Viacom Sues Google Over YouTube for $1 Billion 508
Snowgen writes "Viacom has filed a $1,000,000,000.00 lawsuit for 'massive intentional copyright infringement' against Google over YouTube video clips. '"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.'"
Whew (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, wait.
Please: (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Please: (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, Google should hold Viacom sites hostage until they give up their legal rights. I for one welcome our new Google overlords.
Hostage? (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, what *I* would be tempted to do would be to block anyone in Viacom's IP block from accessing Google at all. I'd say to do the same for YouTube, but they'd probably claim that was just to cover up the infringement, so it might be a bad idea.
I mean, exactly what does Google owe Viacom, anyhow? They aren't the ones putting up these clips--users are. And Google has what mi
Re:Please: (Score:5, Insightful)
"Free" publicity?
More accurately, people go to Google to search for stuff like Viacom shows. If Google were ever dumb enough (they aren't) to start self-censoring to penalize foes in other areas of their business, people wouldn't use Google. Google would be shooting themselves in the face to spite a pimple.
And it isn't like this is unexpected. When YouTube was being woo'd, Mark Cuban was widely quoted for saying "Only a moron would buy YouTube" [huffingtonpost.com] (because of the huge potential lawsuit liability). Maybe a better statement would be "only a non-moron that has the cash to pay off the inevitable lawsuits", of which there are only a few companies, Google being one of them.
Re:Please: (Score:5, Funny)
In this case, Google would be shooting themselves in the face to spite a large cancerous growth.
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You mean using one of the countless other search engines?
Google's biggest asset is the quality of their search. If Google compromised that (e.g. paid placements in results, or removing a set of results just to penalize someone), people would stop using Google, and would instead use one of the many oth
Re:Please: (Score:4, Funny)
"You searched for Viacom. No results were found. Did you mean Torrentspy?"
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Tit for tat retribution really only works on the playground. And maybe in international spy rings.
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People suggest this every time, and every time the same response is valid: That's not a good solution on Google's part, because it ends up negatively impacting Google.
I guess I agree with you but isn't that what Viacom is is doing. Basically, since the two couldn't come up with a deal they were both satisfied with, Viacom is basically taking their ball and going home. I mean, we've been reading about possible deals since Google bought YouTube. Plus, there's http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/06/business/go ogle.php [iht.com]this deal that they made in August with Google video. I agree they can't really remove Viacom from their apps but still, it would be nice for somebody to
Re:Please: (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Please: (Score:5, Insightful)
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For example. Take littlekuriboh [youtube.com]. For anyone who doesn't know him he created a parody called "Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series". Basically a poke at the stupid cartoon. Perfectly legal (as its parody and not a straight rip of the cartoon).
Extremely popular series as well, as soon as he posts an episode it goes to the top of the page.
However YouTube started nuking his episodes claiming copyright infringement. There are still a couple left on his account.
The end resul
Re:Please: (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention the Iterated Prisoners' Dilema.
Re:Please: (Score:4, Insightful)
Fucking with the rankings does nobody any good.
Re:Please: (Score:5, Funny)
Don't bother. Just buy Viacom and stop suing themselves. Problem solved.
Re:Whew (Score:5, Funny)
Great! (Score:3, Insightful)
Either:
They'll settle, and millions of companies will line up to sue Google.
or....
Google will do an IBM/SCO on their ass and bankrupt them.
Place your bets!
Re:Great! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Dan East
Bankrupt? No. Buy? Unlikely but possible. (Score:3, Informative)
Google may be rich, but they are nowhere near big enough to bankrupt Viacom. Viacom has a revenue of over $9.6 Billion USD, whilst Google has $10.6 Billion (according to Wikipedia), but this isn't the case of a smaller firm trying to sue a giant. If anything, Viacom, as a conglomerate, will probably have greater cash reserve and certainly has more assets which can be sold off in the event of it needing more cash.
