Viacom in $1 billion copyright suit versus Google, YouTube
108537
Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. sued Google Inc. and its Internet video-sharing site YouTube for more than $1 billion on Tuesday in the biggest challenge yet to the Web search leader's strategy to dominate the online video market.
471430
A lawsuit filed by entertainment giant Viacom Inc. , seeking more than $1 billion in damages against video-sharing website YouTube and its parent company Google Inc., raises the volume on one of the hottest debates in the technology business: Can Internet sites post snippets of content produced by others without paying them?
526300
Web sites with user-generated content have an obligation to deploy &quot;state of the art&quot; filtering technology to prevent the unauthorized posting of copyright material, a group of large broadcasting and Web companies said Thursday.The companies, including Microsoft, MySpace, CBS, and video site Dailymotion, call on other social-networking and user-generated content sites to regularly use filtering technology to remove infringing content. Those sites should develop procedures for addressing copyright infringement claims, and they should upgrade the filtering technology regularly, the companies said.Those principles were part of a set of guidelines the companies released Thursday. The guidelines were designed to help Web sites work with copyright owners on the &quot;collective goal of bringing more content to more consumers through legitimate channels,&quot; the companies said.The guidelines came out two days after YouTube parent Google announced the availability of a test version of&#160;filtering technology to keep copyright works off the popular video-sharing site. Media conglomerate Viacom, which has&#160;targeted YouTube with frequent video take-down notices, is one of the companies that signed on to the copyright use principles.The principles &quot;provide a framework for intellectual property to live in harmony with technical advances,&quot; Philippe Dauman, Viacom&#39;s president and CEO, said in a statement. &quot;These principles will enable innovative technology and great content to come together to spur greater innovation and, most importantly, much richer entertainment experiences for consumers.&quot;Spokesmen for YouTube didn&#39;t respond to a request for comments on the principles.However, Public Knowledge, a group promoting consumer rights online, called the YouTube filtering technology a &quot;sad development.&quot;&quot;It&#39;s a shame that Google was pressured by the entertainment industry into devoting resources to a limited system that could restrict the free flow of information while increasing the control content companies have over otherwise lawful uses of material,&quot; Public Knowledge president Gigi B. Sohn said by e-mail.The YouTube Video Identification Database is designed to match images posted on YouTube with material submitted by copyright holders. The default option will block a video that a copyright holder claims is unauthorized, but this default will limit consumers&#39; fair use rights to post video for purposes such as commentary and criticism, Public Knowledge said.&quot;While Google should be commended for its effort, we don&#39;t think that any automated process will be able to determine whether a consumer&#39;s fair use rights are being violated,&quot; Sohn said. &quot;Google should make certain the system balances public rights with the rights of content companies.&quot;But the companies supporting the copyright principles said filtering technology is necessary because the ease of uploading video content on the Internet has resulted in the proliferation of uploaded content that infringes copyright works.The principles are an &quot;important step forward in establishing the Internet as a great platform for video content -- a platform that allows services to innovate and preserves incentives for all creators, big and small, by respecting copyright,&quot; Steve Ballmer, Microsoft&#39;s CEO, said in a statement.
53225
Viacom Inc. on Friday demanded that Google Inc.'s online video service YouTube remove more than 100,000 video clips after they failed to reach a distribution agreement.
602089
Children&#39;s television networks owned by Viacom and Disney have agreed to pony up $1 million and $500,000, respectively, to end Federal Communications Commission investigations into whether
188579
Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. sued  Google Inc. and its Internet video-sharing site YouTube for  more than $1 billion on Tuesday in the biggest challenge yet to  the Web search leader&#39;s strategy to dominate the online video  market.
438864
YouTube may soon be facing yet another suit over the use of copyrighted music in one of its videos, this time from the company that owns the rights to the music produced by the Village People.
648738
Viacom Inc., engaged in a public  copyright battle with Google Inc.'s YouTube, has agreed to  offer videos to Joost, the Internet video service created by  the founders of Skype and Kazaa.
753338
The case that will likely determine the future of the online video sharing industry at least, and the Internet media economy at most, has been filed. Viacom, one of the world's largest media rights holders, has sued Google in federal court in New York, seeking $1 billion in damages for an estimated 1.5 billion separate infringements of copyright.
399245
By SETH SUTEL  NEW YORK - Media company Viacom Inc., which owns the cable networks MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and the Paramount Pictures movie studio, asked YouTube on Friday to remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips from its hugely popular video-sharing site.
