YouSued |
MTV owner Viacom is suing YouTube now owned by Google for 1 billion bones over an alleged 160,000 infringing clips on YouTube. I own Google stock and will be monitoring the impact on Wall Street.
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.”
So far Google’s comment is “no comment” but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them post something on their official blog in the coming days. Google has faced legal friction on many fronts since their IPO and it makes me wonder how long before the good ship takes on too much water? YouTube has been a copyright infringement haven that they overpaid to acquire. I wrongly believed they had — or would quickly develop — a revolutionary algorithm that could filter out the copyright infringement.
It’s easy to find copyright violations on YouTube. I found the David Lee Roth band concert which said video and pictures could not be taken and yet YouTube had almost every song they played on it from different venues taken by fans and uploaded without permission. Months later, the videos are still up on YouTube. Not good.
When news of Google overpaying $1.65 billion for YouTube became official I wrote back in October: “Now that Google has bought YouTube it has put a gigantic bullseye on Google’s back. One thing is certain, Google sure has mammoth family jewels.”
Viacom just kicked those jewels. This has already made the top story on TechMeme.
Did this post make you go hmm?
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I think your comment when Google bought YouTube was definitely accurate, as was Mark Cuban’s. It may have been a large act of hubris to think they could make this work. It would be pretty wild if Google’s downfall came from purchasing YouTube.
Imagine that? I bet Microsoft is loving this.
I think content creators are realizing they need to establish a legal, legitimate presence on the web. Services like YouTube cannot continue. This is a great way for Viacom to put their foot down.
I’m hoping that internet TV takes off. I would love to get all my content on demand,over the top, cable-bypass. But, content creators won’t embrace online distribution until there is some respect and protection for their content.
- Becca
Comment by Becca — March 13, 2007 @ 8:31 am PST
Yeah Becca, that purchase could be the major turning point in Google history — for the worse. If Viacom should win this case, the floodgates will open.
Comment by TDavid — March 13, 2007 @ 8:36 am PST