You're right that Google can't bankrupt Viacom via a lawsuit. Viacom is a big company with a reasonably strong balance sheet. Viacom's market cap is about $27B and Viacom has roughly $700M in cash and $7.65B in debt [yahoo.com]. No where near as strong a balance sheet as Google, but plenty to fund a big lawsuit. That said, Google has a market cap of $138B, $11.2B in cash and zero debt [yahoo.com]. Google would have to take on debt or do a stock swap
Just numbers relevant to "IBM/SCO on their ass" (Score:5, Insightful)
VIA: Mkt Cap: 27.71B
IBM: Mkt Cap: 141.50B
SCOX: Mkt Cap: 21.23M
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Re:Just numbers relevant to "IBM/SCO on their ass" (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Just numbers relevant to "IBM/SCO on their ass" (Score:5, Insightful)
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IBM is considered slightly undervalued.
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Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Either:
They'll settle, and millions of companies will line up to sue Google.
or....
Google will do an IBM/SCO on their ass and bankrupt them.
Missing option. ;>
This is a negotiation tactic being used to drive licensing talks that are going on behind the scene. My money's on that one.
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That or acquisition talks, but I think licensing is more likely (though it could lead to acquisition in the future, it often does when the licenses are wholesale like this).
-nB
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If anything, a copyright case is far simplier than a patent as there is no question that Viacom owns the copyrights in question as opposed to a patent case where there is claim construction and questions of patent validity, which itself involve
No kidding... (Score:2)
Makes it sound like Viacom just shot themselves in the foot, but it makes sense. If it's going to cost a billion to stay in business, just by them out!
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Pfft, meaningless from the start... (Score:2, Funny)
Austin Powers (Score:5, Funny)
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Why stop there? (Score:5, Funny)
Lawsuits should always be based on nice round numbers, not actual proven damages.
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All new... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:All new... (Score:4, Insightful)
not a single clip was even slightly shady
Besides in your inane ramblings, where have you ever seen this before. Media companies have always wanted clips they consider their propery removed from youtube, and made a number of requests to do so, long before Youtube was bought by Google.
every clip that's ever been shown is worthy of at least one lawsuit!
And once again, who has ever said this? Nobody. Viacom want to be compensated for there clips making youtube money, which is what they do. Every clip shown makes google money.
This is a law suit that has been spoiling to happen for a while now, and I think both concerned parties have prepared for this.
Chuckle (Score:2, Interesting)
From the article:
In a statement, Viacom lashed out at YouTube's business practices, saying it has "built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google."
Isn't that what Viacom does for a living? It isn't people at Viacom writing and producing all this content -- it's the hard-working staffs of these shows, coming up with ideas, generating scripts, acting them out, putting them on tape/film. Viacom just sits there, puts them in the marketplace, and rakes in the advertising money.
Re:Chuckle (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chuckle (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember that while each media corporation is under the misguided assumption that they are the only folks who own the copyright on content, in truth, there are lots of clips on Google/YouTube that the copyright owner has posted legitimately, and many more clips where the copyright owner is unknown or cannot be located. Viacom wants to shift the burden of filling out DMCA takedown requests to Google, despite the fact that Congress (miraculously) realized that a hosting provider should not be responsible for vetting every piece of content that a user posts to their service.
Viacom is in a far better position to take care of everything that comes before the deletion of actual infringing content. They are aware of what material they own the copyright to, they already know who owns the copyright on that material, and they already know that they don't want it on YouTube. They also have a legal remedy - a DMCA takedown notice - for having such material removed.
If Google has to vet all of its content to make sure that Viacom doesn't hold the copyright, then they can't just stop with Viacom's content. They can't even stop with every ??AA member company's content. No, they have to establish the wishes of the copyright owner for every single piece of material on their site. And if Google loses, then every website that provides hosting space and shows advertising alongside it - Angelfire? Geocities? - has to do the same thing.
