In early 2007, media giant Viacom demanded that Google take down copyrighted content from YouTube.
Afterwards, Viacom sued the site and its search giant owners for $1.2 billion USD, claiming Google facilitated the uploading the copyrighted videos through YouTube while doing little to deter it.
This week, Google has won the landmark case over the media companies, with a federal judge throwing out the lawsuit.
“Mere knowledge of prevalence of such activity in general is not enough,” writes Judge Louis Stanton. “The provider need not monitor or seek out facts indicating such activity.”
Viacom said it plans to appeal, calling the Judge’s ruling “fundamentally flawed,” as it does not reflect recent Supreme Court decisions.
The media giant is behind such hit channels like MTV and Comedy Central, and also owns the Paramount movie studio. A few of the shows that Viacom alleged were readily available on YouTube, in their entirety, were “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” “South Park,” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
Google had argued they were entitled to “safe harbor” protection under the DMCA, and it appears that Judge Stanton agreed.
Result for: copyright law
In a letter to the Financial Times, BT Group Chief Executive Ian Livingston suggested that persistent file sharers caught breaking copyright laws should face fines instead of technical sanctions proposed by the UK government. He said that suspending service for persistent infringers as spelled out in the Digital Economy Bill could deny a fair hearing for the accused.
Instead of the technical sanctions outlined in the DEB, Livingston said people could choose to pay a penalty or fight the accusation. Those who dispute accusations could take their case to a new tribunal instead of the courts. The suggestion brings BT in line with the Open Rights Group, which believes such a system would be fairer and less risky than the proposed suspensions and other sanctions.
In the letter - which was also signed by the bosses of TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Orange, as well as Facebook, Google, eBay and Yahoo! - a recent amendment to the Digital Economy Bill faced considerable criticism. The amendment made last week would allow copyright holders to injunct ISPs and force the blocking of specific web addresses.
The measure would be used to fight against files posted on “locker services”, such as Rapidshare. “Endorsing a policy that would encourage the blocking of websites by UK broadband providers or other internet companies is a very serious step for the UK to take,” the letter reads.
“Put simply, blocking access as envisaged by this clause would both widely disrupt the internet in the UK and elsewhere and threaten freedom of speech and the open internet, without reducing copyright infringement as intended.”
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Result for: copyright law
Kinney Lee Malone, son of former popular Mississippi bluesman Junior Kimbrough and the record label Fat Possum Records have decided to dismiss a copyright lawsuit filed in 2008, where Malone was seeking about $1 million and royalties.
U.S. District judge W. Allen Pepper said this week the case was closed as both sides agreed to dismiss it.
It is unclear whether there was any financial settlement between the two parties.
Kimbrough died in 1998 and had a few hit songs in his life. Malone sued FPR claiming they were using the songs without permission and were not paying royalties.
