Viacom asks YouTube to take down 100,000 unauthorized video clips

C&D notices sent to YT from Viacom... actually generated by BayTSP, ControlCommand happening...
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By Elise Ackerman
Mercury News
Posted on Fri, Feb. 02, 2007

Viacom requested YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized video clips from its site this morning after months of negotiation failed to produce an agreement between Google and the owners of popular copyrighted material.
``It has become clear that YouTube is unwilling to come to a fair market agreement that would make Viacom content available to YouTube users,'' the entertainment giant said in a statement. ``Filtering tools promised repeatedly by YouTube and Google have not been put in place, and they continue to host and stream vast amounts of unauthorized video.''

No Google spokesperson was immediately available to respond to Viacom's legal notice, which was emailed to YouTube this morning. Google said it would buy YouTube in October for $1.65 billion. The deal closed in November.
Viacom said its videos, including clips from MTV, VHI, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, had been streamed well over a billion times.
``YouTube and Google retain all of the revenue generated from this practice, without extending fair compensation to the people who have expended all of the effort and cost to create it,'' the statement said.
In a conference call with analysts on Wednesday, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said ``YouTube is in the middle of doing interesting deals which we will account for as they get signed.''

Schmidt also confirmed that technology that would flag copyrighted material had not been implemented, though it exists. Google's own video-sharing site, Google Video, successfully filters copyrighted content.
Schmidt said Google's technologists were working to create other technology for YouTube. Meanwhile, Google Video recently began returning thumbnails of YouTube videos in its search results, a move that Viacom said ``compounds'' the copyright infringement problem.

Google has taken a public position that it is willing to compenate the creators of content. As part of the YouTube acquisition, large music companies were given equity stakes in YouTube. They are also reportedly paid each time their music is played on YouTube.
But other content creators have been frustrated in their efforts to strike a deal with Google.

On Wednesday, Schmidt told analysts that Google believed there was value in connecting advertisers with YouTube's fanatical fan base. That has long been part of Hollywood's business own model, but it is unclear how YouTube will fit in, since it does not have legal rights to show many of its most popular videos.
Indeed, of the main reasons YouTube became wildly successful is because it provided nearly unfettered access to pirated content, including music videos that could not be found anywhere else, as well as full-length movies, documentaries and television shows.

In an interview with the Mercury News, Mike Fricklas, Viacom's general counsel, said Viacom had reached the point of ``zero tolerance,'' after sending YouTube tens of thousands of takedown notices since the video-sharing site when live more than a year ago.

``We are asking to get paid,'' Fricklas said. ``Our content is very valuable and we think that has obviously contributed to YouTube's growth and to Google.''
Fricklas said Viacom used automated technology to identify its content on YouTube, and that Google could do the same.
Fricklas said he is expecting YouTube to remove Viacom's content by this afternoon. He said Viacom was wiling to continue to negotiate.

Last year, Google and Viacom worked together in an experiment to include advertising in video clips from shows like Nickelodeon's ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' and MTV Networks' ''Laguna Beach,'' and to distribute them to different Web sites.
Both companies have said they were happy with the results of the test, which was limited in scope.
``Our hope is that YouTube and Google will support a fair and authorized distribution model that allows consumers to continue to enjoy our very popular content now and in the future,'' Viacom's statement concluded.