Viacom is suing to survive. Sumner Redstone's motto is "Content is King", so what does their chances of success look like 20 or 30 years hence, if the majority of the content out there is available for free or next to nothing? Not good, that's for sure. I've seen whole libraries of material for free on YouTube. Jimmy Jam
Film/Video is just going through the same process the music business has been weathering... But about 3 years behind. There is no turning back. You CANNOT stop Web 2.0... The fight is ONLY about dividing the profits between mega-corporations. And the future is def not Viacom. Personally, I have had only one YouTube clip removed because of a copyright complaint... Out of about 100... And that was due a complaint by Vincent Gallo. Gallo is an idiot... that's why his career is dead. Of all the artists in this world... Gallo needs YouTube the most. > 90% of content producers... Musicians, artists, indie film makers... Make ZERO money from sales anyway. Those in small or cult niches... ** Benefit enormously ** by the massive exposure... Of ** low quality ** clips on YouTube. THEY ARE THRILLED THAT THEIR WORK IS ON YOUTUBE. I cannot emphasis this enough. Totally free advertising for countless obscure or cult artists... What an amazing, wonderful thing. And I doubt that impact on sales is significant... Cuz rich people will always buy new stuff they come across... While poor people, like in the 3rd World, cannot buy ever.
comment from mark cubans own blog. LOL LOL LOL 32. Won't Viacom look kind of silly when GooTube calls The Daily Show producers to the stand to testify - as they have already admitted - to uploading their shows to YouTube all the while Viacom was sending takedown notices. Posted at 10:46AM on Mar 14th 2007 by Anthony if it wasn't so bizarre(funny) it would be sad.
glad you johnny come latelys agree with me . I said at the time that youboob was a ridiculous buy at that price. Via will own GOOG. A reverse merger.
Baron (and everyone else, too, obviously), I thought you might find this article interesting: How Strong is Viacomâs $1 bn Claim Against Google's YouTube? Posted on Mar 14th, 2007 with stocks: GOOG, VIA David Mirchin Meitar Liquornik Geva & Leshem Brandwein http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/29579 David Mirchin submits: Yesterday, Viacom (VIA) sued YouTube and its owner Google (GOOG) for damages in excess of $1 billion for infringing Viacomâs copyrights. (See Seeking Alpha's news brief and the PDF of Viacom's lawsuit.) Viacom is the media giant which owns television programming including MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and movie studios including Dreamworks and Paramount. Viacom claims that YouTube has actively infringed Viacomâs copyrighted works by publicly performing these movies on its website, and by permitting copies to be embedded in websites across the Net. Although YouTube has the technology to filter copyright infringing material, Viacom claims that it has done nothing to prevent or curtail this massive infringement. Legislative Background: Digital Millennium Copyright Act Central to Viacomâs claim is how the court will interpret provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA is a 1998 statute that balances the needs of content owners, such as Viacom, with those of internet service providers, including sites such as YouTube, which host content uploaded by users. The DMCA provides that sites do not need to monitor their site for infringing material. Rather, by means of a notice-and-takedown procedure, if a copyright owner complains, the site enjoys a âsafe harborâ from monetary damages if it takes down the infringing material. Sites such as YouTube are not entitled to the safe harbor, however, if they are âaware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparentâ. Under What Circumstances Does a Website Lose its DMCA Safe Harbor Protection? Awareness of Infringing Activity. The question which Viacom raises is whether YouTube was aware of such widespread infringement that it will no longer be able to benefit from the safe harbor. Cases interpreting the DMCA have been very protective of websites. For example, in the case of Hendrickson v. eBay, Inc., 165 F. Supp. 2d 1082 (C.D. Cal. 2001), the owner of the film documentary âMansonâ sued eBay for offering for sale copies of his movie. The court held that eBay was entitled to the safe harbor protection. Similarly, in CoStar Group v. LoopNet, a Fourth Circuit case from 2004, the court held that a website was not liable for infringing photos of real estate posted to its site from users. The DMCAâs legislative history says that a site will not be able to benefit from the safe harbor if there is a âred flagâ that infringing activity is taking place. Because of the mass of infringing videos on YouTubeâs site, the question will be: Should YouTube have seen the red flag? The legislative history does not give an indication of how big or red that flag must be, and no case has addressed this issue. This may be the first to do so. Financial Benefit. The DMCA also provides that YouTube will not benefit from the safe harbor if it âreceives a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity.â The legislative history would seem to provide arguments for both sides. YouTubeâs position is strengthened since the Senate Report on the DMCA states that there would be no direct financial benefit in the case where âthe infringer makes the same kind of payment as non-infringing users of the providerâs service.