Mobile Computing News

Photo: YouTube

Google’s YouTube has been in a long-running high profile court case with television and media giant Viacom, with regards to copyright infringement. Viacom sued YouTube for $1 billion in damages, and also demanded the service remove all copyrighted Viacom content. Now, years later, the YouTube Viacom case is over, with Google emerging victorious.

DMCA central to the issue

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was passed in 1998, was central to the YouTube Viacom debate. Basically, the DMCA protects services that do not know about specific pieces of content on that service that contravene copyrights and also removes the infringing content when brought to their attention. Basically, YouTube knows there is copyright infringing content on its site, but it does not know which content is infringing on copy, specifically, and the company’s ongoing willingness to remove the infringing content when brought to its attention puts Google and YouTube in the clear.

Naturally Google, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, did a little victory dance on hearing the result, saying: ‘Today, the court granted our motion for summary judgment in Viacom’s lawsuit with YouTube. This means that the court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online.’

Viacom to appeal

Viacom has released a statement indicating they intend on appealing the ruling. A snippet from the statement reads: ‘We believe that this ruling by the lower court is fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the intent of Congress, and the views of the Supreme Court as expressed in its most recent decisions. We intend to seek to have these issues before the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as soon as possible.’

The ramifications

This YouTube Viacom ruling is a very big deal. The landmark case means similar, less high profile services have a landmark case to refer to, if they come under attack for similar practices. One must wonder if this ruling means video sites will now begin self-filtering content even less now, considering they do not have to unless prompted to on specific pieces of content.

Outside of Viacom and the ‘old media’, there’s been a flurry of celebration in technology circles with a prominent venture capitalist sharing his take on the ruling and YouTube’s CEO, Chad Hurley, naturally, showing his elation, too. And, for users, this ruling is the best possible outcome. Your YouTube won’t change at all, and that’s a good thing.