Google-owned YouTube has been newly ordered to defend a lawsuit filed by Viacom Inc. over copyright violations. Viacom has alleged that YouTube had knowingly hosted some of their content without authorization, including clips from “the Colbert Report.”
Here is the new trailer for the Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures’ G.I. Joe: Retaliation, “legally” on YouTube:
A lower court had initially sided with YouTube on the matter, but the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan reversed the ruling today, ordering Google to defend the case. In a 39-page decision, a two-judge panel wrote, “A reasonable jury could find that YouTube had actual knowledge or awareness of specific infringing activity on its website.”
Viacom first sued YouTube in 2007, seeking $1 billion in damages, alleging that the website’s users were posting thousands of Viacom’s clips, included those from “The Daily Show,” “South Park,” and from various movies from its Paramount Pictures branch. In 2010, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton found YouTube to be protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, because it removed the content from its site, after Viacom complained. Viacom countered, claiming that YouTube was aware of the copyright infringement when it displayed the videos in the first place.
The case is Viacom International v. YouTube, 10-03270, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Manhattan). The lower- court case is Viacom v. YouTube, 07-2103, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
It would seem that Viacom still doesn’t understand or care about the sheer amount of video content that’s uploaded to YouTube daily – Last year it was reported that 2 days worth of video is uploaded to Youtube’s servers every minute. How would it be possible to keep up with millions of users just constantly posting whatever? And surely Viacom has no problem with the site “officially” posting it’s marketing content.