Google Spent $100M Defending Viacom Lawsuit

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Lawsuits are never cheap, even if you're on the winning side. But not many cost as much as Viacom's lawsuit against Google. The search giant won before trial, and even so Google spent $100 million defending themselves. Incidentally, Viacom is appealing the ruling, so it's not even over yet. Perhaps it's no wonder our rights are vanishing online when it takes $100M to protect just one of them."

Comments

A possible fix:

[Anonymous Coward]

On all matters regarding intellectual properties, only public defenders may represent both parties.

And move to a non-profit court system. Some jurisdictions figured out they could attract dollars by being attractive venues for lawsuits.

Re:Rights?

[Locke2005]

Google is not blatantly violating copyrights. As a common carrier that does not censor postings, they are not directly responsible for material posted to sites owned by them. In addition, Google would claim they have promptly taken down infringing material as soon as they were notified. Now, has Google assisted other individuals in violating copyright? Yes, and one could argue that as a corporation they should be held liable for contributing to copyright infringement. But they did not intentionally or blatantly violate anyone's copyright themselves.