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Viacom Throws Down over YouTube Content: What's at Stake

by jordan | March 21, 2007 at 04:40 pm | 361 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Basically, Viacom is claiming that Google (YouTube's owner) is not preventing the hosting of copyrighted videos. Google's likely defense is to call itself a neutral service provider. Before the case goes into full-on litigation, though, the jury is still out on what actual damage these YouTube postings actually cause the parent companies. Music videos? Where else will you watch them? MTV? Not since it turned into a reality-show channel. Television programs? They tend to be longer than ten minutes (YouTube's clip time limit), at least until show creators think inside the box.

I suggest that Viacom hurts only itself by going after Google so aggressively, as they will ultimately prevent viewers from getting a taste of their products and, in the short term, Viacom lacks the means to tangle with a deep-pocketed giant like Google.

The Viacom vs. YouTube throwdown got more interesting this week with the arrival of Mark Cuban at ringside.

"In aggregate, YouTube screwed up and they are in big trouble," he told Wired News Tuesday. "I think there is a very good chance that YouTube gets shut down for a period until they start filtering out copyrighted videos."

The comments come on the heels of a $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube owner Google charging it with "brazen disregard of intellectual property laws." Viacom's beef: More than 160,000 clips posted on YouTube from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, South Park, The Colbert Report and other Viacom-owned programs violate Viacom's copyrights, and Google has not done enough to prevent such infringement.

Online copyright disputes are a feature of the internet, but few have attracted as much attention as last week's showdown. What makes this case special, legal experts say, is Viacom's aggressive legal arguments. If the case proceeds to trial and results in a ruling favoring the cable operator, it could substantially raise the risks for companies that publish content of any kind online.

"This lawsuit is an attack on the internet and everybody who has come to depend on it," said Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker, marshaling a power-to-the-people defense. "It attacks the platforms that let people make the internet their own."

This is a follow-up to pgaliba's posting.