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Thu, October 16, 2008 |
Last Updated: October 14,2008 5:03:25 pm
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May 27th, 2008, By Richard Trapunski
Viacom's $1 Billion Lawsuit: Google Pleads innocence
 Google Pleads innocence The NewsFaced with a $1 billion lawsuit by Viacom, a challenge that Google claims could potentially threaten the future of online video-sharing, information-exchange and clips of Panda Bears sneezing, Google Inc., owner of YouTube, pleads innocence. Behind the NewsThe proceedings began in March 2007 when Viacom sued for “massive intentional copyright infringement” (you know they’re serious because of the word “massive”). Viacom claimed it was owed damages for widespread unauthorized viewings of programming from MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon including The Daily Show, South Park, and SpongeBob Squarepants or in other words, every single show worth watching.
Google’s response was filed Friday at U.S. District Court in Manhattan and included the claim that YouTube “goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works” and that to make carriers liable for Internet communications “threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression.” While this may sound excessively hyperbolic, it is not hard to see the rationale behind Google’s claim. It has become nearly impossible to have a reasoned discussion about the future of media and mass communication without using the phrase “Web 2.0,” a phrase loosely defined to include the trends of collaboration, sharing, and creativity on the internet. YouTube has had more than a little to do with this, providing a platform for amateur content to reach a large and, in some cases (to borrow a word) “massive” audience. Without YouTube there would be no “Star Wars Kid”, no “Rickrolling”, and, dare I say it, no “Chocolate Rain.” At stake in the lawsuit, however, are not home-grown internet celebrities, but rather good old-fashioned American Broadcasting. The capacity for anyone to post absolutely anything carries with it the capacity to post pirated content. Google asserts that it has not violated the requirements of the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which protects providers as long as they respond properly to content owners’ claims of infringement. But Viacom said that it had identified more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of its copyrighted programming viewed “an astounding 1.5 billion times” and that Google had done “little or nothing” to prevent this. Clearly, to them, the system is not working. Google has attempted to create new solutions to the problem/ Back in October 2007, Google launched an antipiracy tool that would identify pirated video on YouTube as it gets uploaded by matching it against a database of visual abstractions. But this is also imperfect; the system again puts the burden on content owners to provide YouTube copies of the content first. In addition, the tool is not as effective when dealing with poor quality facsimiles. Ultimately, the only perfect solution would be to have a human painstakingly go through the billions of amateur song covers, bad stand-up routines and videos of dogs on skateboards to try to identify pirated material. This would be both impossible and unbearable. It remains to be seen how this will be resolved, but one thing is for certain: Google is ready to fight this all the way to the Supreme Court. Comments
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