Viacom are suing YouTube’s video sharing service for its inability to keep copyrighted material off its site. They have identified 150,000 unauthorised television and movie clips on the site, including South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants and MTV Unplugged, which have been viewed tens of thousands of times.
YouTube’s owner Google says that the lawsuit threatens Internet freedom and the millions of people that legitimately exchange information over the web. They maintain that they are faithful to the requirements of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act and they respond properly to all claims of infrigement, claiming that they go “far beyond its legal obligation in assisting content owners to protect their works”.
However, Viacom disagree and believe they do not live up to standards and have done “little or nothing” to stop infringement. They do not believe they should “tolerate any form of piracy by anyone, including YouTube…they cannot get away with stealing our products”.
The battle is set to head to court…
Tags copyright court lawsuit piracy sharing sue Viacom video YouTube