I wish I had a Doctor Evil icon I could put here, but unfortunately I don’t, so you’ll just have to imagine it. (Looks like TechCrunch beat me to it)
CNN.com announced today that Viacom is suing YouTube for $1 Billion Dollars.
“In the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Viacom (Charts), owner of MTV and Comedy Central, said that “almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom’s programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.”
Boy nobody saw this coming…
Even when Google’s purchase of YouTube was just another rumour in the mill this was the foremost thought on most people’s minds. Google’s got deep pockets; YouTube users have a liberal mentality towards file sharing and copyright laws. Little has changed since then.
Sure Google has taken a more proactive approach to trying to prevent copyrighted material from being distributed – and quickly removing the material they discover – but they’ve really been no more effective than the government in the war on drugs or illegal immigration. Every time Google erects a new wall people find a creative way to circumvent it.
If your account is banned for abuse of the End User Agreement you just create a new one and are back up and running in minutes. The ease and anonymity of the technology is such that it almost ensures this issue will continue despite Google’s best efforts.
Users and abusers do take an exceptional risk though, that much is for certain. YouTube and Google alike have made it clear they won’t take the wrap for the misdeeds of their users and are all too happy to pass along your personal information to companies who feel slighted or wronged by the Thundercats or South Park episodes you’ve conveniently shared with the planet for free.
I suspect it’s only a matter of time before we see lawsuits similar to those being waged by the music industry. And with Google facing such monumental pressure from the entertainment industry, YouTube users are virtually ensured to face more filtering measures and rapid responses to illegally posted material.
