Viacom Sues Google And YouTube for $1B
March 13th, 2007
That’s a lot of dough, and I don’t have much to add except this thought: whether or not you think the lawsuit is legitimate, anybody (including me) could have seen this coming a mile away. Back before YouTube was part of Google, people speculated if it would die from bandwidth fees or from being sued.
I think Google post-acquisition has been too passive in terms of either finding copyright infringing content and removing it, or signing agreements with the content holders. If there’s no decent technical solution for figuring out what’s infringing content, then get busy coming up with some licensing agreements. The content isn’t theirs.
I’m starting to doubt that YouTube’s success is because of user created content. I hope the truth isn’t that all the “you” stuff isn’t as appealing as we think. Is Google not being up front with what makes up YouTube’s real value? Otherwise, why not just take all the infringing stuff down, forget about signing agreements, and be done with it?
Most likely, as Mike Arrington mentions, this more a big poke in the rear to get an expensive agreement in place. Either way, it’s going to cost Google big bucks.
I hope for all that is Web 2.0 that Google buying YouTube doesn’t devolve into a nightmare. Too much is riding on Google for it to stumble. I’m still a big believer in Web 2.0, as I blog and Twitter away.
For a link to a lawsuit PDF, check out IP Democracy.
Additional Reading (many different opinions on the meaning and the legitimacy of this lawsuit): A VC, Mashable, The Media Age, Google Watch, Park Dale Pictures, Jeremiah Owyang, Alex Curtis at Public Knowledge, Don Dodge
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Posted In: General, Technology
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Here’s hoping the EFF gets involved.
Seriously though, this “You” stuff is starting to bother me…whenever I view a pretty cool video, there are all of these video replies in the “related” sidebar…and they’re all videos of people saying “hey, that was a cool video.” wtf? These people are too good for textual comments?
Well, this is why I’m too good for textual comments on YouTube, heh.
heh, actually I think the YouTube comments are even sillier than those in that cartoon …
If you use the content of other people, you have to value their work – YouTube can’t just publish songs and videos without giving credit / cash to the creator of the material.
Hi run dogg, no disagreement there. In any case, this will be interesting to see develop. I am guessing YouTube / Google will be signing a very large content deal with Viacom soon.
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