Viacom v. YouTube

"Entertainment giant Viacom, home to cable television networks such as MTV and Comedy Central, has taken its ongoing battle with Google's YouTube to federal court, suing the video Web site over what it calls "brazen" copyright violations.

Viacom, which is asking for $1 billion in damages, alleges that YouTube does little or nothing to prevent users from posting copyrighted videos on its site, largely because such popular videos -- including clips from Comedy Central's "South Park" and "The Colbert Report" and Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants" -- help drive viewers to the ads that appear on YouTube."

From the Washington Post


Viacom claims that YouTube (Google) has been actively allowing copyrighted material to be posted online. YouTube states in its Terms of Use page that the user is responsible for making sure that they own the rights to the file that they are uploading. YouTube regularly deletes videos that are deemed spam, pornographic, or hate videos, but it does not delete videos that are copyrighted even though they must know that their site does contain illegal material which violates the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Viacom's lawsuit is based on the fact that YouTube does not take preventive measures to protect copyright owners, but instead forces the copyright holders to take initiative and file a DMCA notice with YouTube in order to have their material removed from the site.

A copyright holder must provide all of the following in order to get their copyrighted content removed:

"D. In particular, if you are a copyright owner or an agent thereof and believe that any User Submission or other content infringes upon your copyrights, you may submit a notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") by providing our Copyright Agent with the following information in writing (see 17 U.S.C 512(c)(3) for further detail):

(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;

(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site;

(iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material;

(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail;

(v) A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and

(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."

(Source: YouTube Terms of Use)

Viacom makes the point that YouTube is purposely leaving copyrighted material on their site in order to draw users into their site so that they can make money on the advertising. While this may be true, just before Viacom filed lawsuit against YouTube they partnered with a new video sharing site called Joost, which claims to protect copyrighted material more strictly then other sites. (As well as show full episodes of Viacom owned programs online, and legally). It seems that Viacom is trying to take down YouTube. And by legally having the rights to show TV shows from networks like Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon they may have a shot.