YouTube Granted Safe Harbor From Viacom

eldavojohn writes "It's an old case, but there was an interesting development today when a judge ruled that YouTube is protected from Viacom by the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, since YouTube helps rights owners manage their rights online and works cooperatively with entities like Viacom. Google's calling it a victory, but I'm not sure if Viacom will take this without a fight."

Comments

Youtube may be safe

[Anonymous Coward]

But viewers of Viacom remain at great risk.

Not Sure?

[value_added]

From a randomly selected article

We believe that this ruling by the lower court is fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," Viacom said in a statement. "We intend to seek to have these issues before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as soon as possible."

Re:Not Sure?

[mwvdlee]

Seems like Viacom would prefer to have the power to force companies to do it's dirty work AND sue them afterwards.

Re:Not Sure?

[AnEducatedNegro]

Could this have anything to do with it?

aEN

Re:Not Sure?

[Dragoniz3r]

And subsequently lose potential searchers to Bing or Yahoo because they couldn't find what the wanted to find on Google? Uhhhhh, let's just stick with items #1 and #4.

Re:Not Sure?

[dgatwood]

Or flag it as a virus site. People will find the site and be horrified.

Re:Not Sure?

[Guppy]

What I'd like to see is for Google to grow some cojones when it comes to dealing with the big media conglomerates.

I respectfully disagree with the listed tactical options, however. "Don't be evil" is a main reason that Google gets a pass on its dominance in the search market and online advertising space. A refusal to use its market power to punish adversaries is part of that -- it is an essential part of what makes the difference between a legal and illegal monopoly.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

If slashdot comments are the inane ramblings of semi-literate retards... then I don't know what words remain to accurately describe youtube comments.

Re:About time

[MozeeToby]

Or better yet, stop trying to sue your potential customers and instead offer a cheap, high quality, DRM free, and above all legal download option and actually make money off of it instead of losing money in litigation costs. Personally, I very rarely download things that I can legally acquire some other way, but if there was an option for unlimited downloads of the things I watch for a fair (think ~$5 per month) cost I'd jump all over that and kiss my cable subscription goodbye.

Good

[Adrian Lopez]

Not only should YouTube not be liable for what its users choose to post online, YouTube shouldn't even have to provide copyright holders with any special tools for handling infringing content.

If we as citizens are required to live with the DMCA's restrictions, it is only fair that courts give Viacom no special treatment either. Google's only responsibility is to take down infringing content when properly requested to do so by copyright holders. As long as it continues to do that according to the terms of the DMCA, YouTube should not be expected to do anything more. Viacom should consider itself lucky that YouTube goes beyond the DMCA's requirements and provides them tools such as content detection and a streamlined process for getting rid of allegedly infringing content -- they are not entitled to any of that under the law.

Re:Good

[MarkvW]

Your post does not accurately state a general principal. Often a person can "participate" in a crime and not be culpable of that crime. It is not right to say that "all that participate in the crime of sharing are culpable." Sometimes, people can be held VICARIOUSLY liable for the acts of others, but only if the legislature explicitly makes it so. The legislatures do not always do that.

Easy examples that come to mind are statutory rape and abortion. The victim of a statutory rape is a non-culpable participant in the rape. The woman seeking the abortion is often not criminally liable for the abortion, but the doctor is.

Our legislatures are entitled to make fine distinctions. That's a good thing. Rigid adherence to general principles leads to injustice.

It was always a long shot for viacom

[91degrees]

This does seem to be pretty much what the safe harbor provisions are about.

Okay - really it was written at a time when people actually paid for web space, and it was to protect the providers from the copyright infringement of their paying customers rather than their free users, but in principle this is what the provisions are for.

Re:It was always a long shot for viacom

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

This does seem to be pretty much what the safe harbor provisions are about.

Exactly. The motions should not even have had to be made. If I were the judge I would be considering sanctions against the plaintiffs.

Viacom violating their own IP

[interkin3tic]

I can't understand most of the PDF posted there, anything in there about how Viacom uploaded their own material so they could bust youtube for it? It would be nice if that bit of douchebaggery came back to screw them over, though I expect that's too much to ask from justice.

Re:Viacom violating their own IP

[FrostDust]

Summary judgment means the judge sided in favor of Google based on their DMCA argument alone, before the full trial began. Other aspects of this case, such as Viacom uploading their own stuff, or Google's internal emails, weren't considered in the scope of this.

While some may have wanted to see them held responsible for their "douchebaggery," I feel this is a better result. This strongly affirms the use of the DMCA's Safe Harbor as defense against copyright infringement, instead of mucking it up with other details.

Re:About time

[RulerOf]

fair (think ~$5 per month)

Too low.

Even though I'd prefer cheap/free over something that costs money, I highly prefer legitimate sources over illegitimate ones.

To get a fair price, add up the minimum amount of money you'd have to spend to get all the content you like, and let's pretend for argument's sake that you can get HBO and Showtime and Starz without having a $100+ cable package to throw it on top of.

Broadcast TV = Free, HBO/Showtime/Starz = $10/mo each, Movies = $10/mo via Netflix.

So let's say $50/month when you throw out terrestrial broadcasts' commercials because paying for them is bullshit. Now cut it in half. $25/month minimum to $50/month maximum depending on your package with a la carte options available at each tier AND... AND... you can bundle it with your internet connection and telephone line for better savings. And seeing as how Comcast owns NBC these days, it's a win/win for them.

But that would make sense and be immensely profitable, but not as profitable as the packages people pay for these days but never use so we'll never see it happen. Oh well.

[rant]
While we're at it, why don't we try to get a connection that solves the bandwidth problem by selling bandwidth caps instead of transfer caps, but that would make sense too.
[/rant]

Re:About time

[zenasprime]

The viewer is NOT the customer. The Advertisers are the customer. You are just an inconvient reality of their business model. ;)

The best bit!

[The Good Jim]

From the Guardian...

"Most embarrassingly for Viacom, court documents revealed in in March that at the same time that it was suing Google and YouTube, Viacom was itself uploading its content in secret and trying to make it look stolen - so that people would be more interested in it.

One excerpt from the documents filed by YouTube was particularly notable for the embarrassment caused: "Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. 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. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jun/23/youtube-wins-viacom-lawsuit

So Viacom were being pretty dodgy about IP in the first place, then complaining!