YouTube law fight 'threatens net'

[Ilikemuppets]

I guess the worst ain't over people...

A one billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube threatens internet freedom, according to its owner Google.

Google's claim follows Viacom's move to sue the video sharing service for its inability to keep copyrighted material off its site.
Viacom says it has identified 150,000 unauthorised clips on YouTube.

In court documents Google's lawyers say the action "threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information" over the web.

The search giant's legal team also maintained that YouTube had been faithful to the requirements of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act and that they responded properly to claims of infringement.

In papers submitted to a Manhattan court, Google said it and YouTube "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works".
Viacom disagreed that either firm had lived up to that standard and said that they had done "little or nothing" to stop infringement.

Abuse

In a rewritten lawsuit filed last month, Viacom claimed YouTube consistently allowed unauthorised copies of popular television programming and movies to be posted on its website and viewed tens of thousands of times.

It said it had identified more than 150,000 such abuses which included clips from shows such as South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants and MTV Unplugged.

The company says the infringement also included the documentary An Inconvenient Truth which had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times".

Viacom, which is asking for damages for the unauthorised viewing of its programming, said its tally represented only a fraction of the content on YouTube that violates its copyrights.
"The availability on the YouTube site of a vast library of the copyrighted works of plaintiffs and others is the cornerstone of defendants' business plan," Viacom said.

Viacom originally started legal action last year and filed an amended version last month. Earlier this month Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone told Dow Jones: "When we filed this lawsuit, we not only served our own interests, we served the interests of everyone who owns copyrights they want protected."

He added: "We cannot tolerate any form of piracy by anyone, including YouTube...they cannot get away with stealing our products."

For its part, Google said the only way the legal action would be resolved was in court.

Google's vice president of content partnerships David Eun has said: "We're going all the way to the Supreme Court. We've been very clear about it."

After the legal action was first started, YouTube launched an anti-piracy tool that checks uploaded videos against the original content in an effort to flag piracy.

 

[BeakerSqueedom]

No! NO! NOOOO! D:

 

[D'Snowth]

So in other words, it's basically like when Fox discovered some guy had been posting full episodes of 24 on YouTube and they sued him for it?

 

[Drtooth]

And youtube moves one step further into becoming a bunch of old women putting up their home videos of cats, and every stupid bloke who can afford 20 bucks for a web cam to rant about stupid stuff with every swear known to man.

I say, forget about it. Forget that you could watch shows that these companies hide in a drawer and never use again, just because someone is stupid enough to put up something current. You're ruining it for people to put up rare things from old video tapes. Someone once put up a couple 6 minute segments of Mother Goose and Grimm. Now, which one of a million different video companies is rushing to put that on DVD?

Viacom HAS their own providers for free video now. From South Park to Nick cartoons. Problem is, they run like a tank, and they stop 2 minutes into a half hour segment. And when trying to reload it, you have to sit through the same commercial 8 more times.

I give the internet one year before it becomes as lame, rigid, and unenjoyable as what they turned TV into.

They're just upset they have to compete with their own work now.


And even if full episodes are wrong, they're gonna pull down youtube poops, show openings, and random 1-2 minute or even shorter clips.

It's Viacom. They pull off videos that don't even belong to them just because they have their butt ugly logos on them.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

I'd be funny if Google wins this ruling and they ended up having to work with it instead of fighting it. Over all, it's like I said, once it's digital, it's forever.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Viacom Will Know What You've Watched on YouTube

Yikes! They are some intense people!

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0%2C2817%2C2324635%2C00.asp

 

[D'Snowth]

Now THAT's an invasion of PRIVACY!

 

[Oscarfan]

Jinkies!

 

[Drtooth]

Viacom's greedy, out of touch moron of a president can go take a long walk off a short bridge. This is just as bad as the bullcrap about how Sony can redefine "stealing" to the point where you can't even listen to the music your paying for.

These companies want one of 2 things. A monopoly over ratings, and total control of the internet. That's virgen territory they haven't found a way to muck up yet.

Invading privacy to stop piracy is the latest in a looney grab for power. They have a right to not let people put their popular stuff up there, sure. but they have no FREAKING right to see who saw what. If you're so concerned about people stealing, you make it easier for people to get access to your stuff. it's called staying one step ahead.

But these greedy craps, who care NOTHING about the creators and writers and all them who actually MADE the show, just want their prissy little princess fits and finding a way to turn the internet into an unenjoyable, messy muddle of crap like they did with TV.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Jinkies!

It must be a clue!

These companies want one of 2 things. A monopoly over ratings, and total control of the internet.

I really believe that in the long run that this is a battle they can not win no matter how hard they try to fight it. That will try to fight it forever, but they will never win. There is just no way to take total control over the Internet. Their deep pockets will just keep them trying to fight it forever, but the inter web it too big and vast for them to beat.