371220
Media conglomerate Viacom Inc.   sued Google Inc.  and its Internet  video-sharing site YouTube for more than $1 billion on Tuesday  in the biggest challenge yet to the Web search leader's  strategy to dominate the online video market.
658344
Viacom's Philippe Dauman calls for industry-wide technology to block copyright-infringing content, rather than proprietary systems like Google's.
92525
Policy group cries foul Google continues to fight allegations that it's promoting video piracy. In March, entertainment giant Viacom slapped Google with a $1bn lawsuit over copyrighted videos posted to YouTube, the site Google purchased last fall, and now, the National Legal and Policy Center is asking whether the search engine cum world power is facilitating copyright infringement on its home-grown video-sharing site, Google Video.â¦
318247
Viacom, the parent company of MTV, is suing Google for $1 Billion in damages brought about via alleged copyright violations as Viacom claims that its material was illegally uploaded and distrubted via Google &#038; YouTube. Viacom made a statement today saying that YouTube has &#8220;built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to [...]
498395
Viacom Inc. has demanded that Google  Inc.'s online video service YouTube pull down all of its video  clips after they failed to reach an agreement, the company  said.
653636
YouTube, one of the world's most popular Web sites, might be headed for a crash. At least one industry watcher is predicting crippling copyright-violation litigation coming from the entertainment industry.
401922
(InfoWorld) - ViacomÂ has sued Google, alleging copyright infringement from video-sharing site YouTube and seeking $1 billion in damages. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, follows a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) requestÂ Viacom sent to Google last monthÂ related to the unauthorized posting of Viacom videos to YouTube. At the time,Â Viacom demanded that GoogleÂ remove more than 100,000 of its clipsÂ from YouTube, which Google acquired last year for $1.65 billion. Google said it would comply with the request. In escalating its battle with YouTube with this lawsuit, Viacom reiterates that YouTube has allowed and benefitted from "massive intentional" copyright violations of Viacom videos. In addition to $1 billion inÂ damages, Viacom is asking the court for an injunction barring Google and YouTube from continuing the alleged infringement, Viacom said Tuesday in a statement. Google stands ready to fight the allegations and is confident that "YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders," a Google spokesman said via e-mail. "We will certainly not let this suit become a distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube and its ability to attract more users, more traffic, and build a stronger community," he wrote. Almost 160,000 Viacom video clips have been uploaded to YouTube without permission and have been viewed over 1.5 billion times, Viacom alleges. "YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google," Viacom charged in the statement. Google and YouTube illegally profit from the traffic that the unauthorized videos draw to their sites by selling advertising, according to Viacom, which added that YouTube has been lax in its attempts to stop its users from uploading copyrighted videos without permission. Viacom decided to sue Google after negotiations and other measures failed to halt the alleged copyright infringement in YouTube, Viacom said. Viacom is a media conglomerate whose properties include MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Comedy Central, and Paramount Pictures. The case is unlikely to result in a total shutdown of YouTube because legitimate uses of the site exist beyond the potentially illegal activities Viacom is objecting to, said Sheldon Klein, an attorney specializing in intellectual-property matters and a partner at Arent Fox LLP in Washington, D.C. However, Google may find itself liable to the infringement claims if Viacom proves that Google and YouTube didn't do all that was possible to prevent users from uploading copyrighted videos without permission, especially after being served with the DMCA notice last month, Klein said. Specifically, if YouTube and Google haven't implemented available technology that would allow them to do a better job of filtering out infringing videos, Viacom could have a legitimate argument in saying they're not trying hard enough, he said. A check of YouTube at noon Eastern time showed multiple instances of Viacom-owned videos, including clips from Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and from Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants." One of the "SpongeBob" clips found, for example, has been on YouTube since Feb. 5 of this year, while one of "The Daily Show" clips was uploaded in October of last year. Google executives have said the company is developing technology to address the issue of infringing downloads on YouTube and have promised to deliver it in the near future. Google didn't immediately provide an explanation of what, if any, filtering and detection technology exists in YouTube today. In the meantime, competitorsÂ such asÂ News Corp.'s MySpace, which also lets users upload videos to its site, have licensed third-party systems for detecting infringing videos. There are a number of companies that make this type of software, including Audible Magic, the one chosen by MySpace.