The Viacom lawsuit against YouTube could result in the way information is exchanged over the Web by millions of people, and by millions of websites, according to a legal response to the suit.
The lawsuit was first brought last March, when Viacom decided to seek $1 billion in damages from Google and YouTube over the “intentional copyright infringement” taking place on the site.
The complaint cited 160,000 unauthorised clips from Viacom’s entertainment channels, which include Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks and a number of cable channels such as MTV and Comedy Central.
No More Playing Down
At the time, Google played down the legal challenge, and instead concentrated on reiterating the site’s aims, and extolling the virtues of YouTube to content creators, but things have changed somewhat over the past year.
Viacom filed an amended version of the lawsuit just last month, and in that version claimed YouTube consistently allowed the posting of copyrighted material. It also said it had logged 150,000 copyrighted clips which the company had done little or nothing to stop.
Video Identification System
This is despite YouTube introducing measures to allow it to identify clips subject to copyright quickly and easily and endeavouring to remove them from the site as swiftly as possible.
According to Yahoo News, Google has now responded to the latest move in the back and forth battle by claiming that the lawsuit “threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information” over the Web.
“By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications, Viacom threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression.”
It’s a good point as though Viacom are obviously entitled to look after it’s copyrighted material, there is only so much it can expect sites such as YouTube to do on that score.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Google has claimed to have faithfully followed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and responded to claims of infringement, and they’ve certainly taken steps to the criticisms levelled at it.
I recently wrote an article looking at the Video Identification System and how it still isn’t fulfilling the promises made when introduced a year ago, but with ten hours of content uploaded every minute, there is surely only so much YouTube can do.
