Google says Viacom a threat to the net

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 01 May 2007 08:50

Your IT - Home IT

Google has fired its first salvo against Viacom indicating in its official response that the media giant's copyright-infringement lawsuit threatens the way hundreds of millions of Internet users exchange information online. The dispute between the new and old media titans is now shaping up to be a landmark legal battle which may have implications for the future course of Internet entertainment and communications.

Viacom, a media conglomerate which owns a number of cable TV properties and, such as MTV and Comedy Central, as well as Paramount Pictures, filed a US$1 billion plus lawsuit against Google and its popular video sharing site YouTube in the US District Court of New York in March, alleging unauthorized use of copyrighted material.

Google yesterday hit back with an official filing using an attack on Viacom's action as its initial defence. According to Google's filing in the US District Court Southern District of New York, Viacom's action challenges the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which balances the rights of copyright holders and the need to protect the internet as an important new form of communication.

"By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for internet communications, Viacom's complaint threatens the way hundreds of millions of people
legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression," Google wrote in its filing.

The impending trial may well be a watershed in the way is distributed and shared over the Internet. The DMCA protects Internet publishers from copyright-infringement lawsuits provided they remove the offending material when a complaint has been received. YouTube, which has received numerous complaints from copyright holders follows this practice.

However, Viacom claims that the DMCA protections do not apply to YouTube because the site relies largely on posted copyrighted material to get its audience.

Traditional media that haven't signed copyright licensing agreements with YouTube have been at odds with the site because its sheer size makes searching for infringing copyrighted material, which in the case of major content providers can run into ten of thousands of posted video clips, very time consuming.

Google, which has hired a top flight legal team, has made it clear that it is not interested in a settlement and closed its submission with a demand for a jury trial.