Viacom Looks For Google Staff Uploads in YouTube Logs 308
Barence writes "Viacom wants to know which YouTube videos have been uploaded by members of Google's staff, in what could be a potentially explosive aspect of its copyright infringement claim against the search giant."
Re:Pointless... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, SouthParkStudios.com proves this. But Viacom is not interested in looking for new business models. They are looking to protect their existing business models, and YouTube hurts these.
The thing is, it's not sharing clips that hurts Viacom's business. That probably helps, free publicity for programs.
What hurts Viacom is user-generated content: eyeballs going to watch stuff that is produced totally outside the normal distribution model.
So Viacom is not IMO trying to protect its copyrighted content. What it wants to do is scare people who use YouTube into thinking "my personal data ain't safe", to create a chilling effect that will stop user-created content.
Imagine if Viacom had been infiltrated by Scientologists and they could now get access to logs of who uploaded, and who watched, videos by Anonymous. It's not likely but the mere idea this could happen will drive some people away, fracture the community, and make passive TV watching seem safer again.
OTOH, Viacom, not being an Internet company, does not realize that this kind of attack on a community always has the exact opposite effect.
So the result will be a hundred new video sharing sites, and a much more difficult situation for Viacom, both for copyright takedowns, and for competition to their programming.
Re:Google should comply with reciprocal clause. (Score:2, Informative)
It is not Google's job to prosecute or investigate anyone at Viacom.
If you would RTFA you would know that Google's ENTIRE defense rests on "we don't know what's going on". If they were to monitor searches for anything illegal, they have to monitor it for everything illegal. They CAN'T monitor searches or videos or comments for terrorist plots without also monitoring searches or videos or comments for copyrighted material.
Re:Why a potentially explosive aspect? (Score:2, Informative)
It's called vicarious liability, or respondeat superior.
So long as what they were doing was connected to work, (which uploading videos on their own service likely is,) as opposed to "frolic and detour," Google could easily be on the hook.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_liability
Re:Why a potentially explosive aspect? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Informative)
Viacom: YouTube shows our copyrighted material. Google, you own YouTube and a lot of money, give us some of your money or else.
Google: Safe Harbor defense! Under the DMCA, we can't be held liable if somebody else posts copyrighted material on a site we host, if we don't know that these strangers are posting copyrighted material.
So Viacom thinks that if they can show that Google employees knowing posted copyrighted materials to YouTube, then Google won't be covered by the Safe Harbor defense.
This is what TFA says. I have no idea if that is what Viacom is actually doing, or if it would even work. But it is interesting.
Re:Pointless... (Score:4, Informative)
That's like a movie theater making an illegal print of a movie, showing it in their theaters, then sending a token $1 for each showing back to the theater. And when the studios complain, they say, "Shaddup. What are you complaining about? You're making money, aren't you?"
Oddly enough, this is exactly how radio works. As I understand it, anyone is allowed to play any song on any radio, so long as they pay their royalties through a system which has been established for this purpose.
I'm not going to say whether that's a good thing, just interesting.
Re:Seriously, what?! (Score:4, Informative)
Are you saying that Viacom is a bunch of whores? Dude, I like whores! The difference between Viacom and a whore is, whores are less dishonest.
Re:How about looking for Viacom employees? (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclean_hands [wikipedia.org]
Re:Pointless... (Score:3, Informative)
> TVs do not (generally) have the equivalent of adblock.
Sure they do. It's called a Tivo.
The content can be freely recorded and played back in any
fashion you like. You can even cut out the commercials if
you really want or just skip over them in 30 second intervals.
Hulu is a huge step backwards.