Viacom sues Google over YouTube clips

By Anne Broache
http://www.news.com/
Story last modified Tue Mar 13

Viacom on Tuesday slapped Google and YouTube with a lawsuit accusing the wildly popular video-sharing Web site of "massive intentional copyright infringement" and seeking more than $1 billion in damages.

The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York contends that nearly 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom's entertainment programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.

Viacom said it has asked the court for an injunction ordering a halt to the alleged copyright infringement in addition to the billion-dollar payout.

In a statement, Viacom blasted what it deemed YouTube's "clearly illegal" business model, riding on advertising sales and traffic tied to "unlicensed content." The media giant accused YouTube of building "a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google."

"In fact, YouTube's strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site, thus generating significant traffic and revenues for itself while shifting the entire burden--and high cost--of monitoring YouTube onto the victims of its infringement," Viacom said in a statement.

The suit is the culmination of what the New York-based company called "unproductive" negotiations with the Web giants. In early February, Viacom asked YouTube and parent Google to remove all offending clips and said the companies had agreed to pull down more than 100,000 videos produced by Viacom properties, including MTV Networks, Comedy Central, BET and VH-1.

Update: Official Viacom stance

“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. In fact, YouTube’s strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site, thus generating significant traffic and revenues for itself while shifting the entire burden – and high cost – of monitoring YouTube onto the victims of its infringement.

This behavior stands in stark contrast to the actions of other significant distributors, who have recognized the fair value of entertainment content and have concluded agreements to make content legally available to their customers around the world.

There is no question that YouTube and Google are continuing to take the fruit of our efforts without permission and destroying enormous value in the process. This is value that rightfully belongs to the writers, directors and talent who create it and companies like Viacom that have invested to make possible this innovation and creativity.

After a great deal of unproductive negotiation, and remedial efforts by ourselves and other copyright holders, YouTube continues in its unlawful business model. Therefore, we must turn to the courts to prevent Google and YouTube from continuing to steal value from artists and to obtain compensation for the significant damage they have caused.”