Google and Viacom (Finally) Settle YouTube Copyright Lawsuit

[Fanghawk]

Google and Viacom (Finally) Settle YouTube Copyright Lawsuit

Google and Viacom have resolved a seven-year old copyright lawsuit that outlived the very reasons the claim was first filed.

For the past seven years, Google and Viacom weren't exactly on the best of terms. Back in 2007, Viacom sued Google for a billion dollars in response to thousands of unauthorized YouTube clips. <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101620-YouTube-Wins-Viacom-Copyright-Case>A significant amount of legal wrangling ensued, but then something interesting happened; copyright holders starting publishing their content on YouTube and earning profits through advertising. Given the lucrative opportunities, Google and Viacom have finally settled the lawsuit and their differences, opening the door to collaborations on future projects.

"Google and Viacom today jointly announced the resolution of the Viacom vs. YouTube copyright litigation," the companies said in a joint statement. "This settlement reflects the growing collaborative dialogue between our two companies on important opportunities, and we look forward to working more closely together."

The lawsuit itself had practically been forgotten in the wake of Google and YouTube's growth, to say nothing of changes to copyright law. The case arguably made some sense in 2007, when physical media was king and Netflix was a blip in digital distribution's radar. But now the lawsuit just feels like a massive anachronism, especially with entertainment companies like Warner Music Group negotiating YouTube licensing deals.

"At the time, there was this notion of traditional media being threatened," Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser <a href=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ab937faa-aead-11e3-8e41-00144feab7de.html#axzz2wKwaKBSa>told The Financial Times. "That's been proven wrong. What was seen to be a major issue of a different era is generally unimportant now."

YouTube is certainly still mired <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130667-YouTube-Issued-Copyright-Claims-Against-Miracle-of-Sound>in other copyright debates, and will likely continue to be in the years to come. But it's still nice to see one of its longest-standing lawsuits draw to a close, even if just so we can move on to more relevant issues.

Source: CNET

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[kanetsb]

And as clips of various shows go away from YT... so does their popularity. And with popularity gone, the viewers go away too.

I actually like that there are no clips of most TV shows on YT - that's TV's death inching in, every day.

 

[-Dragmire-]

How much do you think the lawyers earned over these 7 years?

 

[truckspond]

So NOW can they please move on to either removing ContentID completely or making it so that it does not automatically take down fair use videos?

 

[Agayek]

How much do you think the lawyers earned over these 7 years?

More than the lawsuit would have given either company, I imagine.

 

[Roxas1359]

So NOW can they please move on to either removing ContentID completely or making it so that it does not automatically take down fair use videos?

Sadly YouTube has been pretty much firm in their stance of "deal with it" when it comes to their automated machine that can't even do it's job correctly. Believe me, I'd love if that were the case, but sadly they're never gonna change it.

 

[FalloutJack]

So NOW can they please move on to either removing ContentID completely or making it so that it does not automatically take down fair use videos?

Sadly YouTube has been pretty much firm in their stance of "deal with it" when it comes to their automated machine that can't even do it's job correctly. Believe me, I'd love if that were the case, but sadly they're never gonna change it.

They should be audited for effectively bogus service. I'm sure the right people can make arguments for youtube not having worked right for years and make it stick.

 

[Roxas1359]

They should be audited for effectively bogus service. I'm sure the right people can make arguments for youtube not having worked right for years and make it stick.

I know I can. Funny thing about this, Viacom actually abused the system that Google put in place when do mass flaggings over the course of 2 years, and YouTube and Google never saw it fit to implement a procedure in which you must actually prove you own the copyright in the video you are flagging. That's right, you don't need to to prove that you own the copyright, and as such it has lead to many false flaggers getting channels taken down under fraudulent claims. Yes, making a false claim is illegal, as you are claiming to own an IP that you don't own and can possibly be making money from it. You see, when a video is matched or flagged, all revenue for the video goes to the person, "company" who flagged the video, even while the investigation is still being conducted. By investigation, I mean until the timer runs out because Google rarely gets involved and sooner bans people after the 3-strike rule and very rarely returns it.

The only time in recent memory in which I can remember YouTube turning over bans are for CardGamesFTW (Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged Channel); Chuggaconroy back in 2010, as legal action was taking suit because of his accounts termination by a false flagger; finally NintendoCapriSun after being flagged enough times by the same troll that took down Chuggaconroy. What happened to that troll? Well he got banned, made a new email, changed his IP address, and then tried going after Smosh.

 

[RicoADF]

So NOW can they please move on to either removing ContentID completely or making it so that it does not automatically take down fair use videos?

These videos are hosted on their servers (googles), fair use unfortunately doesn't apply if they decide they don't want to host them. This isn't a government run channel, it's a private company which has the right to take down any video they don't like for any reason at all. I'm not saying their smart for doing it, frankly their idiots as it just leaves the door open for other services like twitch etc, but legally speaking fair use doesn't stop someone from deciding they don't want your content on their privately owned site.

Put it another way, if you start up your own forum and website and decide that no star wars images/videos are to be posted and someone posts a star wars joke video on it, then you can remove it and ban them all you like because you own the site and have the right to dictate what goes on it weather the content is legal or not.