YouTube lawyer Zahavah Levin writes on the company blog that Viacom employees uploaded their own copyrighted content even as they were complaining about the company’s use. Viacom is suing YouTube owner Google for $1 billion for copyright infringement. But YouTube claims Viacom employees undertook a campaign so good at secretly uploading videos it occasionally forgot which clips it was sending:
“For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately “roughed up” the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko’s to upload clips from computers that couldn’t be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt “very strongly” that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.
“Viacom’s efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.”
Meantime, USA Today reports some of the evidence that Viacom has put into play, including clips that they claim came from emails sent by YouTube employees:
“Viacom cites emails from YouTube co-founder Steve Chen including one where he says “if you remove the potential copyright infringements … site traffic and virality will drop to maybe 20% of what it is.”
“Viacom says Chen discussed in another instance how YouTube could handle a hot news clip from CNN: “[I] really don’t see what will happen. what? someone from cnn sees it? he happens to be someone with power? he happens to want to take it down right away. he gets in touch with cnn legal. 2 weeks later, we get a cease & desist [takedown] letter. we take the video down.”
We look forward to more revelations in this already fascinating story.
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This is the equivalent of the police putting a joint in some kid's hand, telling them to take a closer look, then arresting them for possession once it's in their hand.
Or PRtard MANIC for both.
Can you read the damned type or figure out the like hieroglyphs the tossed all over the page?
Google and the health plan will die on the vine and will I care?
Still, I would expect a dying seagull like Viacom to pull such a stunt.
So true. I'm with Vinny on this one.