Dueling Summary Judgment Motions In Viacom v. YouTube 89
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Eric Goldman, an Associate Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law, has an excellent analysis of the dueling summary judgment motions in Viacom v. YouTube. Basically, both sides have been trotting out the most damning things they can find and asking the judge to rule against the other party. Viacom is mad that Chad Hurley, one of YouTube's co-founders, lost his email archive and couldn't remember some old emails. Worse, YouTube founder Karim once uploaded infringing content. But then Google points out that only a very small percentage of the users are engaged in infringing activity (some 0.016% of all YouTube accounts have been deleted for infringement), one of the clips Viacom is suing over is only one second long (what about fair use?), and most of YouTube's content is non-infringing, including the campaign videos which all major US presidential candidates posted to YouTube." (More below.)
"But the worst thing they found is that Viacom can't make up their mind. They spent $1M advertising on YouTube and tried to buy it. And even though they demanded that YouTube remove videos containing Viacom property on sight, Viacom had a complex internal policy authorizing some clips, including ones disguised as 'leaks' and put out by their marketers. Viacom was so conflicted internally that their very expensive lawyers couldn't figure out what Viacom had authorized to be uploaded even after doing extensive research as required by court rules, only to discover that some of the clips Viacom was suing over were ones Viacom uploaded themselves. The lawyers then had to go to court and drop those clips from their case — twice. They missed some the first time."
Re:Where is godzilla when we need him? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Its not about the content. (Score:5, Informative)
You do know that RIAA doesn't just blindly attack sharing of any music, but only music by artists who have (or their labels have) authorized them to do so.
This is not true, the fines imposed on blank media for example are all going to big labels. I think the chance of my blank CD-R being used to burn some legally bought indie music is much larger than ever being used to illegally copy the latest Lady Gaga CD, but nevertheless the money goes to this mafia. I would call this 'fined for being guilty of infringement whatever the circumstance' a blind attack on one method of sharing music, and it also negates the second part of your claim since indie artists have never authorized the big labels to collect (and keep) this fine for them.
Re:When juggernauts try their hands at new ideas (Score:5, Informative)
Watch a company battle itself. It's actually pretty entertaining.
No. Not when I'm paying for it because they're doing it through the court system - a system that tells me I have to wait 2 years for my case because of the backlog of cases. A system whose original intention was to prevent the little guy from being screwed by the strong but has turned out to be too expensive for the average citizen. It's not funny at all.
Re:Its not about the content. (Score:3, Informative)
I think the part you are missing is that Viacom is perfectly willing to use Youtube, but freaks out when they see clips they uploaded on it.
Possessive is a clitic (Score:5, Informative)
While we're on the topic; what would be the possessive form of attorney general? Would you write "the attorney general's office" or "the attorney's general office"?
The possessive marker in English acts as an enclitic [wikipedia.org], or suffix on the phrase. More than one "king of Spain" are "kings of Spain", but King Juan Carlos wears "the king of Spain's hat".
Re:Its not about the content. (Score:3, Informative)
Even if they didn't foolishly sue over the clips they themselves uploaded, it still wouldn't matter.
DMCA takedown provisions were written for this exact case. See an infringing work? Write a take-down letter! Google complies with DMCA to the letter, and they will take that content down. As such, they're not liable.
Re:infringing content (Score:3, Informative)
Youtube/Google has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars for itself in advertising revenue due largely to the draw of infringing content. Sure, they take it down eventually once somebody goes through the DCMA hoops, but just as quickly the process starts again as another uploader sends the same content.
DMCA was put in place for a reason. And, as far as I recall, it was vigorously supported, and the need for it defended, by those very same companies that now whine about how Google "makes money off stolen content" while abiding to DMCA to the letter.
No sympathy whatsoever from here, sorry (and I am generally pro-copyright, unlike many on Slashdot). What they are essentially asking for is to place burden of determining legitimacy of posted copyrighted material on service providers, which is unfeasible and unreasonable for obvious reasons.
Make no mistake - Google is no different from your ISP here, and if they succeed in suing Google, your ISP will be next on the line, for letting you upload those nasty pirated bytes to YouTube over their pipes.