That's why the DMCA requires takedown notices, that's why it absolves hosting providers of responsibility for vetting material that their users post to their services, and that's why Google is in the clear and Viacom will be ponying up their legal fees in a few years' time.
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errr...wait...but then again they're also not suing anyone.
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looks good on them! (Score:3, Insightful)
I like free video as much as the next guy, but people *own* this stuff. And Google does not.
The billion dollar lawsuit looks good on them.
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That is more compelling than sitting in their parent's basement and whining for free access to the content Viacom has created.
Re:looks good on them! (Score:5, Insightful)
It wouldn't surprise me a bit if Viacom indirectly had people posting copyrighted material to YouTube as fast as Google can take it down. They need to attack the channel regardless, and to do that successfully they need a copyright case.
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As much as it's wonderful that indie directors and artists now have a distribution channel, people still wish to watch things that they like. And oftentimes what they like has had its copyright assigned to a large corporation. I would never personally post an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force to Youtube, but I *would* watch one that someone else had po
Not really..... (Score:3, Informative)
Fair use provisions don't just include small portions of the work. You have to be using the small portion of the work in a larger work. IE, commenting on a single passage in a book, using snippets from a press conference to create a parody of the press conference, showing a scene from a movie to teach the importance of lighting in setting the scene, etc. Just taking a small portion & displaying it by itself doesn't fall under fair use. Heck, the riff from Under Pressure was deemed not to be fair use whe
Viacom Demands YouTube Return Viewers (Score:5, Funny)
Once again, life imitates parody [theonion.com]. I did not know they were worth a billion dollars.
I predict... (Score:2)
Hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Google's market cap: $139.97 billion
Viacom's market cap: $27.61 billion
CBS' market cap: $24.38 billion (sorta kinda relevent here)
I think it's just a little market cap envy. Next stop: Google buys Viacom?
Out of Court settlement (Score:3, Insightful)
If I were Google, I might just pay it. (Score:4, Funny)
Google: "No shit. Here's your billion, we've got a couple more to spare. Muh-huh-huh-ha."
Here's the PDF of the actual complaint ... (Score:5, Informative)
What the (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, in Youtube's favour, is the fact that the service clearly isn't intended as a vehicle for copyright infringement. Most of the material there is actually the home video stuff that the site is intended for, and they are making efforts to remove the material immediately.
Re:What the (Score:5, Interesting)
Common carrier (Score:5, Insightful)
I have worked at and run many ISP's, The lawyers ALWAYS insistent that any news feed be uncensored because the act of censoring or deleting any of the content could be used in court to show that we agreed with the content that remained. Thus we could be sewed for any illegal content that we missed.
Just my
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I get in and ask what happened and he tells me "I was downloading a new video and needed space on the server. So I deleted the junk directory that contained all the etcetera stuff." My response was "What etcetera stuff?" to which he replied "You know, the E T C directory"
He is also the same guy that plugged 6 900VA UPS's into a 3$ plug bar from K-Mart.
He had great spel
old media logic (Score:4, Insightful)
when linking to content, hosting content, etc., you generate buzz, hits, pr, etc.
in other words, the more content you get out there, the cheaper you get it out there (hint: free), the more money you make: more traffic, more ad revenue, more awareness
this is the future, and old media doesn't get it. by putting traffic stops at the doors to their content, by micromanaging who seems what and when, you don't preserve your revenue streams, you kill them by making getting to them too obscure and/ or difficult
the guys who grew up on radio and television as their model just. don't. get. it.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Viacom. (Score:3, Interesting)
But of course, Viacom would never, ever go after the fans, would they?
Understandable. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that last question is what's going to need to be answered legislatively and judicially over the next decade. It seems wrong that Google is profiting off Viacom's work without permission or license, yet more restrictions will hinder the development of some technologies (ala some of the proposed remedies to mass copyright infringement via P2P). This, of course, assumes there is not some sort of drastic change in how copyright is handled - which I'm sure is the solution many Slashdotters would prefer, but doesn't strike me as terribly likely in the current legislative climate.
