Viacom came out guns blazing on Tuesday in their public battle with YouTube and its parent company, Google, by filing suit in federal court for copyright infringement. While they haven’t taken to street justice just yet, they are looking to hand YouTube a serious civil beat down. According to the complaint, Viacom is seeking some stiff penalties, including possible actual damages of at least one billion dollars (cue Dr. Evil laugh now). The mega company, which owns Paramount, Dreamworks and several cable stations, is evidently slightly miffed that its copyright protected content continues to pop up on YouTube, despite last month’s demand that over 100,000 pirated clips be removed from the site.
YouTube and Google aren’t just dropping trou and waiting to be spanked though. Google’s attorney claims that YouTube is protected by a safe harbor provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA). The key will be whether YouTube knowingly profits on the posting of pirated content. If the case actual reaches a court, the resulting decision could determine whether a Web site is responsible for keeping pirated content off its pages without notice from the copyright holder.
In the meantime, it remains to be seen if other companies will follow Viacom into the legal arena. Will YouTube go the way of the dodo?
[Via cnet]
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One Miserable Response thus far to “Viacom sues YouTube, seeks head on a platter (or actual damages of one billion dollars)”
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March 14th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
This is the same fight that spreads from cable tv to free to air satellite tv to music copyright laws, to owning the airwaves. With out an audience they would have to rethink their position. The general public has no rights in this situation except being subjected to laws written on others behalf. In the long run the only losers are you and me.