Viacom Sues Google - YouTube for $1 Billion

[Arnold]

NEW YORK ??? Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. (VIA) said Tuesday that it was suing Google Inc. (GOOG) and its Internet video-sharing site YouTube for more than $1 billion over unauthorized use of its programming online.

The lawsuit, the biggest challenge to date to Google's ambitions to make YouTube into a major vehicle for advertising and entertainment, accuses the Web search leader and its unit of "massive intentional copyright infringement."

Viacom filed the suit with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking more than $1 billion in damages and an injunction against further violations.

Viacom contends that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of its programming have been uploaded onto YouTube's site and viewed more than 1.5 billion times.

"YouTube's strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site," Viacom said in a statement. "Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws."

Viacom said its decision to sue Google followed "a great deal of unproductive negotiation" with the company.

Representatives for Google and YouTube were not immediately available.

Google shares fell 0.8 percent to $451.12 in early Nasdaq trade. Viacom Class B (VIA-B) shares were down 1 percent at $39.15 on the New York Stock Exchange.

FOXNews.com - Viacom Sues Google, YouTube for $1 Billion Over Copyrighted Material on the Web - E-Biz

 

[BigDyl]

After this, if youtube survives, it will be smoldering ruins with a few surviving boring home videos.

 

[Arnold]

now that Google owns it everyone will come out of the woodwork with a lawsuit, fucking pathetic.

 

[KelJu]

now that Google owns it everyone will come out of the woodwork with a lawsuit, fucking pathetic.

That is exactly what is going ot happen..

 

[ZECH]

How does Viacom own them?

 

[goob]

How does Viacom own them?

It owns the rights to the programme (clips) that have been uploaded.

To show them without permission is copyright infringement.

 

[BoneCrusher]

I think the law suit will be crushed in the long run. Youtube does not intentionally run anything. It is a public storage house for whatever.

 

[maniclion]

All those damn MTV clips of the POP music fuckers put on their....if idiots would stop using youtube to put up shit they could watch anytime they wanted to just by flipping on MTV then we wouldn't be worrying about loosing it......just like Napster everything was fine until some exec typed in Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake and saw that he was loosing pennies from his overstuffed pockets......

It's the same shit over and over anytime a new technology comes out to allow us to share our libraries of music or video the instant any POP music starts to surface BAMMMMM SHUT IT DOWN! Why don't these intellectual duds fucking get their own damn place to circulate their bubblegum shit and leave the good places alone?

 

[maniclion]

How does Viacom own them?

Viacom owns MTV, if you look around on youtube you'll see all of the top pop 40 music videos with MTV logos right on the bottom...if dipshits would learn to edit out the logos on the videos then we wouldn't have this problem....

Also Dreamworks, Comedy Central(all the Dave Chapelle clips!), Paramount.....their are little snippets from their movies on their oh my, free advertising, without Viacoms permission shame shame.....

 

[AKIRA]

This does not bode well for my N_ggers thread.

 

[Mudge]

now that Google owns it everyone will come out of the woodwork with a lawsuit, fucking pathetic.

Probably correct.

 

[the nut]

This does not bode well for my N_ggers thread.

 

[viet_jon]

All those damn MTV clips of the POP music fuckers put on their....if idiots would stop using youtube to put up shit they could watch anytime they wanted to just by flipping on MTV then we wouldn't be worrying about loosing it......just like Napster everything was fine until some exec typed in Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake and saw that he was loosing pennies from his overstuffed pockets......

It's the same shit over and over anytime a new technology comes out to allow us to share our libraries of music or video the instant any POP music starts to surface BAMMMMM SHUT IT DOWN! Why don't these intellectual duds fucking get their own damn place to circulate their bubblegum shit and leave the good places alone?

ya I agree....

makes you wonder when they're gonna stop bitchin and moaning, and try to work with evolving technology, rather than against it. No matter how many people they sue, it's never gonna stop file sharing. They just have to accept the fact that their industry isn't gonna make a million billion annually no more.

 

[The Monkey Man]

I hope YOUTUBE PWNS Viacom

 

[KelJu]

I hope YOUTUBE PWNS Viacom

Great!

The thread killer shows up again.

 

[The Monkey Man]

Great!

The thread killer shows up again.

 

[Little Wing]

Viacom's Suit Won't Snuff Out YouTube

Google can argue that it has been following the letter of the law, namely provisions of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, that shield sites from unintended copyright infringement???provided that the copyrighted clips are removed once they are notified of their existence. "People who follow the law are allowed to stay in business even if they are not paying content owners," maintains Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit law firm specializing in cases involving violations of Internet freedoms. YouTube regularly removes material in response to DMCA "take-down" requests. Case in point: In February, Google removed 100,000 clips cited by Viacom as infringing on its copyright (see BusinessWeek.com, 2/2/07, "Viacom's High-Stakes Duel with Google"). "YouTube has become even more popular since we took down Viacom's material," Google General Counsel Kent Walker said in a statement.