Viacom Sues Google for $1 Billion
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | March 13, 2007 | Share This
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After YouTube failed to protect over 160,000 of their unauthorized clips, Viacom has filed a $1 billion copyright infringement suit against Google. Viacom claims,
“YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google. Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws.”
Search Engine Land has Google’s response,
“We have not received the lawsuit but are confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and believe the courts will agree. YouTube is great for users and offers real opportunities to rights holders: the opportunity to interact with users; to promote their content to a young and growing audience; and to tap into the online advertising market. We will certainly not let this suit become a distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube and its ability to attract more users, more traffic and build a stronger community.”
Is Viacom’s threat something to take seriously? Or will it fade into the background like Google’s ongoing Copiepresse suit in Belgium?
Follow ongoing coverage on Techmeme.
Topics: Legal Issues |