Viacom Demands YouTube Remove Videos

AlHunt writes "According to the folks at PCWorld Viacom has publicly scolded YouTube for continuing to host throngs of Viacom videos without permission. They are demanding that over 100,000 of its clips be removed from the site. This includes content from Comedy Central (no more Daily Show), MTV, Nick at Nite, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, and VH1. YouTube has acknowledged receiving a DMCA request from Viacom, and the article notes what a dire precedent this could be if Google can't reach an agreement with Viacom and its fellow IP holders."

Drop them

[Zonekeeper]

Google should use the enormous power it wields. Tell Viacom they are being dropped immediately from any search results. Anything that references them or leads to any of their sites or properties, are effectively GONE. That's what I'd do, and Viacom would have no recourse, no legal action. Google doesn't HAVE to return search results for them. Then we'd find out how fast the fat little corporate piggies would squeal when the traffic and subsequent dollars they get from having visitors find them for whatever the myriad of reasons that they would be being searched for. Of course, Google won't do this, because, well, they're corporate screws now too. Sure would be nice though.

Google usually publishes DMCA complaints

[AndroidCat]

I wonder if the complaint will ever show up in the Chilling Effects [chillingeffects.org] clearinghouse list?

No more lazy man's BitTorrent

[ConfusedSelfHating]

This just means that you have to find and download a high quality version of the show that you want to watch. You can still get it for free, but you have to work a very little for it. It will only stop piracy committed by the very lazy or very stupid.

This move helps keep YouTube pure. Only people who take a picture of themselves everyday for years will be permitted to post content. Until the RIAA/MPAA copyrights their faces. You thought that we would only get mandatory full body coverings with a totalitarian Islamic government. Wait until you have to wear a burqa to avoid copyright violations.

Re:Viacom has rights

[Sancho]

Absolutely, however GooTube is pretty good about removing material when asked to do so by copyright holders. The problem is that it keeps getting re-uploaded, and the DMCA doesn't (as far as I know) allow for blanket removal. That is, each instance of infringement must be included in the DMCA takedown request. So Viacom has to constantly monitor the site and send out the requests, and someone at Youtube has to take them down, one by one. Viacom can't say, "Please remove all Daily Show content," or, "Please remove all of our content." It just doesn't work that way.

This is one reason that negotiating a deal would be beneficial to both parties. There are many more users willing to upload content than Viacom employees working to search it out, or Youtube employees capable of removing it. The money lost in fighting the infringement is probably significant.

That said, as long as it continues to be (financially) worth it, Youtube will continue to host videos and will simply have to deal with the takedown notices. And Viacom (and other copyright holders) will have to continue to monitor these sites for infringing content.

I thought so, too

[ShaunC]

Viacom has threatened YouTube before, and I remember hearing that the Comedy Central clips had gone back up. Here's the previous coverage from Slashdot,

YouTube Removes Comedy Central Clips Due to DMCA [slashdot.org]

YouTube Restores Comedy Central Clips [slashdot.org]

Apparently it wasn't as clear cut as I'd recalled, though, and Viacom never actually gave YouTube permission to put the clips back up, they were simply interested in reaching an agreement ($$$). Apparently the recent threats came about because the talks fell through.

Re:Bad for Viacom

[modecx]

But they don't stop to think: "Hey, someone liked this part of this program enough to go through the effort of editing our clip, and uploading the clip to let other people watch. His time wasn't free, and he deemed that our product had enough value that other people should also enjoy it. We aught to let those other people watch it, so they will be more inclined to watch our show live when they see it on their cable box, and those eyes will see our ads, too!"

I mean, it's one thing to upload a whole program to these sites, those videos should, and undoubtedly will be taken down as they are uploaded... A smart company, however, would KILL for advertising like this. It's free, it takes no effort beyond the initial investment whatsoever, and it's highly effective because it targets a niche market which is proven to enjoy your product. If anything, Viacom's stockholders aught to be lynching the management for not figuring out a way to make this phenomenon *more effective*, to establish more mindshare, to draw in more viewers, to up the ratings, and to make more money in the end!

Re:A Series of Tubes....

[rifter]

What use are the internets without my daily fix of Stewart and Colbert?

Every Comedy Central show (or at least several, including The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, South Park, et al) has a presence on comedydentral.com that includes the shows as video clips similar to YouTube. The problem is that although the advertisements for their "motherload" section claim you can watch entire seasons of those shows online, the simple fact is that that is not true. In the case of the Daily Show and Colbert the shows are broken up so that you can see the interviews and a few seperate bits that Comedy Central considered especially funny, but not the whole show. In the case of South Park, what episodes are on there are inexplicably missing bits that come in between the breaks they have made in the episodes. They also don't really have the episodes that just came on even though even the website claims that they do.

When I missed "Go God Go part II" which was part 2 of a humourous South Park take on the debates on religion, the causes for war, and teaching evolution in public schools (which still does not happen in way too many districts for a 21st century America), I had to wait for it to come on YouTube because unlike every other South Park episode in existence it was not repeated ad nauseum through the week (they showed some ancient episodes instead) and it was never available on the comedycentral.com website (which would have been missing parts and laden with advertisements anyhow). There is the additional problem that though YouTube seems to have no problem giving you a direct link to any video on their site, there is no way to navigate Motherload other than the obscene and fairly broken flash interface Comedy Central foists upon us.

If Viacom just did what consumers wanted and actually made shows available for viewing in their entirety when you miss them or when you want to refer to them later there would be no need for YouTube for these shows. No one would care about putting stuff up there otherwise. As it is, YouTube is easier to use and provides the content people want. In any event their very complaint is unjustified and proves that YouTube's policy works. They quickly remove any content that breaks copyright as soon as the copyright holder complains. That's what happened here. And, again, just like the music industry, they have created their own problem because they cannot see that this "violation" fills a void in the market that they could exploit themselves if they had a brain in their head instead of a head in their ass.