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Youtube gets sued.
Couscous
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Entertainment giant Viacom Media has announced that it is going to sue web search engine Google and video sharing website YouTube for $1bn (£517m).
Viacom has accused Google, which bought YouTube at the end of last year, of illegally using its TV programmes.
It said YouTube was guilty of "massive intentional copyright infringement".
Viacom claims that about 160,000 unauthorized clips of its programmes have been loaded onto YouTube's site and viewed more than 1.5 billion times.
The lawsuit seeks more than $1bn in damages and an injunction to prevent future copyright infringement.
"YouTube's strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site," said Viacom in a statement.
"Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws."
Last month, Viacom, which owns cable networks MTV and Nickelodeon, told YouTube to remove 100,000 "unauthorised" clips.
Viacom said its demand came after YouTube and Google failed to install tools to "filter" the unauthorised video clips.
I can't say that this is surprising. The whole thing was a lawsuit waiting to happen. I want to know what they considered as copyright infringement.
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I've seen plenty of complete TV show episodes chopped up in 10-minute chunks on youtube.
So have I. I would also like to know if they consider crappy music video infringement.
I'm guessing that Viacom waited Youtube out until they got bought out by a company that could pay the bill, since they were doing this FAR mor blatently before they were bought out by Google.
Youtube makes a profit?!
I'm not sure about profit, but they certainly gather quite a bit of ad revenue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPs88AJcoIo
(Warning: Foul language, I think.)
The whole lawsuit thing is just how companies 'talk' these days.
1. Create filesharing site and engage in massive copyright violations
2. Get bought by Google. Promptly get sued by Copyright holders
3. ?????
4. PROFIT!!!!!
A thank you. I'll be here all week. Tip your veal, try the waitress.
Err. There are more than two steps there. Fixed
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Cykstfc
no, no it's not.
the established precedent (which i also happen to believe is wrong) is that if you are encouraging infringement, you can be held liable. it's a specious viewpoint imho. however, the DMCA's safe harbor provision (probably the only decent thing in the Act, and it's not even all that good) says that you cannot be held liable for the actions of your site's users as long as you in good faith deal with any reported copyright infringement. in short, if you own something and see it on youtube, you report it, youtube removes it.
realistically speaking, video recognition technology is almost impossible to implement. Viacom can moan and whine all they want, they know that in reality such technology is still years away. they also simply want to have control (read: make money) off their specific properties, because they see that youtube and similar sites are forging a content distribution path that will eventually cut out Viacom's, and other "traditional" media conglomerate's, roles. it's reactionary.
does Viacom have any other choice? i don't know. certainly if they want to maintain control and make the least amount of change to their business model, then a lawsuit is probably the only course of action.
then again, they're fighting Google, which has a humongous warchest. they have gobs of money and swim around in it like Uncle Scrooge. if anything, this is going to be interesting and hilarious.
edit: also, Youtube, unlike a lot of more dubious file-sharing/P2P/Web2.0 apps, has demonstrated concretely that there is a viable space for user-created content. the most popular channels on Youtube are those of original authors posting their video creations (or, uh, hot girls :roll:)
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
Even Viacom, in their "remove these 100,000 infringing clips" spat last month, didn't actually check to see whether the clips they asked to be deleted were infringing or not! They just did a search based on tags, and several innocent videos were deleted as a result.
watermarking would assist with the identification of copyrighted videos, but overall, software to "fingerprint" anything copyrighted is nigh impossible. firms have been trying to do this for music for years now, and there have been few results. there would need to be a massive breakthrough or a ridiculous drop in the cost of high-powered computing systems for such a filtering system to be even feasible. Viacom knows this. all the media outlets know this. but they are using it as a part of their "high horse" position against YouTube and its filthy infringing ways.
"old" media needs to just get with the times.
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
Oh, right, watermarking. I'd forgotten about it because I don't think a workable watermarking solution will ever be found. The way I see it, for watermarking to work, you either need to build the watermark into the video/music itself or into the bitstream for the file. Both are incredibly easy to remove with modern freeware editing tools.
Also, I'd laugh if Youtube got destroyed in court when the safe harbor provision in the DMCA only applies to ISPs that provide internet connectivity, not just any internet service (which is how Youtube says they qualify for safe harbor)
Who are you, Stephen Colbert, only serious? YouTube does not encourage copyright infringement. They warn users at every turn not to upload copyrighted shit, they cap video length at 10 minutes unless you have director status, they take down videos when requested, and if the request is too large to review, they'll delete it all just to be safe. Your gut is wrong.
Meh, it seems very nudgenudgewinkwink to me. Again, a gut feeling I can't shake that internally Youtube is/was aware that rampant infringement was occuring and was ok with it. On another note, what exactly does Google Video do differently that results in way less copyright infringement? Is it just having less market share?
if you can sue people cause your website lets people check out in a couple of clicks, then suing someone because they're generating some income off your products can't be surprising anyone. however i would be surprised if viacom managed to get some money out of this.
youtube can't be any worse than say bittorrent, but thats almost an apple vs oranges arguement.
i think they do this already, where they actively tell users to upload only material to which they have the rights.
but this is different than Eric Bauman, where he was actively taking other people's flash videos, games, and images, removing any sort of identifying marks from the original authors, and putting in his own stupid logo without credit. that's worse than encouraging infringement, it is infringement AND plagiarism.
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
Either way, I won't be surprised to see the DMCA changed to modify the safe harbor so that if your site is repeatedly allowing uploads of the same stuff that was already taken down for infringement, you're no longer immune to liability.
Didn't Viacom already give Youtube a list of shit to remove some months ago?
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http://www.lakupo.com/grblitz
You're not using IP owner logic: every time someone watches a clip on youtube, the IP owner loses money!
THousands of dollars per second!
I love my precious tubes, and I am already pissed I can't view Colbert clips on youtube anymore.
You see, this is what separates companies like the BBC and NBC from Viacom.
BBC has put short, 10 minute clips of an assload of its shows, for free, up on youtube. At no cost.
So has NBC.
It is free advertising. It is completely free to upload to Youtube, which must get some of the highest pageview ratings of any site on the net.
I can't understand why Viacom wouldn't want that. Sure they get lost revenue due to copyrighted material being on there, but unless it is obscene amounts, the stuff that is on there surely only serves as advertising.
I mean, youtube quality isnt great. If in the future a site comes along thta offers this sort of service but with DVD quality, like when our net connections are faster, then maybe.
Otherwise, if I owned Viacom, Id stick all my stuff on there like the beeb and rake in the cash.
As pointed out before, it's because they plan to make a ton of money on Joost.
http://joost.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joost
Until Youtube is ready to give them at least as much money in advertising revenue as Joost is, and show ads during video playback, Viacom will tell them to get bent, and sue the fuck out of them.
I'M A TWITTER SHITTER
Still bullshit though.
Why would I want to watch a show online, with ads.
I mean, the whole fucking reason youtube is popular is because of its simplicity and ease of use.
If you put interstitial ads in youtube, then it would die instantly.
It's evil.
Youtube is like Luke Skywalker.