YouTube Wins Against Viacom Again

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Once again YouTube has defeated Viacom and other members of the content cartel; once again the Court has held that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act actually does mean what it says. YouTube had won the case earlier, at the district court level, but the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, although ruling in YouTube's favor on all of the general principles at stake, felt that there were several factual issues involving some of the videos and remanded to the lower court for a cleanup of those loose ends. Now, the lower court — Judge Louis L. Stanton to be exact — has resolved all of the remaining issues in YouTube's favor, in a 24-page opinion. Among other things Judge Stanton concluded that YouTube had not had knowledge or awareness of any specific infringement, been 'willfully blind' to any specific infringement, induced its users to commit copyright infringement, interacted with its users to a point where it might be said to have participated in their infringements, or manually selected or delivered videos to its syndication partners. Nevertheless, 5 will get you 10 that the content maximalists will appeal once again."

Comments

Asymmetrical cost structure in the courtroom

[Taco Cowboy]

One of the main reason why the MAFIAA cases are still heating the courtrooms around the country is so cheap to sue somebody and so expensive to defend

When the justice system makes it so easy to attack someone and so hard to defend oneself, of course someone gonna abuse it to their own advantage

Re:Asymmetrical cost structure in the courtroom

[bill_mcgonigle]

And yet there are those who abandon reason and all available data and conclude that this must be by mistake.

Re:Asymmetrical cost structure in the courtroom

[Eskarel]

It's not by mistake, it's by necessity.

The costs of attacking vs defending are actually pretty similar(in fact I'd suggest that someone like Sony actually spends vastly more in legal fees than most of the people they sue). The major cost difference is the cost of losing, it's much more expensive for someone defending against a lawsuit to lose than it is for someone initiating a lawsuit to lose.

This is deliberate, by design, and necessary. If you penalize people for losing lawsuits you basically create a world which is worse than the one we're in. Sony can afford to pay a million dollars if they lose a lawsuit, Joe Blogs can't. If you try to only penalize "vexatious" lawsuits and you don't set the burden of proof extremely high then again it's Joe Blogs who does't have a team of lawyers on retainer to wiggle him round the law who loses out.

Just about the only thing you could do is to put a penalty for losing which is proportional to the amount you can afford to pay, but even that's got some seriously scary consequences. It's pretty much impossible to except in the most extreme of circumstances to prove that someone is acting in bad faith, and given that it's also virtually impossible to penalize bad faith lawsuits without simultaneously penalizing good faith lawsuits.

I know there's a sub section of Slashdot who thinks that all lawsuits are bad, but you don't really want to live in a world without any, at least not one populated by humans.

Re:Asymmetrical cost structure in the courtroom

[hairyfeet]

Actually its even worse than that, the DMCA is so badly tilted towards the copyright holders its beyond rigged. For example they can send as many takedowns as they want, no matter how tenuous their connection because there is ZERO penalty. This is why only huge corps like Google can really do shit against DMCAs because they can just spam them without penalty.

Re:Asymmetrical cost structure in the courtroom

[drinkypoo]

It's not by mistake, it's by necessity.

Well, no. Only because we have a deliberately baroque legal system do we even need so many lawyers and so much legal process. We could get done everything the legal system needs to do with much less fanfare and expenditure if lawyer were not the larval form of politician.

Duality

[Anonymous Coward]

So posting a copyrighted video on youtube does not endanger google but posting a link to a copyrighted video on youtube will get you millions in fines, confiscated domain, and possible prison time? They haven't stuck it to the cartel hard enough yet.

Now, revenge

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Google can go ahead and buy Viacom and fire the jack asses that started the suit. Then sell Viacom again.

That's a new one...

[mooingyak]

Nevertheless, 5 will get you 10 that the content maximalists will appeal once again.

Content maximalists? In context it's obviously supposed to refer to Viacom et al, but I'm not sure what that means. They want maximum content? Doesn't quite sound right.

Re:That's a new one...

[LordLucless]

Obviously, he meant "copyright maximalist"

Need to litigate *with prejudice*

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL, (and not even American), but if I understand US law correctly, filing *with prejudice* is one way of getting the re-appeal, re-appeal, re-appeal process to come to a quick and grinding halt in a permanent fashion. An upper court judge supervises the findings of a lower court judge, and the defendants must put up a very resounding defence that satisfies both. If both judges are satisfied, then its 'one ruling to judge them all'. There are no grounds for appeal, and final really means final. Usually the supreme court won't look at trivialities, and since they swing a big stick, if it actually came down to them, they could strike down laws that protect the plaintiff (they could wind up a lot worse off, until the legislative branch gets bought off again and passes more laws, but they have to pass the sniff test or the SCOTUS could declare them unconstitutional and then its rinse-repeat).

Can't wait to see YouTube's attorneys fee motion

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

When you win a copyright case you may be awarded your attorneys fees. I can't wait to see YouTube's attorneys fee motion. It's going to make my firm's bills seem like chicken feed.

But the defendant's lawyers have done a great job of beating back the Evil Empire, and in so doing have accomplished an important victory for the vitality of the internet.