Viacom demands YouTube remove 100,000 allegedly infringing videos

[Kristijntje]

The media conglomerate Viacom demanded Friday that the video service Web site YouTube remove about 100,000 video clips that the company claims are infringing on copyrighted content. The two companies had been negotiating a licensing agreement that would allow Viacom-owned content on the YouTube site when talks broke down...

"After months of ongoing discussions with YouTube and Google, it has become clear that YouTube is unwilling to come to a fair market agreement that would make Viacom content available to YouTube users," Viacom said in a statement...

full article: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Mayg...tent.xhtml

Victor Rook, an independent filmmaker for 24 years, woke up Friday, logged on to YouTube and found out that a major media conglomerate had accused him of copyright violations.

"This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material," YouTube wrote to Rook in an e-mail, which was obtained by CNET News.com. The trailer for his documentary was removed because Viacom had claimed that his documentary had infringed on the company's copyright. Rook said not one frame or one piece of music from his film about a gay professional wrestler belonged to Viacom.

Rook's film clip was mistakenly pulled as part of YouTube's effort to sweep the site of content owned by Viacom, he said...

full article: http://news.com.com/Does+YouTube+have+a+...g=nefd.top

[Kristijntje]

Update: Viacom files $1 Billion Lawsuit Against YouTube

Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against Google's YouTube could significantly impact both the Web search industry and social media sector. A significant risk for Google would be if other media companies follow Viacom's lead and file suits of their own. Google is expected to argue that it is protected against the suit by the safe harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act...

The legal issues raised by the suit are largely untested, making it difficult to predict how the case will turn out. Viacom may be trying to use the suit as leverage for a more favorable revenue-sharing agreement from Google.

Other companies have tried to use the DMCA Latest News about DMCA to defend their businesses -- even when their users were guilty of copyright infringement -- but Napster, Grokster and others found those arguments often fell short. In those cases, however, it wasn't clear about the legal, noninfringing use of those peer-to-peer networks -- Google can certainly argue that YouTube has a viable and obvious use as a legal site for sharing user-generated videos...

full article: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/7auq...ning.xhtml

[mandy]

Commentary on the suit:

The content industry was a big supporter of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998. Viacom is apparently less of a supporter today. It complains that YouTube has not done enough “to take reasonable precautions to deter the rampant infringement on its site.” Instead, the Viacom argument goes, YouTube has shifted the burden of monitoring that infringement onto the victim of that infringement — namely, Viacom.

But it wasn’t YouTube that engineered this shift. It was the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. As the statute plainly states, a provider (like YouTube) need not monitor its service or affirmatively seek facts indicating infringing activity. That burden, instead, rests on the copyright owner. In exchange, the law gives the copyright owner the benefit of an expedited procedure to identify and remove infringing material from a Web site. The provision was thus a deal, created to balance conflicting interests in light of the technology of the time...

full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/opinio...1331870400&en=a376e7886d4bcf62&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[Kristijntje]

Update:

A $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit challenging YouTube's ability to keep copyrighted material off its popular video-sharing site threatens how hundreds of millions of people exchange all kinds of information on the Internet, YouTube owner Google said. Google's lawyers made the claim in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan...

Viacom's fight with YouTube heated up Friday as Google submitted court filings claiming the media giant's $1 billion lawsuit against its video-sharing property threatens legitimate Internet communication. Google says YouTube goes above and beyond its legal obligations to keep copyrighted works off the site; Viacom says it doesn't do nearly enough...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/Google-V...63144.html