Viacom Entertainment Suing YouTube.com

[pitbulllady]

Just saw this on CNN.com; financial and legal experts expect more lawsuits will follow, for copywrite infringements.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/13/news/companies/youtube_viacom_reaction/index.htm?cnn=yes

pitbulllady

[fosters home fan]

Just saw this on CNN.com; financial and legal experts expect more lawsuits will follow, for copywrite infringements.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/13/news/companies/youtube_viacom_reaction/index.htm?cnn=yes

pitbulllady

Yeah a number of videos were taken down due to the copyright.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

:( Greeeeeat, as if I didn't have enough problems with youtube being gay and yanking off videos left and right.

I lost my first account to Youtube because of stinking copyright infringements and I sure as hell hope the same thing doesn't happen this time.

[Voxxyn]

Stuff like this is why I hate copyright laws. :frankiemad:

[CG]

Now now guys, copyright laws are there for a reason. Why should a company, who put a lot of love and hard time into making a show be it cartoon or live action, not recieve what they deserved through all their work because people are uploading the episodes for free on the internet?

I know, in my past I'VE uploaded and downloaded things illegally but given the chance I most definately buy the dvds, or watch the shows legally. I did it with Invader Zim, Avatar and now Fosters.

But yeah; I see alot more suites to follow. YouTube is trying, they've deleted a lot of accounts with full episodes uploaded but it still isn't enough. Heck, search for Fosters and you find entire episodes uploaded. Same goes for a few other shows. It isn't really fair to those who work hard on tv and movies to have their goods uploaded for free.

Eh. Tough times...

[Mr. Marshmallow]

But see that's where the difference lies. I totally agree on that WHOLE episodes should not be allowed to be uploaded on youtube, that's an entire year or month or week's worth of someone's hard paid work put to shame. People splitting episodes into small parts should have those videos taken down.

Yet, I feel slightly split by this because I do watch SOME Tv show episodes put on youtube. Mostly off the air stuff like care bears, perfect hair forever etc. However the thing that I feel youtube should NOT take down is small clips. Small snippets of movies or TV shows I think are just fine to leave up there.

Putting the Black knight's infamous scene from Monty Python's holy grail is hardly what I would call stealing. That's just a clip, I see no harm in having stuff like that up on youtube. Or clips from Daily show with Jon Stewart, I see nothing wrong with stuff like that. I mean it's FREE publicity, let me repeat, FREE.

There not paying a dime and thanks to some kid in his parents basement, Comedy Central, FOX network, and Adult Swim are getting free advertisements for their shows. People who see these clips get hooked on the show and it can compel them to actually tune in and see what their missing.

That kind of stuff as well as anime/cartoon music videos is acceptable material. Anime music videos have existed on the web years before Youtube was even conceived, and it's a sign of a fan's appreciation for anime and their creativity. There are dozens of websites featuring anime music videos.

If you feel the need to yank them off youtube, you might as well buy the whole "abuse your power" package and go shut down all those websites too. This is something I feel very strongly about. There is a difference between some funny clip you saw on South Park, and a whole movie split into parts.

I agree that copyright films and shows should not be put up in their entirety. But having a favorite clip from your favorite movie put on your favorites list for mere easy access to something that makes you laugh, is hardly what I call justified reasons to go around youtube and start yanking stuff down blindly.

[Voxxyn]

I personally feel that it's OK to watch/download full episodes of TV shows online if they are true fans who watched the episode during it's original airdate(to support it in the ratings), AND it hasn't yet been officially released on home video. When the Foster's Season 1 DVD came out, I bought it and thus deleted the fan-uploaded S1 episode files I previously had--but kept the S2-S4 episodes because they've yet to be released on DVD. Once they are, I will buy them officially and delete the unofficial episode files. I understand why the corporations would be pissed off by the free uploading of entire episodes and seasons that they officially released.

But going as far to remove short clips and literally anything that contains even the slightest trace of copyrighted material is just ridiculous. I agree with Mr. M.

[Medikor]

I don't really blame Youtube for pulling seemingly harmless videos off their site, because who really wants to run the risk of being sued? They're scared, and I feel a little bad for them.:(

[kageri]

I don't know what it says about me that my least favorite thing about this is that they'll be yanking copyrighted things off even faster now.