Re:Understandable. (Score:5, Insightful)
ISPs and P2P (Score:3, Insightful)
Bound to happen (Score:2, Funny)
Point of interest (Score:2)
IANAL; but to a layman the cases seem equivalent.
Question (Score:2)
First of all let me start of by saying I think that this entire thing is stupid, and is purely out of greed and has nothing to do with some great goal of protecting ones work, but since that's not going to change, I have a question:
If Google pay's that fee, which seems quite large, does that give then retroactive ownsership of all Viacom material?
supply and demand (Score:4, Insightful)
Viacom is doing NOTHING to make this content as available as it has become in youtube.
Maybe if they did, and put in their own advertising, they'd be making the ad dollars off this content instead of loosing it to youtube.
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Has anyone else noticed... (Score:5, Funny)
...the entertainment industry's lawsuits are way more interesting than their TV shows, movies, and records? Maybe they should formally change their business model and go primarily into lawsuits as a creative medium.
Something Stinks Here (Score:3, Insightful)
But when it's posted for free, as in beer, they sue.
There's something rotten in more than Denmark here.
Re:I predicted this a while ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Youtube was popular but not really making any money.
Google buys them, and Google has money.
Now it's Youtube, but with money to sue them for. Google buying them just upped the risk factor considerably. Google has quite a few brainy folks on their side, I'm sure they saw the lawsuits coming. So I'm wondering, what's the plan they have in store for this contingency, because there's no way they would've gone into this without a plan...right?
Please?
Spoiling for a fight (Score:5, Interesting)
Its far better for Google to explore the ramifications via a subsidiary company that can be cut loose to die if need be.
Re:Spoiling for a fight (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Spoiling for a fight (Score:4, Interesting)
I doubt there's any point to that; the courts basically cannot resolve this issue in any useful way within the current legal framework. The idea of handing out monopolies might have been useful when the point was to keep the kings friends rich and happy and the content controlled, but they simply cannot be reconciled with a free market economy and todays rate of technological and content evolution. As long as the system is tied to monopoly rights you only have the choice of who you're going to allow to screw everyone else (which fundamentally means, the more 'IP' we have, the more all of us are going to get screwed (and in slightly more economical terms, the more waste we'll get in the system due to monopoly inefficiency)).
It would be more useful to engage in actively trying to fundamentally restructure the 'IP' incentive system to a fundamentally non-confrontational incentive system. Look over the foundation.
Some say we need an incentive to be creative. While I personally disagree to a fair extent (and things like free software indicates otherwise), ok, I'll buy that maybe some people do need an incentive, and that some creative talent could be more creatively productive if they had a certain economic security. As the point of an intellectual incentive system would be to maximize creativity, that leads to the conclusion that we somehow may need to finance creativity beyond what a fully competetive market would do. So, say, a popular creative work of value to many people should conceivably generate enough revenue for the creator/participants to live off for a certain time (too short would be bad and an insufficient incentive, too long and there would be no (again, claimed) economic incentive to create further works (and spend too much on a single creative work, and you get fewer works for total economic resources spent instead).
So, how do we determine what works merit incentive? Let the free market handle it; works that get copied the most, ie, are most highly desired should probably be the first to receive incentives (until their useful payout is exceeded, the authors et. al die, etc, and the incentive no longer serves the creative purpose). As there would be no right to prevent copying anymore, there would be no particular reason to avoid reporting the numbers of copies being made, ie, it would free up anything from p2p networks through youtube, IPTV broadcasters, network radio broadcasters, etc, to record popularity of works and lay the foundation of who gets paid.
Then the final question becomes, how does one finance the system? First, realize that the current system is essentially a tax. The costs to the economy are very real and altho the copyright holders have a strong incentive to shut up about the actual costs to the economy, the billions they collect are as real as the billions the IRS collect. The difference is, with the billions the IRS collect, there's actually some theoretical and nominal responsibility and accounting of the costs to the economy and what they're used for.
