Viacom: YouTube ruling will "completely destroy" copyright

[Emil]

Media giant Viacom has filed its appeal of a June ruling in favor of Google's YouTube, the latest move in the companies' ongoing battle over alleged copyright infringement. Viacom wants to overturn a previous ruling that the company feels let YouTube off the hook for hosting thousands of pirated video clips of some of its popular programs, according to Wired.

"If affirmed by this Court, that construction of Section 512(c) would radically transform the functioning of the copyright system and severely impair, if not completely destroy, the value of many copyrighted creations," reads Viacom's 73-page appeal. "It would immunize from copyright infringement liability even avowedly piratical Internet businesses."

Viacom's attempt to collect more than $1 billion in alleged damages from YouTube is the latest episode in a legal battle that has already dragged on for nearly four years. US District Judge Louis Stanton originally concluded that YouTube had complied with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and dismissed Viacom's lawsuit before a trial.

Viacom is now arguing that YouTube became the world's leading online video channel after its 2005 debut by turning a blind eye to copyright-protected clips, which attracted far more viewers than amateur videos. Google branded YouTube as "a 'rogue enabler' of content theft" before it bought the service in 2006, according to internal documents unearthed in the lawsuit.

Viacom points to evidence that YouTube could have done more to prevent pirated clips from being uploaded, but did not because the site's managers knew viewership would plunge. Now, YouTube has over 35 hours of content uploaded every minute, and Google monitors it all for copyrighted content.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/41432-viacom-youtube-ruling-will-completely-destroy-copyright.html

 

[KG363]

Viacom needs to grow up

 

[vangrat]

So, constantly removing videos that are said to be pirated, booting people from its site when they continue to upload copyrighted material, and putting disclaimers on the site that say they do not tolerate pirated material is not enough? This sounds more to me like Viacom is trying to dig for gold, rather then doing any real good. I am surprised they havn't tried to go after Hulu...ffs.

 

[ramonsterns]

Companies like these do no one any good, even themselves.

 

[Mikymjr]

I'm not against copyrighting material, but this is getting ridiculous

 

[bakape]

Google branded YouTube as "a 'rogue enabler' of content theft" before it bought the service in 2006

Does no one else find this amusing?

 

[Cota]

people WILL ALWAYS FIND A WAY TO SHARE, GET OVER IT!

 

[yRaz]

If it wasn't for youtube, I probably wouldn't listen to any of that music. I have a personal boycott on copyrighted material. Next thing you know, they will be going after radio stations. because, if you think about it, a request is kinda like a search on youtube. Oh well, All new TV shoes suck, all new music sucks and all new games suck...and they want me to PAY for that crap? sorry, I will listen to it for free on youtube or not at all.

 

[Benny26]

bakape said:

Google branded YouTube as "a 'rogue enabler' of content theft" before it bought the service in 2006

Does no one else find this amusing?

Err...yes.

It's that old line again...."It's nothing personal, it's just business".

 

[aj_the_kidd]

if something is worth it then yeah, i'll be legitimate and pay for it, but if its not then sorry but its 2010 i can get buy other means.

 

[matrix86]

yRaz said:
Next thing you know, they will be going after radio stations. because, if you think about it, a request is kinda like a search on youtube.

Completely different. Radio stations buy the music they play. And they can play it as much as they want. Youtube doesn't pay for the music it's users put up on the site. So, two completely different things.

Dear Viacomm...quit your bitchin!!!

 

[PanicX]

I think Viacom is being taken for a ride by their legal team. There is ZERO chance of winning a lawsuit for copyright infringement when Viacom themselves uploaded their copyrighted material to Youtube for marketing purposes.

If Viacom seriously believes that Youtube is damaging their profits, their only recourse will be to back a lawsuit by a competitor that hasn't willfully given their material to Youtube. This way a precedent can be set for them to try an leverage a lawsuit against, which I still dont think they could win, but likely could force a settlement with Google.

 

[Guest]

@matrix86

Depends where your from, radio here is a free advertising tool, artists can get their music heard into public conciousness and radio stations get to play it and receive income from advertisements. They certainly dont pay for the music. Infact some record labels pay radio to have a song on a certain ammount of times in a day.

Im pretty sure thats how it works in america too. Correct me if im wrong.

 

[Guest]

OMG^^

If that aint the truth..! I pay for good albums, whatever their cost. These are the same companies that try to shove Britney Spears down our throat..

