YouTube prevails in huge copyright suit with Viacom

[Eugene]

Source: Los Angeles Times

By Meg James
April 18, 2013, 4:17 p.m.

In an epic clash between old and new media, Google Inc.'s video website YouTube has scored another huge victory in the long-running skirmish over copyright infringement brought by television giant Viacom Inc.

A federal judge in New York on Thursday ruled that YouTube had not violated Viacom's copyright even though users of the popular online site were allowed to post unauthorized video clips from some of Viacom's most popular shows, including Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants."

Viacom filed the copyright infringement suit in 2007 and demanded that YouTube pay $1 billion in damages. The dispute erupted as established media titans, including Viacom, were struggling to cope with the disruption of digital media and trying to figure out how to rein in the unauthorized distribution of their content.

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However, U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton wrote in a 24-page opinion that YouTube was shielded from copyright infringement claims by a safe-harbor provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Stanton dismissed Viacom's lawsuit, and ordered Viacom to pay some of YouTube's costs.

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Read more: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-youtube-prevails-copyright-suit-viacom-20130418,0,5832848.story

[Fantastic Anarchist]

1. Good!

Win!

[MrBig]

3. My thoughts exactly n/t

[onehandle]

2. So the world's biggest ad spammer gets to profit off of artist's property.

Yay?

[MotherPetrie]

4. Yup. Just like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

[greiner3]

6. "So the world's biggest ad spammer gets to profit off of artist's property."

To ANYONE hating online ads;

Use Firefox and add the 'Adblock Plus' add-on.

Sorry about that DU admins!

[BlueJazz]

5. Good thing. You can't expect a huge site like Youtube to monitor everything...

...that's uploaded to their server.

[librechik]

7. awesome! Daily Show clips return to YT!

and so much other stuff...

[cbdo2007]

8. Good. Media sites need to make all of this more available and then it woudnl't happen.

The reason this is so prevalent on Youtube is because you can't get these clips on the actual show sites. They make you jump through all sorts of hoops to get to see some 30 second clip that isn't available from the network itself.