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."
Its not about the content. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is about being the gatekeeper to media content. It has nothing at all to do with piracy per see. Youtube is the place to be if you want content to spread, like traliers, new bands etc.
If Youtube becomes the place to be for content Viacom and the rest of the leeches gets taken out of the equation as distributors. Its the same fight the RIAA is making. Its not about piracy, its about deciding what you watch, listens to and buys.
When juggernauts try their hands at new ideas (Score:4, Interesting)
Viacom learned that this "viral marketing" thing is kinda good PR, and cheap too! 'cause people don't like marketing and ads when they see them, especially when it comes to music and anything targeted at teenagers, who by default despise everything their parents (or any person over 30) think is a good idea. So they thought it would be spiffy to put up some of those videos in some sort of "clandestine" operation, probably with some astroturfing going along, and hey, I'm pretty sure it even worked!
"But those damn kids should buy our crap, not listen to it for free!", decried some other department, probably the beancounters this time, who, by their very nature, don't really talk that much with the loonies from PR. So put up takedown notices.
Watch a company battle itself. It's actually pretty entertaining.
Rule against both companies, in favor of authors (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Its not about the content. (Score:3, Interesting)
Simple solution, don't buy music CDRs? Does your country impose a tax on all blank media? The US doesn't, they have "special" music CDR media, which is no different then regular CDR media, it just costs more.
Re:I can has lawsuit? (Score:3, Interesting)
You distribute copyrighted works without consent of the rights holder, you're committing an offense under the law.
I understand this. But if I write a song, how do I make sure that its melody isn't already copyrighted by someone?