Viacomm sues Google for a millio--no, a billion dollars
Most of you have probably seen that Google/YouTube was sued by Viacomm for $1,000,000 yesterday. The lawsuit contends that YouTube is guilty of "numerous copyright violations". YouTube, on the other hand, claims that copyright law shields them from liability as they have not encouraged anyone to post copyrighted material on their site. Viacomm counters with the contention that Youtube's value is, to a large extent, derived from illegal use of other people's intellectual property.
Whew. What a mess.
First off, anyone who thinks that YouTube/Google will end up paying a billion dollars in any circumstance is smoking something. The worst that will happen is that there will be a settlement in which Google promises to deploy filtering technology designed to take the onus of discovering the violations off of the shoulders of the content owners.
I worry about the affect on consumers though. When the same crummy trick was tried by the music industry against Napster, it became readily apparent that it was about money, not about principles, as the music industry blew up Napster so that they could install their own Napster-like organizations in place. Undoubtedly something similar will happen with video. But in the interim, lawsuits like the Napster and now the YouTube one scares the straights--the money flush consumer that will someday pay the content providers for the privilege of watching their videos. Be careful Viacomm! You may kill the golden goose. YouTube and its ilk have helped advertising and market awareness far more than they've cost companies like Viacomm any real revenue.
Posted on March 14, 2007