As responsibility, accounting and some form of democratic control over incentive systems is generally regarded as a good thing, I'd say moving the collection of revenue and responsibility for the system over to the state agencies usually responsible for such things to be fairly reasonable. So where in the economy would it be most equitable to collect the funding? Personally, I'd say, where the money's made. IE, slap a tax on youtube ad revenue. Slap a tax on movie theatres. Slap a tax on IPTV revenues. In fact, slap a tax right over anyone who makes money off selling, distributing, or performing the works in question. As the works being played is recorded and accounted for (something which is already done in most cases), the funds gathered from display of that work will primarily be going to the creators of the work, making sure the incentive generated is both as equitably gathered and a
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YouTube is going to take the same path as Napster did: it will be sued into oblivion (or maybe settle for however many hundreds of millions of dollars), and come back as a for-pay service, probably by showing clips of licensed shows for free (ad supported) and offering f
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I'm not saying that Google is some paragon of virtue, but they have money and lawyers. Good lawyers, ones who can put up a fight. Chances are Viacom is hoping that Google will decide it's better to settle than to fight in court, because any such fight would likely be long and drawn out.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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YouTube has much more chance of landing a Betamax-type verdict than Napster did. I'm not saying it's cut and dried, but I'd be surprised if they can't at least deflect the bulk of the liability to their (copyright infringing) users, which is arguably as it should be. $1 billion dollars? IANAL, but I just don't see it.
I kind of agree with you. The same can be said for all the MySpace lawsuits [google.com] out there. It's really a question of how courts will view the newish paradigm of websites being merely conduits for user behavior and simply trying to monetize the traffic. Maybe that's oversimplified though. I suppose if there was a magazine that printed reader submitted stories and happened to print excerpts of Moby Dick, the magazine publisher would probably be liable.
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You've never been to youtube, have you?
Re:I predicted this a while ago (Score:5, Funny)
Now all they need is guns. It would be much more fun and would earn the Warren Zevon seal of approval.
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Actually, did anyone not predict this?
1. Website blatantly infringes copyright of big media companies, but company has no capital or profits
2. Said company is bought by huge internet company.
3. Website blatantly infringes copyright of big media companies, owner has huge amounts of capital stuffed under the couch
4. ??? No one could predict what goes here ???
It's like software patents, it's so patently (haha) obvious that m
You want a cookie? (Score:4, Insightful)
So congratulations, you predicted that google would get sued over YouTube. With insight like that, maybe you could get a job forecasting the weather in LA (today: sunny. tomorrow: sunny...). Or maybe you just wanted to shamelessly link your blog.
Anyway, if anyone needs me, ill be over in the corner modded down to -infinity, flamebait. But at least I wont be claiming to be a genius for predicting that the sun will rise tomorrow morning (REALLY! ITS TRUE, WAIT AND SEE!).
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Why sue YouTube when they had no money to collect? Sue them after they get acquired by a company that you know has lots and lots of cash, so you might actually have a chance of collecting a judgment.
Pretty simple, actually (Score:2)
Because the original YouTube didn't have much of a money-making model, and certainly not one tied to the actual content played, while Google can actually match ads to it. E.g., if you search for videos about cooking, they can try to sell you a cookbook. (Well, at least in an ideal world where that keyword matching actually worked, and people actually set the right keywords.) So in a sense, now Google's income actually depends on covering the whole content spe
Thank you for that (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yeah, big surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would they do it? Because this case will dictate and set precedent for the future of this business model. Google was already going in the direction of online video, but YouTube had a better userbase. Google couldn't afford to let YouTube to get sued into oblivion by some huge multinational media giant. It was in Google's best interest to buy the company and fight this fight with their resources instead of letting an underfunded (relatively) startup set the precedent.
Now, can they pull it off?
Re:Yeah, big surprise (Score:5, Funny)
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You must be absolutely correct. It is the only explanation which fits the facts.
Thanks.