Posted on 06/24/2010 8:29:50 AM PDT by kingu
Google has won a landmark ruling as a judge threw out a $1bn lawsuit brought by Viacom accusing the internet giant of allowing copyrighted material on its YouTube service without permission.
Viacom had accused Google of "massive intentional copyright infringement".
But the Manhattan judge said Google and YouTube could not be held liable merely for having a "general awareness" that videos might be posted illegally.
Media conglomerate Viacom said it planned to appeal against the decision.
Google called the ruling "an important victory".
'Safe harbour'
Viacom had claimed that "tens of thousands of videos" based on its copyrighted works had been posted on YouTube, and that both YouTube and its owner Google had known about it but had done nothing about it.
[...]
Google and YouTube had argued that they were entitled to "safe harbour" protection under digital copyright law because they had insufficient notice of particular alleged offences.
Judge Stanton agreed, saying that when "YouTube was given notices, it removed the material... it is thus protected from liability" under a provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Or perhaps FreeRepublic should have to pay the crew that created the JD Hayworth ad about McCain for every page it appears on?
There comes a point where you have to put a limit on content rights.
There comes a point where you have to put a limit on content rights.
If I create a video intending to sell copies of the video for $1 each, why should someone be able to come along and distribute copies for free?
Say you owned a bakery that made cherry pies. You invested time and money creating that cherry pie; the way you get your money back (and make a profit) is to sell that cherry pie. Should someone that thinks you’ve made enough profit on cherry pies already be able to decide that it’s OK to walk in and just start taking them without paying for them?
Yes, it is the exact same thing with video. You invest time and money creating that video. You get your money back (and make a profit) by selling copies of that video. Should someone else be able to “walk into your shop” and start giving away copies of your video, because they (not you, but they) have decided you have made enough profit from your hard work in investment in creating the video?
The question is who gets to decide? I’m totaly on the side of the person that created something (cherry pie, video, whatever) as the person that gets to decide when something gets distributed and how it gets distributed.
If you don’t like the way Bob sells his cherry pies, then go buy another cherry pie somewhere else. If you don’t like the way Viacom distributes its videos, then go watch a different video somewhere else.
Well then, I suppose being on this forum reading articles must be incredibly painful for you, since you're taking their cherry pies...
Ironic you should mention this forum, as it is a good example of how things should work.
A number of companies have asked the site not to allow their content to be copied here, and the site complies with their request.
Excerpts (as used here) falls under the fair use laws. I’ll leave your to look those up.
The posting of entire stories does not fall under fair use laws. You’ll notice that you rarely see an entire story posted here. Usually it is an excerpt and then a link to the rest of the story.
And indeed, the majority of the items on youtube were clips, not full shows. And when notified of infringement, they were taken down. So your argument now becomes it’s ok so long as you only give away a little bit of the cherry pies? Kinda like how this conversation started, where I said there should be a limit to the rights of copyright holders?
Might be a good idea to re-read the Constitution and see what it says about Copyright and why we have it.
Here's a hint: Its not to generate revenue in perpetuity.
Google should countersue for damages, both in terms of court/lawyer fees AND defamation.
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