Youtube vs. Viacom

June 23, 2010 7:42 PM

Judge Stanton has granted Youtube's motion for a summary judgement in Youtube's favor in Viacom's copyright infringement lawsuit against Youtube.

Youtube argued that under provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act it was immune to such suits. The judge agreed.

posted by Chocolate Pickle (21 comments total)

Youtube Youtube Youtube Youtube
posted by paisley henosis at 7:45 PM on June 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

The DMCA still sucks.
posted by oddman at 7:50 PM on June 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

At least it's not totally aweful.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:52 PM on June 23, 2010

Something else from Youtube is Play, a collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum, to recognize and showcase remarkable online videos from around the world.
posted by netbros at 7:53 PM on June 23, 2010

Google takes revenge by adding a football icon to youtube videos. Click and see.
posted by qvantamon at 7:57 PM on June 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

Federal Judge Louis Lee Stanton is a Reagan appointee.
posted by longsleeves at 8:06 PM on June 23, 2010

What's this "youtube" thing. Links?
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 8:09 PM on June 23, 2010

Google you've got them on the ropes. I say countersue Viacom for unleashing Jersey Shore upon the world.

Punitive damages for that should run into the trillions!
posted by Talez at 8:13 PM on June 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

SLYT
posted by GeckoDundee at 8:14 PM on June 23, 2010

Sec. 512, and the other immunities provided in the Act for online conduct, “place the burden POWER of policing copyright infringement — identifying the potentially infringing material and adequately documenting infringement — squarely on the owners of copyright.”

FTFDMCA.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:16 PM on June 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

We're celebrating with vuvuzelas. :) [as qvantamon noticed]
posted by wildcrdj at 8:19 PM on June 23, 2010

It probably didn't help that Viacom's marketing department was putting some of their videos onto Youtube, which Viacom's legal department promptly told Google to take down. Then their marketing department would get mad and put the videos back on.
posted by eye of newt at 8:34 PM on June 23, 2010 [5 favorites]

Big media jams thru its copyright agenda, while missing the point on the emergering tech and marketplace, and then gets all pissy when they cant be bothered to use the rules in place.

Color me shocked
posted by MrLint at 9:00 PM on June 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

YouTube Videos Now Have A Vuvuzela Button
posted by homunculus at 9:24 PM on June 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Here's an article from the AP if you want to read something that's, you know, at least somewhat well written and doesn't gloss over large parts of the litigation arguments. This is an interesting case and it deserves a bit more effort.

Previously.
posted by dhammond at 10:04 PM on June 23, 2010

Here's an article from the AP

What the fuck does Yahoo do that fucks up my browser history (back button)?! That's far worse than anything YouTube has done.

Anyway, GOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!! USA! USA! USA!

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
posted by dirigibleman at 12:00 AM on June 24, 2010

This is a very important judgement. There have been a string of cases recently where the DMCA protections have been ignored, and instead sites hosting user-posted content - or in the case of torrent sites, links to user posted content - have been found guilty of vicarious and contributory copyright infringement.

Viacom's argument was basically that google should be vetting all content posted prior to it going live, else it would be guilty of vicarious infringement.

"Vicarious infringement occurs where someone has a direct financial interest in the infringing actions being committed by another and has the ability to control it, even if they do not know that the infringement is taking place and do not directly take part in it."

Google argued that the safe harbour protections under the DMCA - i.e. that copyright holders notify providers, who then take down material until counter-notified by the poster - were sufficient to protect it from such a claim, as long as it followed them, and that pre-vetting all content posted would be impossible to do, especially as google employees have no idea who owns the copyright to any given content, that that duty should fall on the poster. Many suspect that google bought youtube after it was sued by viacom specifically so it could be involved in this long running lawsuit and win, so criticial is it to its entire business model.

The judge agreed, and google are now safe to carry on as before.

If they'd lost however... that would mean that all US sites would have to pre-vet content before allowing it to be published. Every video on youtube, by hand. Every file on drop box, and all the other digital lockers. ISPs, and user hosted websites, every ftp upload would have to be vetted to stay within the law. Every comment posted on sites like this would have to be vetted by a moderator to ensure it didn't contain copyrighted song lyrics, or they'd face potential vicarious copyright infringement charges for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Ludicrous, on the face of it. Yet that's exactly what judges have decided US hosted torrent sites should do to stay within the law, DMCA notwithstanding.

It was important that google win this one. The DMCA is deeply flawed, but it at least provides some protection for hosters to stay neutral in the war of corporate copyright holders on their customers. Google can now rely on them.

I'm just dreading the appeal, to drag this case on for a few more years.
posted by ArkhanJG at 12:03 AM on June 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'm showing a market cap of:
Viacom 21.42B
Google 153.53B

In the near-term I'm betting on lawyers.
posted by vapidave at 12:17 AM on June 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

In the near-term I'm betting on lawyers.

As Wesley Snipes said, always bet on black letter lawyers
posted by djgh at 3:39 AM on June 24, 2010

Yeah, this was the obvious result. I don't know of anyone in the legal community who thought the outcome would be different. This is an almost pure question of law, and Google is clearly in the right.

It's still an important ruling--any ruling in a case with allegations of ten-figure damages is a big deal for that if nothing else--but it isn't a surprising one. The only surprise is that it took this long.

The appeal will take a while, but I really can't see the 2d Cir. reversing here. The judge obviously applied the law correctly, and appellate courts don't overturn trial courts lightly.
posted by valkyryn at 4:55 AM on June 24, 2010

ASCAP Declares War on Free Culture
posted by homunculus at 10:26 AM on June 26, 2010