Viacom Sues Google for $1 Billion, Cites Copyright Infringement

In a widely expected move, media conglomerate Viacom on Wednesday announced that it was suing Google for $1 billion over rampant copyright infringement on Google's YouTube video site. Viacom says that Google has shown "brazen disregard" for its multiple requests to have content from such Viacom entities as "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "South Park," and even movies like "An Inconvenient Truth" removed from YouTube.

"The attitude of Google and YouTube has been to take people's content and ask questions later," Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said. "That's just not appropriate for anyone to do. And it's not appropriate for one of the largest companies in the world to behave that way."

In the unlikely event that you're not familiar with YouTube, the site came to prominence a few years ago as sort of a video version of Napster: Users log onto the site and upload videos, which can run the gamut from home movies to ripped versions of commercially available Hollywood movies. Indeed, most of the content on YouTube seems to be stolen directly from TV and movie sources. After Google purchased the site for $1.65 billion last year, the company moved quickly to make arrangements with various content creators in order to avoid this sort of lawsuit. But Viacom has held out refused to give Google permission to host its content on YouTube.

According to Viacom, YouTube has displayed over 160,000 unauthorized video clips that have been viewed over 1.5 billion times by users. In addition to the monetary damages, Viacom is also seeking to bar YouTube from showing Viacom-owned clips.

End of Article

Uh oh, Booble's gravy-train may be slowing - you can't fight city hall or the copyright police...

KingBuzzo March 14, 2007 (Article Rating:

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"According to Viacom, YouTube has displayed over 160,000 unauthorized video clips that have been viewed over 1.5 billion times by users."... giving unprecedented free publlicity to shows ranging from "SpongeBob Square Pants" to "The Daily Show".

Clearly, they're not being harmed by the subpar preview-quality clips on YouTube. Look at the shows mentioned in the story..."The Daily Show" and "South Park" are cultural icons. "SpongeBob" is considered a contemporary classic, and is making Viacom more money than they could print. And "An Inconvenient Truth" just won an Oscar, fercryinoutloud. Viacom should be thaking whatever God they pray to that YouTube exists. Particularly in the case of "The Daily Show", it's been a gift from Heaven.

Viacom: May I introduce your gun to your foot? You just pull this little trigger right here...

lotsamystuff March 14, 2007 (Article Rating:

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Viacom flip-flips on YouTube more than a US politician. They should be grateful because ratings went through the roof for mentioned shows after youtube took off.

Reflections March 14, 2007 (Article Rating:

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lotsa - Weren't you one of the people calling those who download music and movies via BitTorrent sites thieves? I'm just wondering what, in your mind, is the difference here?

--tayme

tayme March 14, 2007 (Article Rating:

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tayme: The difference is the quality--YouTube's "preview-level" quality is vastly different from what you find on the filesharing sites. Ten-minute fuzzy videos are great for promotion, but lousy for downloading and burning to a DVD.

Anyway, Scoble said it better than I did:

""if I were a smart content guy (hint, I’m not) I’d be opening my video archives and saying “post them where you want.”

"If I were even smarter I’d say “cut them up, edit them, mash them, do what you want with them.” I’m not that smart either.

"And, if I really were blessed with a brain like Douglas Engelbart’s I’d make video for where the big audiences are (hint: it’s YouTube, StumbleUpon, Digg, Flickr, Blogs, and search engines like Google/Yahoo/Live).

"I’m not that smart, but other people in this industry are.

"Yeah, Viacom will end up with a billion bucks. Its stock price will go up temporarily, but will drop the next day as Viacom’s investors realizes that Viacom has just put itself into a box. One from which it will not escape.

"The world of media is undergoing radical change.

"Not only can I send my boring, long, geeky videos that no one cares about but we can do all sorts of weird stuff and show that off to the world.

Translation: Google won’t be bothered by this lawsuit at all. While Viacom will limit its audience growth, will ruin its ability to participate in this new world."

lotsamystuff March 15, 2007 (Article Rating:

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Google should just turn around and threaten to remove all references to Viacom and any of its shows from its search engine. See how quick Viacom backs down then?

steveburkett March 15, 2007 (Article Rating:

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"The difference is the quality--YouTube's "preview-level" quality is vastly different from what you find on the filesharing sites. Ten-minute fuzzy videos are great for promotion, but lousy for downloading and burning to a DVD."

and yet it's still copyright infringement and/or breach of intellectual property rights. it's the same argument that the RIAA makes on illegal MP3's, and we all know that there are some really bad quality MP3's on file-sharing networks.

"if I were a smart content guy (hint, I’m not) I’d be opening my video archives and saying “post them where you want.”

so by his own admission he's not smart, so, in other words, we should ignore what he says because he doesn't know what he's talking about....

"The world of media is undergoing radical change."

according to the RIAA, MPAA, and the software industry, it's a change that involves casual piracy for the masses and no IP rights.

XP

Waethorn March 15, 2007 (Article Rating:

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"The attitude of Google and YouTube has been to take people's content and ask questions later," Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said.

Sadly, that does seem to be the case.

shark47 March 15, 2007 (Article Rating:

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@Waethorn:
"according to the RIAA, MPAA, and the software industry, it's a change that involves casual piracy for the masses and no IP rights."

Couldn't agree more. Napster and P2P services have created an online culture that expects all content to be free.

There's a great little song called "Code Monkey" by Johnathan Coulton. The digg article pointing to his blog is filled with postings on how to download the song for free without paying him a stinking dollar, the price to legally download the song.

The piracy community points to artists like U2, Metallica, etc who have made enough money to make Solomon blush and that they won't miss the money these pirates are stealing from them. What they don't point out is the mentality of wanting everything for free doesn't affect just big artists - it affects all artists.

Viacom has the right to protect their property.

jersey72 March 15, 2007 (Article Rating:

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And google responds

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1316411620070314

Reflections March 15, 2007 (Article Rating:

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