we-did-do-the-nose-and-the-hat dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Eric Goldman, an Associate Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law, has an excellent analysis of the dueling summary judgment motions in Viacom v. YouTube. Basically, both sides have been trotting out the most damning things they can find and asking the judge to rule against the other party. Viacom is mad that Chad Hurley, one of YouTube's co-founders, lost his email archive and couldn't remember some old emails. Worse, YouTube founder Karim once uploaded infringing content. But then Google points out that only a very small percentage of the users are engaged in infringing activity (some 0.016% of all YouTube accounts have been deleted for infringement), one of the clips Viacom is suing over is only one second long (what about fair use?), and most of YouTube's content is non-infringing, including the campaign videos which all major US presidential candidates posted to YouTube." (More below.) "But the worst thing they found is that Viacom can't make up their mind. They spent $1M advertising on YouTube and tried to buy it. And even though they demanded that YouTube remove videos containing Viacom property on sight, Viacom had a complex internal policy authorizing some clips, including ones disguised as 'leaks' and put out by their marketers. Viacom was so conflicted internally that their very expensive lawyers couldn't figure out what Viacom had authorized to be uploaded even after doing extensive research as required by court rules, only to discover that some of the clips Viacom was suing over were ones Viacom uploaded themselves. The lawyers then had to go to court and drop those clips from their case — twice. They missed some the first time."

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Bad google by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-22 00:11 · Score: 0, Flamebait

some 0.016% of all YouTube accounts have been deleted for infringement
Yes, under DMCA you have to post content frequently enough for the content holder to request an account takedown, as a result this is not even remotely indicative of the level of copyright violations on YT.
Anyway the issue isn't really about users posting copyrighted material (nor about content owners shrapnel approach to DMCA notices ignoring fairuse), it is about the fact Google has crowned itself guardian of all the worlds content and is basically saying to publishers "we will pay you what we want not what you think your content is worth but only if you tell us too, otherwise we will simply assume you permit us to make use of your content free". There are 5 major cases lined up behind the Viacom one waiting to see what happens, if two or three of these are found in favour of the content owners the cost to Google will be astronomical (in to the tens of billions is entirely possible).
Google should have never started with the attitude "We will use others content and seek their permission later", not only is it a disgusting attitude to take but it may ultimate set back useful IP reform decades.