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YouTube Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Is Getting Rough
By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog | July 3, 2008
Viacom’s $1 Billion copyright violation lawsuit is getting rough. (story) Highlight:
Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users’ names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on YouTube, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Viacom wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google’s liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.
Viacom filed suit against Google in March 2007, seeking more than $1 billion in damages for allowing users to upload clips of Viacom’s copyright material. Google argues that the law provides a safe harbor for online services so long as they comply with copyright takedown requests.
This is going to be a HUGE online precedent, it’ll be very interesting to see which way this goes. Similar to my article a few days ago about eBay profiting from its sellers’ copyright infringements and not being motivated to shut down sellers, Google/YouTube is in the same boat.
Google argues that they’re working hard at deleting copyright infringements, it’s a bit of a wink-wink nudge-nudge process. If YouTube hadn’t been sold to Google (ie were still a small company), they would be SO crushed by this Viacom lawsuit.
Fair warning to small-time operators running a similar business model out there…
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