Viacom to sue GooTube for billion
In a statement, Google lashed out at MTVs business practices, saying it has “built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Viacom.”
First the Daily Show/Colbert Report clip holocaust (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-02-02-viacom-youtube_x.htm) and now this. Sumner Redstone is just not cool...
I'd boycott 'em, but I'm pretty sure they own my TV. :(
NEW YORK - MTV owner Viacom Inc. said Tuesday it has sued YouTube and its corporate parent Google Inc. in federal court for alleged copyright infringement and is seeking more than $1 billion in damages.
Viacom claims that the more than 160,000 unauthorized video clips from its cable networks, which also include Comedy Central, VH1 and Nickelodeon, have been available on the popular video-sharing Web site.
The lawsuit marks a sharp escalation of long-simmering tensions between Viacom and YouTube. Last month Viacom demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips after several months of talks between the companies broke down.
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In a statement, Viacom lashed out at YouTube’s business practices, saying it has “built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google.”
Viacom said YouTube’s business model, “which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws.”
A representative for Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other media companies have also clashed with YouTube over copyrights, but some, including CBS Corp. and General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal, have reached deals with the video-sharing site to license their material.
Universal Music Group, a unit of France’s Vivendi SA, had threatened to sue YouTube, saying it was a hub for pirated music videos, but later reached a licensing deal with them.
Viacom filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and is also seeking an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from using its clips.
Link to story (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17592285/)
I always wondered how Youtube managed to not get shut down considering how anal the US is about copyright.
Yeah, yeah, yeah... all I know is, my sharing TDS/TCR clips over the net and on my iPod convinced far more people I know to watch the show than advertising ever did. Viacom s behind the times.
Yeah, and they're hardly innocent. It's their relentless lobbying to Congress and billions spent on buying votes that created the messed up and ridiculously overextended copyright laws (along with that Godawful DMCA) that enable them to pull stuff like this. I mean, there's no way in hell that the Backstreet Boys deserve a 90 year copyright or whatever it is on their music (if you want it to begin with, but that's another thing entirely). Hell, Mozart doesn't even get that kind of protection.
If anything, they should know that user generated content has a similar effect as viral marketing. I've bought music and movies based upon clips I've looked uo on YouTube and other sites.
In a statement, Google lashed out at MTVs business practices, saying it has “built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Viacom.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah... all I know is, my sharing TDS/TCR clips over the net and on my iPod convinced far more people I know to watch the show than advertising ever did. Viacom is behind the times, and out of touch with its viewers.