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Fuzzy Logic YouTube is Premier LawsuitTube
Fuzzy Logic YouTube is Premier LawsuitTube | YouTube is Premier LawsuitTube |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Sunday, 06 May 2007 | |
  
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Why? Because the rights to TV, radio and Internet rights for the broadcast of live Premier League games and those very cool highlights over the next three years turned out to be a nice little earner, bringing in a whopping £2.7 billion English pounds, a sum to which Google and YouTube contributed precisely zero dollars, pounds, euros or any other currency beyond eyeballs. The English Premier League would likely contend that they don’t need YouTube’s eyeballs – their matches are already seen in 204 countries by almost half the world’s population at 2.59 billion people. Given that YouTube is being monetized through the incredible advertising assets of the mighty Google, the fact that YouTube is most likely making money from all those football/soccer video clips caused the English Premier League to not only see red, but to raise the red card through their lawyers. The English Premier League’s lawsuit said that: “Defendants, which own and operate the Web site YouTube.com, have knowingly misappropriated and exploited this valuable property for their own gain without payment or license to the owners of the intellectual property”. This brought a swift response from Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, who in a statement said that: “These suits simply misunderstand the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which balances the rights of copyright holders against the need to protect Internet communications and content, Walker said, referring to the 1998 U.S. law governing the rights of content owners and Internet service providers. They threaten the way people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression over the Internet”. YouTube does indeed now have a tool to help content owners combat piracy, but the League’s lawsuit contends that the tool doesn’t always work. On top of that, if infringing content is removed by YouTube, it only takes someone else to upload it again, resulting in a fine merry-go-round for content owners dealing with the ‘Whack-a-mole’ problem. Clearly, all that whacking is tiring, even hydra-like. Cut off one head, and two more pop up in its place. The lawsuit comes only months after a similar suit from Viacom who contend that YouTube infringed massively on their copyright content. The outcome of all these lawsuits is simply unclear. Should content owners win, much of the fun of the Web 2.0 world will simply be illegal. Users could revolt in Digg style, posting content everywhere they can, but that will only enrage content owners further. Whatever a judge finally decides, it plainly won’t be the end of the story, with appeals and more legal action set to provide no firm answers for years to come. In the meantime, there’s always the hope that a clever user or company out there will come up with a solution that keeps everyone happy. It might be some revolutionary Web 3.0 development. Or something else no-one has thought of yet. But in the meantime, there’s plenty of content on YouTube to keep us all occupied. It makes me wonder, when will YouTube start up the Lawsuit channel so its users can keep track of all the video stories surrounding YouTube lawsuits? It’s not as silly as it sounds… is it? {moscomment} |
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