Court Says YouTube Not Guilty Of Infringment In Viacom Case
A U.S. District Court has issued a summary judgment in favor of YouTube in the longstanding $1 billion case brought by Viacom. The decision granted YouTube safe harbor under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). It follows similar court decisions that grant online services like YouTube protection as long as they work with copyright holders to manage infringment.
Viacom may appeal, but given similar recent judgments in other courts, could choose not to. "This is an important victory not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other," wrote Kent Walker, Vice President and General Counsel of YouTube parent Google on the company's blog.
Read the full Viacom vs.YouTube judgment.
A sensible outcome. YouTube provides a valuable promotional platform for music. It would be virtually impossible for sites such as YouTube to operate in any other way. YouTube are not pitching themselves as a “pirate” site in the same way as PirateBay did and thats the key difference which seems to have been the key to this case.
Perhaps Viacom should be considering instad putting the money that they spent on the expensive law suit into providing new compelling content and investing in positive growth technology and innovation themselves rather than engaging in actions surrounding negative energy.
I like how Viacom used Youtube to promote its shows and other copyright-protected material, and then complained that YouTube’s content was hurting their profits.