Viacom-Google Case Now Hollywood vs. Internet?
Both Google and Viacom are now backed by their peers, turning a dispute into an all-out Hollywood vs. Internet war.
A recent move by Facebook, eBay, and Yahoo has put an interesting twist in Google's legal struggles with media giant Viacom. All three Internet-based companies have filed amicus briefs in favor of Google and its high-volume video streaming service, YouTube. The brief urges the judge presiding over the case to dismiss Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit. They claim that any ruling against Google will violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
"[Viacom's] legal arguments, if accepted, would retard the development of the Internet and electronic commerce, create uncertainty for service providers regarding their legal exposure for alleged infringements, and inhabit the growth and development of user-centric online models that, day after day, make the Internet and the world more democratic," reads the brief.
As reported earlier, Viacom filed a lawsuit against Google for hosting copyrighted video clips on YouTube. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, claims that nearly 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom's entertainment programming were available on the YouTube, and were viewed more than 1.5 billion times.
Recently various media groups have taken Viacom's side in the legal battle including Warner Bros (which is now under hot water for supposedly pirating anti-piracy technology), NBC Universal, Disney, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Directors Guild of America. Like the Google alliance, these companies have filed amicus briefs on behalf of Viacom, claiming that Google is not protected under the DMCA.
As it stands now, the legal dispute has bloomed into a war between Hollywood and the Internet. However Viacom seems confident that the courts will rule in its favor.
"The courts have been clear that creating and building a Web-based business on the intellectual property of others is illegal,” a Viacom spokesperson said. "That is exactly what YouTube did in its formative years. Nothing in this case threatens the principles of the DMCA or the ability of legitimate Internet-based businesses to flourish."
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Let me be the first to say: fuck Viacom and all its supporters.
Go Google.
I wonder who will win if we judge them by how much each has contributed to the world. Faster and easier access to information, both true and false, or creation of entertainment, half of which misleads people.
Ok, now let's sue viacom and others because their use of illegal practices that gives them 90% of the profit and only 10% (or less) for the artists..
I guess, as user of both You Tube and these moron media moguls who are not happy with the billions they rake in every year off of guys like me. I would have to say to VIACOM and its supports. "WTF have you done for me lately" Commercial free and there whenever I want it. Instead of trying to stop youtube why dont you cowboy up and find a way to make money off it like everyone else.
The best weapon google & the others have is to completely ban any of the said Hollywood set from advertising with them or any of their related sites, nearly all media advertising is done over the web, cut that off from them and they will be in real trouble,
What viacom and all the others forget is how much they rely on the internet, if google, facebook and yahoo veto all off their products, not allowing any photos, stories, adverts, clips features anything, these companies will suffer big time
Well, if Viacom wins, I see a lot of profit loss by Hollywood due to viewers refusing pay to movies studios, increase of piracy too.
Now this sounds like a interesting case.
Viacom could burn through all I care though. I don't have cable, and I only go and see a movie once a month.
I haven't hear the name VIACOM for quite some time. They must be in some financial trouble to bring up this rediculous lawsuit.
Didn't google have a smoking gun saying viacom was just using them for a lawsuit?
yeah but these a-holes have no problem posting their trailers up for free advertisement. you think i dont see the 500 princess and the frog trailers you left up there disney? how about the dozens of Office lips nbc? yeah you like that FREE promotion don't you. what about you viacom? i bet you love seeing the trailers for icarly up there. all that free promotion for nickeleoden sure is nice. fuck viacom. i would understand if it was a website purposely posting your vids. but it was individual users in the early days of youtube.
aka, the people vs corporate america
I haven't hear the name VIACOM for quite some time. They must be in some financial trouble to bring up this rediculous lawsuit.
They own quite a bit of stuff you hear of regularly. I doubt they are in financial trouble.
lol no way Viacom wins. They are just wasting their money. First Google's main business is not Youtube. They did not build a business from pirating videos. Second is Google bought Youtube after it started using stricter intellectual property protection measures.
As long as Youtube removes content at the request of the owner, I don't see how they can be liable.
@falchard, when you buy a company, you become fiscally responsible for their prior actions.
Although Google is becoming more of an a-hole by putting ads and crap all around the place Viacom are just a bunch of @$$es and trolls. So go Google! Get the TNT and to Viacom HQ we go (joking)!
i dont use youtube any more; the service blows becuase of all the ads.
I have been boycotting Hollywood,RIAA,MPAA,etc for a year now.I am fighting back against these big companies by myself.I refuse to go to a theater, nor will I buy anything NEW but I do buy what I need used.I may have to wait a week or two after street date but that is OK as I get what I want and the greedbags get no money from my sale.
BAN NEW GREEDBAG PRODUCTS FROM YOUR HOME !!!
BUY USED !!!
i dont use youtube any more; the service blows becuase of all the ads.
There's hardly any ads. Tom's Hardware has 5x the ads (not saying that's bad, just pointing it out), and even has full page ads that you have to A) Wait for it to go away, or B) Click "Skip Ad". All this, and Youtube's 2 ads per page still bothers you?
There's hardly any ads. Tom's Hardware has 5x the ads (not saying that's bad, just pointing it out), and even has full page ads that you have to A) Wait for it to go away, or B) Click "Skip Ad". All this, and Youtube's 2 ads per page still bothers you?
I haven't seen any flash ads on toms. Maybe its because I'm using Chrome?
Pathetic. Google isn't the one placing these things.... Users are uploading them. Delete it and be done with it.
Viacom, the MPAA and the RIAA can all SUCK IT!
I wonder if Viacom remembers what happened to Metallica? Before Napster they were the biggest band in the world, now they make movies about them going to therapy....metal up your ass Lars, therapy is hardcore!!!!
my dream would come true if a ginormous mob decides to boycott viacom.
Once content is transmitted sans physical medium, I think it is fair play,as long as it is NON-commerical. For those "youtube affiliates" receiving ad revenue sorry, you need to pay royalties. If you are posting to in essence "say" 'Hey, look at what I saw/heard', then it is "fair use" in my opinion. Once a work is released unlimited, it should be just that. Once you release your intellectual property with out any physical representation, your rights end for non-commercial use.
Is that worse than being in hot water? The idea of banning viacom internet ads/vids on google/youtube etc is a good one. Google could also de-rank viacom product related search pages too.....
Google should update all Viacom related ads to only appear near ads that are completely unrelated to their products/services.
Jock Itch Cream
Plumbing Equipment
Golf Ball Cleaners
Viacom
Feminine Products
Uncle Tom's Smelly Feet
Viacom, you can now join the "on your knees" club.
I just dont get the movie (Media) industries reluctance to adapt and innovate to take the best advantage of new media opportunities. At the least sites like youtube which host clips are fantastic advertising for them. Its free publicity. Not like they hosting the whole movie there. These old school media companies deserver to disappear if they keep trying to hold the rest of the world back from viewing what we want to where we want too. I respect copyright holders rights to protect their product but clips and quotes from well known films is just ridiculous in a youtube context. These people need to go back to marketing / business school and learn to recognise, understand, manage and then thrive through change, they see threat and problems where they should be seeing opportunities for growth. What rock do these guys live under that they dont see whats happening around them?
This puts a whole new frightening twist to acts like the ACTA and similar regulations going through the UK and European parliament at the moment. (Similar in the US I believe) which will make your ISP responsible. Thank god they have removed the article disconnecting people completely from the internet. Funnily enough, the people supporting it are mainly those spending alot of time in media moguls villas and yachts of late.
Fucking Hollywood pricks need to get off their high horses.