May 10
6
Viacom and Google Go to Court
Viacom and Google’s legal battle over whether Google has intentionally been allowing YouTube users to post copyrighted content on the media-sharing site just got nastier – and more public.
The case is pretty simple: Viacom is saying that YouTube was actively encouraging copyrighted content on the site, while Google claims it has been policing copyrighted materials as much as they are capable of doing. Google also says that Viacom itself has posted hundreds of videos on YouTube in efforts to generate interest in their content.
So far, it looks like Google has scored quite a few hits with emails that show Viacom secretly marketed some of their shows on YouTube, effectively using the exact same tactics they are currently suing Google over using.
Google also demonstrated that Viacom could not determine the difference between content the company had posted themselves and content that independent users had posted, lending credence to the argument that 100% effective policing was not possible.
However, Viacom returned with emails showing that Google executives knew that YouTube contained copyrighted content. Google has posted some of this evidence with the original emails to show that they were taken out of context.
It looks like many more attacks will be made against each company’s character before the battle is finished.
