Has Viacom found what amounts to a "smoking gun" in its lawsuit against Google's YouTube? The billio-dollar suit was filed in 2007 because Viacom believes YouTube hosted many Viacom-owned video clips without permission
While Viacom accuses YouTube of "massive intentional copyright infringement" in the case, YouTube maintains that it "has respected the legal rights of copyright holders." YouTube says, basically, it responds promptly to rights holders requesting that videos be removed from the site. Viacom disagrees, and reportedly has copies of emails that prove YouTube employees knew about questionable content on the site, allowed it to stay, and even posted material from other copyright holders.
Court documents show that on August 25 Viacom agreed to turn over records that shed light on "Viacom's decisions to upload or authorize the uploading of videos to YouTube" and on the company's policies "for allowing videos to remain on YouTube for marketing promotional or other business reasons," which suggests that Viacom uploaded clips to the site itself.
"The facts you described could very well be the smoking gun that puts a hole through Google's case," Roger Goff, an entertainment attorney not involved in the case, told CNET News. "(If the facts are accurate), Google will have a very difficult time claiming that (its staff members) don't undermine its protection."
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act contains a provision allowing protection for companies that inadvertently post copyrighted material, as long as:
- (A)(i) The services don't have actual knowledge that the material, or an activity using the material on the system or network, is infringing.
- (ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or
- (iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material.
Should this case go to trial (and I'll bet you a hundred dollars it will settle long before that), I gotta imagine it will essentially hinge on the the word "expeditiously." How fast is fast enough, when asked to pull certain videos from the site? YouTube has also pointed out that Viacom itself uses YouTube to promote programming,
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gravy666
YouTube, the guys who pull of videos for people using songs for just about any reason whatsoever, are getting in trouble for what they've tried to discourage? This is like that Eliot Spitzer controversy.
Bruce_Lee2099
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. over the recent troubles the newest Firmware update v3.0 has allegedly caused for some PlayStation 3 owners.
Discovered by the Courthouse News (via Gamasutra), the lawsuit filed by plaintiff John Kennedy claims "thousands of Sony PS3 video game owners who downloaded a system software update required by Sony found that the update caused their PS3 units to malfunction and actually damaged the hardware on many units."
It also claims Sony offered to fix any PS3 systems that sustained hardware damage caused by the update for $150. Sony soon after released a new update, v3.01, that was supposed to fix these issues, but allegedly caused more problems, claiming the update "not only failed to address problems introduces by Firmware 3.0, it caused new problems," such as failing Blu-ray disc drives.
SCEA is being accused of, among other things, breach of implied warranty, negligence, and negligence misrepresentation.
The complaint can be read in its entirety here
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