Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. , No. 07 Civ. 2103, is the US District Court for the Southern District of New York case where Viacom sued YouTube, Google's video sharing site, stating that YouTube has infringed on "bold" and "big" copyright by allowing users to upload and view hundreds of thousands of videos owned by Viacom without permission. A motion for a summary decision seeking a dismissal was filed by Google and granted in 2010 on the grounds that the "Digital port harbor" Millennium Copyright provision protects Google from Viacom's copyright infringement claim. In 2012, on appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, it was partially reversed. On April 18, 2013, Stanton District Magistrate again provided a brief assessment supporting the YouTube accused. An appeal has been initiated, but the parties have resolved it by March 2014.
Video Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc.
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On March 13, 2007, Viacom filed a $ 1 billion lawsuit against Google and YouTube alleging that the site had breached "bold" copyright by allowing users to upload and view Viacom's copyright material. The complaint states that over 150,000 unauthorized clips from the Viacom program, such as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Daily Show , are available on YouTube, and that these clips have collectively been viewed over 1.5 billion times.
Viacom claims that YouTube infringes copyright by performing, displaying, and reproducing Viacom's copyrighted works. Furthermore, the complaint argues that the defendants "engage in, promote and persuade" the offense, and that they deliberately build a library of infringing works to increase site traffic (and advertising revenue). In total, Viacom claims three allegations of direct infringement, and three counts of indirect violations, particularly inducements, contributory violations, and representative offenses.
Viacom did not look for damage to any action after Google placed its Content ID filtering system in place in early 2008. The suit was later merged with similar complaints pursued by the Premier League and other copyright holders.
Maps Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc.
District Court Process
In July 2008, during the pre-trial discovery phase, Viacom won a court ruling requiring YouTube to submit data detailing the viewing habits of each user who has watched a video on the site. This move causes concern that the habit of watching individual users can be identified through a combination of IP addresses and their usernames. The decision was criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which called the court ruling a "privacy rights setback," and privacy advocates like Simon Davies, who claimed that the privacy of millions of YouTube users was threatened. Judge Louis Stanton dismissed privacy concerns as "speculative", and ordered YouTube to submit documents totaling about 12 terabytes of data. Judge Stanton stated that since YouTube is not a "video service provider" as defined in the Video Privacy Protection Act, its user data is not protected by law. However, Judge Stanton rejected Viacom's request that YouTube submit the source code of its search engine, saying it was a "trade secret". As a result of data handover, many users started posting videos with the group name "Viacom Sucks!", Often containing a large number of indecent words.
However, in July 2008, Google and Viacom agreed that Google could anonymize all data before giving it to Viacom. The privacy agreement also applies to other plaintiffs including the English Premier League, Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization and the Scottish Premier League. However, the agreement waives employees from both defendants and plaintiffs, whose data de-anonymous is given separately.
Employee data is then used in submission by both parties. Viacom cites internal e-mails sent among YouTube founders who discuss how to handle clips uploaded to YouTube that are clearly the property of large media conglomerates. Google claims that Viacom itself "hires no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload content to the site". Google believes that because Viacom and his lawyers "can not recognize that dozens of clips suspected of infringement in this case are uploaded to YouTube with Viacom's strict authorization," it does not make sense to expect Google employees to know which videos were uploaded without permission. "
The head of Google advisor then publicly elaborates on the allegations:
For years, Viacom has been continuing and secretly uploading content to YouTube, even when openly complaining about its presence there. He hires no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload their content to the site. It deliberately "coarse brutal" videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opens a YouTube account using a fake email address. Even send employees to Kinko to upload clips from a computer that can not be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote the event itself, as a matter of corporate policy Viacom routinely leaves clips from events that have been uploaded to YouTube by regular users. Executives as high as Comedy Central president and head MTV Networks feel "very strong" that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report must remain on YouTube. Viacom's attempt to disguise the use of YouTube promotions works so well that even its own employees can not track all that is posted or left on the site. As a result, on countless occasions, Viacom demanded the removal of a clip that has been uploaded to YouTube, only to return later timidly asking to be reinstated. In fact, some of the clips that Viacom demands from us are actually uploaded by Viacom himself.
District Court Decisions 2010
On June 23, 2010, Judge Stanton granted Google's motion for a summary assessment, arguing that Google is protected by the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, despite evidence of intentional copyright infringement. The judge believes that while the company is undeniably knowledgeable that some copyrighted material has been uploaded by the user, they do not know which clips have been uploaded with permission and which are not. He said that requiring video-sharing sites to proactively monitor every uploaded video "would be contrary to the structure and operation of D.M.C.A." As evidence that the DMCA-determined regime is effective, Stanton notes that YouTube has successfully dealt with the mass removal notice issued by Viacom in 2007. The judge rejected Viacom's comparison between YouTube and other Internet-based media-sharing companies such as Grokster, which had previously been declared guilty of indirect copyright infringement. The decision also reversed a court order issued in July 2008.
Viacom announced its intention to appeal the verdict.
2012 Court of Appeal verdict
The appeal was filed before the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in August 2011, and the decision was issued on April 5, 2012. Among others, Viacom and other plaintiffs focused on internal e-mails among YouTube employees who were aware of the violations, specific, which the district court says can be considered as knowledge that will disqualify YouTube from safe port safeguards.
Judges Cabranes and Livingston dismissed the judgment of a summary by Judge Stanton, stating that "a reasonable jury may find that YouTube has actual knowledge or awareness of certain offensive activities on its website" and, contrary to the Ninth Circuit's dismissal of the Veoh case > UMG v. Shelter Partners ), that the right and ability to control infringement activities need not require knowledge of specific violations. Thus, the case again qualifies for the jury trial.
However, the court upheld one aspect of Stanton's decision. The plaintiffs argue that four of the YouTube software functions associated with user uploads disqualify services from secure port safeguards, but the appeals court agrees with lower courts in these three functions - transcoding, playback and related video thumbnails-- are within the scope safe port. The fourth function, syndicated, is returned for further fact-finding.
2013 District Court Decision
On April 18, 2013, Judge Stanton issued another order to provide a summary rating in support of YouTube. Following the arrest of the Second Circuit Court of Appeal, Stanton decided on four issues in his decision:
(A) Whether... YouTube has knowledge or awareness of a particular offense... Ã,; (B) Whether... YouTube deliberately blinds itself...; (C) Does YouTube have "the right and ability to control" infringing activity...; and (D) Is there a syndicated clip.......
Judge Stanton decided to support YouTube on four issues that found that YouTube did not have actual knowledge about Viacom's specific violation example, and therefore could not "blind itself". He also decided that YouTube does not have the "right and ability to control" infringing activity because "there is no evidence that YouTube encourages its users to submit infringing videos, giving users detailed instructions on what content should be uploaded or edited their content, re-shipped for quality, directing users to infringing videos, or interacting with infringing users to a point where it may be said to have participated in their activity. "This decision comes despite statements made by YouTube employees that" [we should grow] aggressive as we can through any tactic, but crime.... [this site] is out of control with copyrighted material... [if we delete] things that are clearly infringing copyright... traffic site [will] drop to maybe 20%... steal it! "All quotes are debated to be taken outside k ontext. The verdict was entered as the final on April 29, 2013.
The appeal begins, but a week before the parties appear in the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, the settlement is announced, and it is reported that no money has changed hands.
See also
- Google litigation
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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