I'm from Detroit, use to see jack & meg @ teh golden. None of these artist like pseudo labals. Look @ pRINCE. His whole life was strife with labal companies and not musik..!

You Tube is a channel that allows us to view what ever anyone else want us to see.... with ragard.

 

[tonylukac]

I don't know if it's still true, but radio stations used to pay royalties to artists each time they played a song.

 

[yRaz]

I understand how the radio stations work, but that is how ridiculous some of this stuff is getting. What's stopping people from recording songs off the radios...aside from the horrible sound on analog...

crappy products is another reason why people pirate stuff, California Girls IS NOT worth paying for...maybe that's why they have to pay the stations?

 

[aj_the_kidd]

tonylukac said:
I don't know if it's still true, but radio stations used to pay royalties to artists each time they played a song.

Wouldn't be surprised if that's true, i know the guy who created the "happy birthday" song gets paid every time its played

 

[seefizzle]

Pot meet kettle. http://www.comedycentral.com/funny_videos/index.jhtml

How many of those videos are owned by comedy central?

Viacom is suing google for doing something that it also does. Piss off viacom.

 

[Guest]

+1

We spent 25 years wiring the world together. Now we tell people don't share. The big corporations that have neverpaid a dollar of taxes in their life have big brother out chasing people down.

I don't know WTF is wrong with this country.

 

[Guest]

Google is the NSA. YouTube is worse than pirates downloading themselves some content. For YouTube, you don't need .torrents or a client to download with, no wait times before the download completes. You can find most things on YouTube and it's express piracy right to your front door. They should get punished like the rest of the pirates or punish no one. Contradictory system. Google takes over the majority of everything it embarks on, search engines, internet video, browsing, the phone industry, soon TV and then computer operating systems. They always need an interface for you to connect with to be able to scan your email, browsing habits, video you watch and upload to get worthwhile information for the NSA to play with etc. Anyone who trusts Google is ignorant.

 

[PanicX]

Sometimes I really wish anonymous guest posting wasn't allowed so i could mock the source of this foolishness directly.

 

[Guest]

Haha, yeah right, Panic, cause naming yourself PanicX isn't annoymous at all. Did your mother give you that name? I was hoping Blizzard (world of warcraft and Starcraft 2 creator) was going to follow through and require real names to post on their forums. they backed off, and we can still use the names we think of that make us sound cool.

Know what surprised me though... not only to we like to hide behind names on forums, not only to rappers prefer cooler names than Sean Combs and Marshal Mathers, but last time I bowled (i'm from milwaukee, hey) I saw that people put up fake names on the high scores list. MacDaddy had a 290 game a month back, cool huh? Maybe it's the power we perceive from only knowing the secret identity ourselves, maybe it's a superhero syndrome.

now what's this viacom mumbo jumbo about again?

--mike

 

[aj_the_kidd]

@Guest - Wow, dude i dont know wow Google screwed you over but take a chill pill. Its 2010 and soon to be 2011, if Viacom doesn't adapt to the new way media is being distributed its gonna be left behind. Chill dude its all good

 

[PanicX]

Haha, yeah right, Panic, cause naming yourself PanicX isn't annoymous at all. Did your mother give you that name? I was hoping Blizzard (world of warcraft and Starcraft 2 creator) was going to follow through and require real names to post on their forums. they backed off, and we can still use the names we think of that make us sound cool.

Know what surprised me though... not only to we like to hide behind names on forums, not only to rappers prefer cooler names than Sean Combs and Marshal Mathers, but last time I bowled (i'm from milwaukee, hey) I saw that people put up fake names on the high scores list. MacDaddy had a 290 game a month back, cool huh? Maybe it's the power we perceive from only knowing the secret identity ourselves, maybe it's a superhero syndrome.

now what's this viacom mumbo jumbo about again?

--mike

Oh hey, that's funny. You mock me directly using my pseudonym. What was the point of my post again?
I'm guessing you don't understand the concept of a pseudonym. Pseudonyms are really neat, because you don't need to know a person's real identity to learn about their point of view or opinions. You can build a reputation with a pseudonym and can keep your personal life separate.

You see, if you registered an account, everyone would then see when a post was made directly by you (even though we don't know who your identity). And depending on whether they want to subjugate themselves to mindless drivel or not, they could choose to skip your post and move on to one that might have some real thought put into it.

 

[Micro Watt]

Just wanted to point out that you spelt billion wrong. You wrote billon