But I agree with Medikor. Blaming YouTube is kind of.... well, you can't, really, because if I were them and getting sued for a billion dollars I'd probably be deleting copyrighted material left and right too.

And as much as I love watching TV shows for free on YouTube, I can see why they'd be targeting that site. Yes, anime music videos have existed on the Internet since dinosaurs walked the earth, but no one's going to bother trying to shut down a little Geocities page with Sailor Moon animated gifs. YouTube is a majorly huge site and millions of people watch videos there every day.

I also agree with Voxxyn but that would be a hard thing to monitor. There are entire Ranma 1/2 episodes on YouTube, but there's no way for YouTube to know that it's okay if I watch them because I have stacks of the DVDs in my closet (although I would sort of consider that free advertisement, most people don't just go out and buy DVDs of things they don't know if they like and there's no way of knowing otherwise since that show hasn't been on TV in like ten years). Anyways, my point is, a lot of people do take advantage of the opportunity to watch TV episodes and movies for free because they are free.

In closing, I can sympathize with YouTube's plight, but the day it becomes a video site filled solely with teenagers dancing to "Dragostea Din Tei" in front of their mediocre webcams will be a sad one indeed.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

The truth is Youtube brought this upon themselves, if they didn't want people to upload content from copyright shows and movies then maybe you should have thought of that BEFORE you launched this big ass website phenomenon. Seriously, you can't stop people from doing this stuff realistically.

Content is going to be illegally downloaded. There are thousands of bit torrent websites, music sharing programs, and machines designed for giving us illegal movies, music, images, artwork and just about anything else we can think of. Pulling down copyritten content is a pointless and fruitless expedition.

Even if they say shutdown youtube entirely, it'll only be a matter of time before someone else launches a similar program site, and does the same thing. People do it with bit torrents and limewires and all these other programs. I can see how they'd want to protect their material, but realistically, it's impossible.

People want this stuff and no matter what Youtube does, there gonna get it. I also agree with what Vox said in saying that people want episodes and cartoon shows that aren't available yet. I have both seasons of W.I.T.C.H. on file on my computer and I intend to keep them until their DVD reason comes out.

Which may be never considering how some shows never get picked up. When and if they come out, THEN I'll delete them. But until then I will continue to download these videos, music, and etc and I think youtube should lay off yanking down harmless clips like snippets of Drawn Together or even Foster's.

Youtube should go after the serious offenses like showing REAL movies like "Over the hedge" on Youtube. If Youtube is too big to find stuff like that then that's there problem, they made this and if they don't know how to control it properly then they should have thought about this before putting the site up.

I don't hate them, and I don't blame them at all for feeling this way. Viacom and other companies have every right to be concerned. However, this is the game Youtube got itself into, they knew what they were doing when they started this, and it's not wise to piss off your supporters by yanking stuff off.

You'd be surprised how many videos that have been uploaded to Youtube that are just angry messages telling them to stop yanking their clips off.

[Medikor]

I can understand that. Youtube did kind of paint itself into a corner by being made in the first place. And I think the logic behind takeing off AMV's is beccause the video and music used to make them was likely obtained illegally too. This is a prickly bush to say the least.

[Dark "DC" Chaos]

As if I didn't have enough reasons to hate Viacom already.

Really, Viacom is being quite foolish with this lawsuit. For two reasons:
1. From what I understand, in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, there is a provision (specifically, provision 512(c) ) which basically says that Google is not liable for the copyright infrigement because the users uploaded the infringing videos, not Google themselves. And even if they were aware, they'd only have trouble if they refused to take it down after Viacom told them to. As far as I know, Google was quite compliant in removing the videos, and Viacom just said "YOURE NOT DOING IT FAST ENOUGH RARRRRRRRRGH SUE SUE SUE!!!"
2. Even if Google is in the wrong here, Viacom's lawyers are going to have a hell of a time proving a billion dollars in damages.

[montitech]

"YOUR NOT DOING IT FAST ENOUGH" hmmm, this sounds like an old copyright infrigment excuse....

BBS's in the late 80's used to keep copyrighted material in the upload directory for downloading by members. most of the Site admins thought they could use the excuse of "I did not know it was there, I do not review the upload directory daily". but Leagally they could have been held liable the binaries. and occationally some people did loose there systems to the goverment for copyright infringment.(or maybe that part is just an Urban Legend)

MOnty :-/