Comments on: Viacom sues YouTube for $1 billion

By: Ronny

Ronny — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:05:57 +0000

If I was Google…I would remove any links from Google referencing anything about Viacom. Let people try and get info via MSN and Yahoo. We will see how happy that would make them.

By: kontiki

kontiki — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:50:18 +0000

I guess Viacom never leave in peace YouTube and Google taken together because of their high traffic rates, MTV want to become popular video sharing site. Youtube won’t be shut down, big money are in a whirl.

By: thedetroitchannel

thedetroitchannel — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 17:41:01 +0000

not one to defend theft, but who exactly is the thief?

1.5B “views” for $1B works out to be .60+ a pop.

highway robbery i’d say.

By: saundra

saundra — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:53:54 +0000

I agree with Jason, it’s theft, pure and simple. It would be fine if Google wanted to put up a 10 second excerpt that linked back to the copyright holder’s site. But when you can get the whole enchilada on You Tube… the folks who forked over the money to create the content are cut out of the loop.
While there’s clearly some “promotional value” of having clips on You Tube (as NBC’s explotation shows)… NBC would not want to see entire episodes of Heroes airing on You Tube with the commercials edited out.

By: Charles

Charles — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:46:06 +0000

If this helps YouTube to take copyright infrigments/theft more seriously, good for them. I love watching clips uploaded illegaly, but if content providers can legally put them up, I’d be just as happy.

On another note… $1 billion? That would hardly dent the Google dynasty, wouldn’t it? Or will Google be the next Microsoft; rich and powerful, but sued on a regular basis?

By: thehockeychannel

thehockeychannel — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:06:56 +0000

nbc had better re-think its pratice of uploading spoofs like “zeroes” (that is theirs, isn’t it).

in hockey, that’s called taunting and gets you two minutes.

By: thewashingtonchannel

thewashingtonchannel — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:01:19 +0000

let’s seee, the dmca currently allows goog to catalog an excerpt of every written word on the net with simply a link to the entire thing. no compensation required.

why not just re-aim the bot to do so with every video clip?

take the lowly uploader out of the picture.

this smacks of “be careful what you ask for”.

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 14:43:00 +0000

As much as I love YouTube and blame content providers for not easily providing video players that can be embedded and shared… I don’t see how they even have a shred of a defense here.

YouTube makes tons of money. Largely off of other people’s copyrighted work. It seems like theft to me.