Viacom on Tuesday petitioned a New York City Second Court of Appeals to overturn a dismissal in their YouTube lawsuit. The company argued that YouTube’s visitor upload policy doesn’t fall under “safe harbor” rules and that they should therefore be held liable for illegally copied videos.
In a moment of fear mongering Attorney Paul Smith said the entire video industry would see dangerous consequences because of the “vast exploitation” of content online.
According to smith:
“It would immunize from copyright infringement liability even avowedly piratical Internet businesses.”
Various historical case studies in the meantime have show just how little effect sites like YouTube have on copyright infringement in terms of harming a media company’s overall product since they do not allow for full copyrighted videos to appear on the website and they quickly remove all infringing content.
In the meantime while Viacom claims that YouTube knew in their early days that some videos were being copyrighted the sites current owner Google, Inc. says they work adamantly to remove videos that are in violation of current copyright laws, pulling illegal clips within 24 hours.
It should be noted that Viacom is one of the few TV networks that refuse iPad video streaming even when those videos are restricted to a persons internet connection within their own home where cable TV services are subscribed to.
Do you think Viacom has a case against YouTube or will this case soon be pushed to the side? I personally see this case as a losing battle for Viacom officials.