â Nevertheless, Viacom could argue, from the Legislative history, that courts are supposed to apply a âcommon-sense, fact-based approach and not a formalistic one.â Viacom could argue that the value of the YouTube service lies in providing access to infringing material, and therefore, it does receive a direct financial benefit from the infringement. In practice, courts seem to be influenced by the amount of infringing activity on a site. In the 2001 case of Adobe Systems v. Canus Productions, for example, the court held that the operator of a computer fair was not liable to Adobe because only about 100 copies of the infringing software were being sold, and that this was not a major attraction for the 15,000 people who attended. Similarly, in the CoStar v. LoopNet case, the court held that the direct financial benefit test was not met. In that case, plaintiff claimed that 300 of the 33,000 photographs of commercial real estate infringed its copyrights. But in the case of A&M Records v. Napster, the amount of infringing music on the site was a major factor holding the site liable for vicarious copyright infringement. Accordingly, an important question will be whether the court addresses the relevance of a significant amount of infringing material on the YouTube site. This case may also address two other critical questions under the DMCA: * Requirement to Monitor? Is YouTube required to monitor its site for copyright infringing material if it has the technology to do so? This would upend the basic assumption of the DMCAâthat site owners are not required to censor, filter or preview material, and therefore I would be surprised if the court would require active monitoring. YouTube has been quoted as saying that it would only use copyright protection measures for parties which entered into a licensing arrangement with it. Although courts, such as in Grokster, have been reluctant to require companies to design their products in a way to minimize infringement, the question is whether YouTube, which has this technology, and knows of infringing activity on its site, is required to apply this technology. This could have a big impact for whether sites must actively monitor their activity. * Specificity of DMCA Notice. How specific do the notices of infringing material need to be? Can Viacom, for example, just say to YouTube, âAll clips from MTV are infringing. You go find and take down those clips!â Or must Viacom provide the URL to each infringing file? Although this sounds like a very technical question, it has a meaningful practical influence on whether a site must proactively monitor its site for recurring infringements. Application of the Grokster âActive Inducementâ Theory. Another big issue for YouTube is how the court will apply the new âactive inducement for copryight infringementâ theory articulated in the 2005 Supreme Court decision of MGM Studios v. Grokster. In that case, the Supreme Court held Grokster liable for distributing peer-to-peer software because its business model was premised on infringementâit benefited from the high-volume use of infringing software. The question is whether the court will similarly say that YouTube is liable for actively inducing infringement because it benefits from advertising revenue which is directly tied to the quantity of infringing material. In addition, Viacomâs complaint focused heavily on YouTubeâs active strategy of permitting videos to be embedded in sites throughout the net, and not just on www.youtube.com. In so doing, Viacom claims that YouTube has taken an active part in directly infringing Viacomâs copyright. Conclusion Many commentators believe that Viacom sued YouTube to obtain negotiating leverage to obtain a better licensing deal with YouTube. Others believe that it simply trying to gain publicity, and particularly to draw marketing attention to its deal with Joost.com, billed as âa new way of watching TV on the internetâ. Because of the powerful arguments which Viacom has, due mainly to the widespread distribution of infringing material on YouTubeâs site, as well as the strong defenses which YouTube can raise, due mainly to the structural protection of the DMCA, which provides a safe harbor for sites like YouTube, this could lead to a critical roadmap indicating whether user-posting sites can continue to expand rapidly. If I had to guess, my view is that the case will settle rather than go to final judgment. Both sides have too much to lose with an unfavorable court decision. While the facts are difficult ones for YouTube, the law, particularly the DMCA, is in its favor, making the outcome of this case quite difficult to predict.
This post is truly moronic. No doubt, you guys have 1000s more posts of this quality to look forward, too. But not me. Welcome to my ignore list.
Articles like this are informative... But almost all are put out by bloggers who are not lawyers... And are making complex legal analysis and drawing conclusions... Without any professional legal background whatsoever. Most of these bloggers are also biased... and promote one side or the other. And even is a lawyer blogs... He/she is obviously not privy to the facts in the case. Everything on the Web = Court TV. Meanwhile... Back in the real world... Neither GOOG nor VIA do anything at all... Without the detailed counsel of the best lawyers in Silicon Valley and Hollywood.