|
Viacom sues YouTube, claims shenanigans
Which side does the DMCA favor? Bout Of The Century to decide...
|
|
The mass-media amalgamation known as Viacom Inc. is suing Google's recent techno-prostitute, YouTube, for a massive $1 billion, over claims of "willful infringement of copyrights."
Viacom spokesperson Jerome Zwanzig reported to the media today, "Viacom is ruthlessly and mercilessly pursuing its right to to sue the pants off anyone who even thinks about our copyrighted material without consent and royalty. YouTube is allowing thousands of stupid teenagers, our target demographic, to post unlicensed copies of hit shows like "The Daily Show", "SpongeBob SquarePants", and "Sex: How to Do It With Your Parents In The House" without giving us our mandatory 100% royalty fee. These people need to be taught that they can't just share their favorite shows freely with everyone they know, subsequently increasing the number of people who know about those shows and furthermore increase the likelihood those people will watch the first-run episodes on commercial laden basic cable. I will not rest until YouTube stops this sharing activity and pays us the $1 billion we have been ordained upon by Heaven itself."
Understandably, YouTube was concerned by this lawsuit, but claims innocence under the infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act, of which its "Safe Harbor" passage gives any online service provider time to remove copyright infringing material upon request, but remains curiously silent over whether or not the service provider has to actively police for material.
"We believe we are in the right on this one," said Alexi Macintosh, Grandmaster Council Extraordinaire for Google, "because the tried and tested DMCA gives us protection against this bullying. Viacom has told us to remove the infringing material, and we do. It's up to them, not us, to identify the infringements and give us notice of which items are infringements, along with proof as to why they are infringing. Since we are not Viacom and certainly cannot be held liable to know for certain every single item, slogan, media, or whatever that might be protected by a copyright in Viacom's possession, we simply cannot police this content, and therefore, because we can't we simply won't, period. With that said, we see Viacom as direct competition, and we intend to continue propositioning YouTube as the best place for hip, young, affluent people with time to kill on the weekends to view all the things they like, and post their favorite sho.. I mean things, preferably popular media pop-culture brands, like the kind you probably see on television. This way, more people will come to the site and be subjected to OUR advertising, instead of Viacom's, thus promoting healthy competition. Viacom can bite our glorious golden keister."
The two media giants are not expected to settle out of court. One can only imagine the courtroom brawl that is no doubt likely to commence. We at ShatteredWindows, well, we bet our money on YouTube.
|
|
Written By: swadmin
Date Posted: 3/15/2007
Number of Views: 643
Return
|
|