Viacom (VIA)
It seems that at any time, Google (GOOG: Charts, News, Offers) is involved in a handful of legal battles or other difficult scenarios. Most recently, everyone is eagerly waiting to hear Google’s decisions on if they will continue doing business in China. However, another major story involving Google had a new development yesterday; in 2007, Viacom filed a $1 billion copyright infringement suit against Google, the owner of YouTube. Now, three years later, some of the documents have just been released to the public. Both sides have shocking revelations, and neither side appears altogether innocent.
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Viacom initiated the suit in 2007, with accusations that Google/YouTube allowed users to upload videos that infringed upon their copyrighted content, potentially over 60,000 videos of their popular television shows. On the surface, it is obvious that copyright infringement will be an issue for any site that allows users to upload content; a site must figure out how to monitor and police the site to prevent this from happening. Viacom, however, isn’t just saying that YouTube users have overrun the site with copyrighted content; Viacom is insinuating that Google was more than willing to allow this type of activity to continue, because of its profitability. Viacom has pointed to emails where Steve Chen, one of the founders of YouTube, mentioned that copyright infringed content was critical to the success of the site, and that if this content was removed the site traffic would “drop to maybe 20% of what it is.” Viacom has also brought up a quote from a member of the Google team, who commented his surprise that Google was considering the purchase of YouTube, since “they’re 80% illegal pirated content,” showing that Google was well aware of the illegal content.
Viacom, however, does not have their hands clean in this situation either. First of all, a month before Viacom filled this suit against Google, Viacom got in touch with YouTube to demand the copyrighted material was removed; Google claims to have done this by the next day. Interestingly, Google points out that removing this mass of content did not have any effect on decreasing traffic to YouTube, as Viacom may have insinuated, somewhat refuting Viacom’s statements of how Google is refusing to take action because they know it will decrease their profits. But the news which is probably the most damaging to Viacom’s case is Google’s claim that Viacom employees were purposefully uploading copyrighted clips of some of their most popular shows, as part of “stealth marketing” campaign. Google claims that employees would make “special trips away from the company’s premises” and then upload videos which they doctored to appear “roughed up,” as if they were stolen from Viacom.
With all this information, it is clear why this legal battle has already dragged on for three years. If all of the allegations are true, both sides have engaged in activities which they shouldn’t have. It is not clear yet what the outcome of the case will be. However, over the past few years, Google has made some changes to its copyright policies, and the two companies have managed to find harmony, and are working together well. Hopefully any judgment in this case will not cause ill will between the two companies; it would be unfortunate to see this relationship come full circle, with these companies once again unable to see eye to eye.
Related Commentary:
- Excerpts From the YouTube, Viacom Documents – A closer look at the Viacom and Google court documents, plus links to the full fillings.
- Google May Leave China By April 10, Report Says – Google will potentially quit doing business in China within a month, but is that the wisest choice?
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