Viacom's threat might kill internet freedom - Youtube lawsuit

Viacom sued youtube and its owner Google for allowing copyrighted videos to be posted on their website. Viacom claims there are more than 150,000 of copyrighted videos posted in youtube and they claim a billion dollar as damages for illegal viewing of their copyrighted videos.



"Viacom claimed YouTube consistently allowed unauthorised copies of popular television programming and movies to be posted on its website and viewed tens of thousands of times.
It said it had identified more than 150,000 such abuses which included clips from shows such as South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants and MTV Unplugged.
The company says the infringement also included the documentary An Inconvenient Truth which had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times". "

According to the document:

threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information



I agree with above Google's claim. The whole Internet is built upon sharing information with each other just because someone illegal posted a copyrighted video on a popular video hosting site it doesn't mean video site is responsible for it. If this is the case then there wont be any Forums or blogs or message boards out there. Then every site that runs a message board will have to verify each and every comment posted since some of them might be copyrighted.

Dow Jones: "When we filed this lawsuit, we not only served our own interests, we served the interests of everyone who owns copyrights they want protected."

Well i am not sure what is the interest of other copyright owners i feel Dow jones comments should be for Viacom only. Google's policy has always been don't be evil they grew up with that motto. Today they are way ahead of all other Search Engines because users are their No.1 priority. Even though Google's Search engine indexes millions of copyrighted pages and stores in their database still no-one complains since they are done what is best for Internet users.

Video sharing websites are a great way to share legitimate information across Internet. Just because someone posted some copyrighted videos its not fair to blame Youtube totally.

Well, I can give a number of reasons why Viacom is completely wrong with their lawsuit.

1. If Youtube is suppose to verify all millions of videos posted in their site they cannot run a site at all. There are so many areas where legitimate information is shared like forums, blog comments, news sites etc. If every single information needs to be verified then there won't be any good information sites on the web.

2. The word "copyright" itself will kill the way Internet works. Today anything and everything is copyrighted and its impossible to share legitimate information unless they are verified. I feel Copyright kills Internet freedom and there should be New laws for Internet information sharing which will help freedom of sharing.

3. After they faced lawsuit last year Google added automated copyright detection tool which stops some copyright videos from being uploaded. This is a very legitimate move and the best Youtube can do to prevent copyright videos. It also shows Google or Youtube don't want copyrighted videos on their sites.

4. Youtube has a very clear copyright policy on videos hosted by them. If you read the following

Commercial Content Is Copyrighted

The most common reason we take down videos for copyright infringement is that
they are direct copies of copyrighted content and the owners of the copyrighted
content have alerted us that their content is being used without their
permission. Once we become aware of an unauthorized use, we will remove the
video promptly. That is the law.
Some examples of copyrighted content
are:
TV shows
Including sitcoms, sports broadcasts, news broadcasts,
comedy shows, cartoons, dramas, etc.
Includes network and cable TV,
pay-per-view and on-demand TV
Music videos, such as the ones you might find
on music video channels
Videos of live concerts, even if you captured the
video yourself
Even if you took the video yourself, the performer controls
the right to use his/her image in a video, the songwriter owns the rights to the
song being performed, and sometimes the venue prohibits filming without
permission, so this video is likely to infringe somebody Else's rights.
Movies and movie trailers
Commercials
Slide shows that include
photos or images owned by somebody else
A Few Guiding Principles
It
doesn't matter how long or short the clip is, or exactly how it got to YouTube.
If you taped it off cable, videotaped your TV screen, or downloaded it from some
other website, it is still copyrighted, and requires the copyright owner's
permission to distribute.
It doesn't matter whether or not you give credit
to the owner/author/songwriter—it is still copyrighted.
It doesn't matter
that you are not selling the video for money—it is still copyrighted.
It
doesn't matter whether or not the video contains a copyright notice—it is still
copyrighted.
It doesn't matter whether other similar videos appear on our
site—it is still copyrighted.
It doesn't matter if you created a video made
of short clips of copyrighted content—even though you edited it together, the
content is still copyrighted.

You can see they are very clear about copyright and even provide links for copyright complains.

5. As of March there are over 3 Billion videos hosted in Youtube. Viacom claim 150,000 copyrighted videos which is only a fraction of the overall videos posted in Youtube. How can you expect youtube to check through this rubble and find copyrighted videos when its actually the user who is suppose to care about this.

6. Most of the time quality of videos posted in Youtube are very bad and they are also very short videos. I feel its not a big deal for small videos of low quality posted in youtube for viewing will kill media Business like Viacom altogether.

7. Some people suggest effective verification system like asking for Credit Card details to post videos. Well i know so many people who are not willing to post their CC information for legitimate online buying how can you expect them to give their CC details just for uploading videos this is a bit too much and anything like this will stop legitimate users from enjoying the freedom of Internet.

Viacom should withdraw their lawsuit to avoid humiliation in court, i feel there wont be anything legitimate against Youtube or Google which will prove Viacom's claim. If Viacom ever win this lawsuit which looks highly unlikely the way the whole Internet works will change and everyone will start suing each other which will be a disaster for Internet.

Lets all stand behind Youtube and Google and wish them success with their defence. Youtube should come out clear from this for the welfare of Internet.

Search Engine Genie

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