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Viacom Sued Over YouTube Parody Removal
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Fri Mar 23, 2007 06:38 AM
from the turnabout-still-fair-play dept.
from the turnabout-still-fair-play dept.
A self aware computer input device writes "Just a week after Viacom sued Google over copyrighted material, MoveOn.org Civic Action and Brave New Films LLC have sued Viacom claiming the cable network company improperly asked the video-sharing site YouTube to remove a parody of the network's 'The Colbert Report.' Couple this with the iFilm fiasco reported earlier, and you have to question how a company like Viacom can cry foul when it can't even accurately account for its own copyrighted material."
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iFilm Infringement Could Blunt Viacom's YouTube Argument 119 comments
Radio Silence writes "Infringing videos on iFilm could undermine Viacom's case against YouTube. Although it's arguably not a nest of infringement like YouTube, iFilm appears to host more than a handful of videos for which its corporate parent Viacom does not own the copyright. More importantly, Viacom isn't engaging in the kind of proactive infringement identification practices it expects of YouTube, which may cause problems for them in court. 'if Viacom isn't willing to take the same steps with iFilm that it wants YouTube to take with copyrighted content, Viacom may have a harder time making its case before the judge presiding over the case. "It would have some persuasive value with a judge if YouTube says 'look, they're ranting and raving about all this infringement occurring on my site and they're not doing anything about it themselves,'" said copyright attorney Greg Gabriel.'"
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Editing still apparently optional on /. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Editing still apparently optional on /. (Score:5, Funny)
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http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=174297&thresho ld=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=14502339#145 [slashdot.org]
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"Sorry boss, but I couldn't provision those 4 servers you asked for because I'm trying to keep the data center more 'Real'."
Fowl (Score:5, Funny)
Those vultures at Viacom have a full-fledged plan to feather their nests by hatching lawsuits -- and it looks like some people are getting soar about it. Hiring those legal eagles to flip them the bird won't come cheep, though.
Bah, the RIAA probably egged them on in the first place.
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You Tube link (Score:3, Informative)
Pretty unfunny imo.
Re:You Tube link (Score:4, Interesting)
I dunno, some of it was hilarious:
That was hilarious. The rest? Not as much. I think their humor was a little too subtle and poorly executed - the people making the jokes weren't comedians (Al Franken's a politician, right?).
So, not the funniest thing ever, but still mildly amusing. They were obviously trying to be funny, but didn't quite succeed, and so they sounded more like people who simply didn't get the joke than people who were really just advertising for the Colbert Report.
Which is obviously why Viacom had to try and take it down. No one but Viacom is allowed to advertise their shows. If you so much as mention their show ... oh crap. Gotta go.
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Doesn't matter (Score:2)
Let's call Kyle's dad (Score:3, Funny)
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I read the summary, and this song [metrolyrics.com] immediately came to mind. Especially "Aww, do I even need a reason?"
Submitter misses the point. (Score:5, Informative)
They want to shift the burden of policing to the website operator.
The law:
Copyright violator puts material on website without proper rights to do so.
Copyright holder complains to website operator.
Website operator immediately takes down material, then follows up as appropriate.
Courts, whatever follow.
In exchange for certain protections (and they made out like bandits, but it's still not enough), the industry's lobbyists agreed to bear the weight of policing when the DMCA was finally passed in 1998.
What Viacom wants:
Website operator is responsible for making sure material in violation of license never appears on their site.
If this ever happens, copyright holder gets one biiillllion dollars (well, 1.6, but you get the pinky anyhow).
Well, that, or viacom just gets to dictate terms to google when they finally partner up.
As the google/youtube lawyer said this morning on NPR--this is something they should take up in the Congress, not the Courts.
Re:Submitter misses the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Especially of the Colbert Report (of all things). Even ignoring the "oh-you're-one-of-them" reaction from fans, somehow I don't think it's in Colbert's best financial interests to restrict parody.
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As far as I am concerned.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Indeed. Seems to me this is a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
I'm sure Colbert is loving the parody of a parody, but Viacom's lawyers are obviously to dense to figure it out.
If Colbert was s
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Yes, this would be apt, if one hand was a giant, all ecompassing hand that controls almost everything, and the left hand was a miniscule part of the other
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Two wrongs don`t make a right (Score:2)
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making a big deal out of nothing (Score:2)
viacom - ifilm = isolated incident
slashdot = grasping at straws for news
Gosh (Score:2)
Someday we will evolve beyond the mind cancer known as politics.
Re:Oookay (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oookay (Score:4, Interesting)
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Somebody has to pay for the bandwidth (Score:2)
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Re:Fair use is subjective (Score:5, Informative)
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I am going to venture
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The First Amendment applies only to actions by the government.
Everyone else is free to censor content spoken or published o
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The government passed a law that allows people to trivially infringe on the first amendment rights of others. If you don't think there's an action of government in there somewhere, you're not t
Re:Censorship by Proxy (Score:3, Insightful)
However, the Constitution of the US is all about how the gub'ment interacts with the people. It h
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Re:Fair use is subjective (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. The DMCA is fundamentally flawed. But that doesn't matter. There is no objective measure at the moment whether this video is infringing or not. If Viacom were to sue the creators directly, and made an argument as to why it infringes, then it would take a court to make the decision. Now, as long as the creators submitted the argument "It's clearly a parody" they'd win in court, but that hasn't happened yet.
The DMCA would not be so bad if it were actually enforced as written. As things are it's only being used in a one-sided manner such that large companies are able to suppress whatever they want with no repercussions and small content providers are not protected at all (and are in fact being silenced via misapplication of the DMCA). In order to compel someone to take down infringing content providers have to swear under penalty of perjury that they own the content. To date, although numerous examples of blatant violation exist, including takedown notices being issued for obviously original works and other work that the submitter does not own, no prosecutions seem to have occurred. This is also the first lawsuit I have heard of on such grounds; it is a wonder that more have not been submitted.
As for your bit about arguments being submitted in court, that is an odd bit of logic. TFA is about precisely that; to wit, the creators have submitted the argument, in court, that their video was wrongfully removed because it is in fact a parody. You don't even need to read the summary because this information is contained in the title of the slashdot article.
Viacom probalby should have known that this is non-infringing, but their argument that they aren't in a position to make a legal judgement will be a decent defence in court.
No, they have to be able to prove that they knew for a fact it was infringing. They are in a positioon to make a legal judgement and have done so wrecklessly. This is a blatant abuse of the DMCA which is covered in the statute itself. It's also an important case because this kind of abuse is far too frequent and comes of content providers not doing the due diligence required by the Act. It's about time someone cracked down on it; let's hope they make a fine example. Hang 'em high, judge! Hang 'em high!
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Fair use guidelines have been on the books for 2 decades +
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The thing is, you don't have to prove it is infringing at this stage, you have to prove you believe it is.
Subjective is objective (Score:2)
Viacom have adequate reason to believe that this infringes copyright.
On what basis do you make such an assertion?
And on what basis would they get around 17 USC 201(a):
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