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Viacom sues YouTube/Google for $1B

Posted by: Seth Shapiro

The suit that stalked Sequoia’s $1.65B deal has been filed in SDNY. Thrust of the case is the intuitively compelling point that if a site can screen effectively for porn (which YouTube does), it should be able to apply the same methodology to screening for copyrighted material (YouTube does not).

The doc is plain-spoken.  Excerpts:

YouTube’s website purports to be a forum for users to share their own original, user generated, video content. In reality, however, a vast amount of that content consists of infringing copies of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works… Plaintiffs have identified more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of their copyrighted programming on YouTube that had been viewed an astounding 1.5 billion times… YouTube does not simply
enable massive infringement by its users. It is YouTube that knowingly reproduces and
publicly performs the copyrighted works uploaded to its site.




Posted: March 13th, 2007 under » Finance, » Media.
Comments: 1



Comments

Comment from Torrey Adams
Time: March 14, 2007, 7:01 pm

Youtube makes its money by allowing subscribers the freedom of creating their “own channel”.The more subscribers, the higher the ad spots. It’s the entertainment companies and individuals who seek exposure for no cost.(i.e, Myspace) Interesting.

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