Viacom Lawsuit Against YouTube Thrown Out Of Court!

[admin]

Today marks an important day for the Internet. US District Court Judge Louis Stanton has thrown out Viacom's copyright infringement case against Google owned YouTube today, with some critics calling it a victory for the Internet.

Judge Stanton threw out the case because he believed YouTube was protected by safe harbor provisions in the US DMCA, and in his 30-page ruling clearly stated why Viacom's claim for "massive copyright infringement" had not merit.

This follows an earlier decision involving another video sharing website, Veoh, in which the judge in that case also found in favour of the Internet website.

Google general counsel Kent Walker had to this say in a public blog post: "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."

Viacom has vowed to appeal the decision.

More:

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/youtube-copyright-suit-thrown-out-20100624-z0da.html

[dr_ml422]

Wow! Looks like Google is not only making enemies on all sides but many friends as well! You did mention this as their game plan and objective. Great for them on this one and better for all of us net users. This playing all sides against the middle has worked tremendously in their favor to the present day. They even came out w/a better Droid cell phone if in fact it's Google that's behind this. Correct me if I'm wrong. Just saw the coverage on Yahoo and how it's giving the i4 phone by Apple a very strong competitive hit.

[drfsupercenter]

Yep, I have the Motorola Droid, I've loved that thing, it's way better than the iPhone... and still better than the iPhone 4

[dr_ml422]

Funny Google used Motorola and others to sample their apps.. They made enemies w/all these guys. Now they come out w/their own phones and Motorola etc... gets in on it w/them. Money sure does talk, and Google is making a lot of people listen and not listen as well. Business as usual. Never personal.

[admin]

Speaking of the iPhone:

[admin]

Google spent $100m in defending the $1b Viacom lawsuit that never even went to trial, Google's CFO Patrick Pichette revealed. It's unknown how much Viacom spent for its part of the lawsuit.

More:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/15/google-viacom-100-million-lawsuit/

[dr_ml422]

I wonder if there was even a remote chance that anything uploaded/downloaded reached even that. Like you said a small victory for the Net in general, though a cost to the participants which to them is a drop in the bucket.

100 million is 100 million though.