Financial Times Editorial Comment: Viacom v Google
Financial Times Editorial Comment: Viacom v Google
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: March 14 2007 21:25 | Last updated: March 14 2007 21:25
Viacom’s $1bn lawsuit against YouTube, and its parent Google, poses the central question of the digital age: how can old laws be applied to new technologies, in ways that balance the rights of copyright owners with the public interest.
It is high time America’s courts answered that question, as it applies to the internet’s newest new thing: websites such as YouTube and MySpace, which host the user-generated content of millions of people – not to mention reams of content that is actually owned by somebody else.
At the moment, such sites exist in a precarious state of legal limbo: no one knows for sure how America’s digital copyright law – written back in the dark ages of the internet era, 1998 – applies to them.
Much of what they do is clearly legal. Wednesday’s top videos on YouTube, for example, included a clip showing the mating of ladybirds and another demonstrating a toilet roll winding machine. No copyright violations there.
But it is common knowledge that much of the video content posted on YouTube and other such sites is unlicensed copyrighted material. Viacom says over 160,000 of its clips, from hit programmes such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or SpongeBob SquarePants, have been posted without permission. It says YouTube has demonstrated a “brazen disregard” for copyright law.
Unfortunately for Viacom, copyright law is simply not clear enough, at this stage, to be blatantly disregarded by the likes of YouTube. The 10-year-old Digital Millennium copyright act does not make clear whether user-generated content sites are liable for what users do with copyrighted content.
The law contains a “safe harbour” provision, designed mainly for internet service providers, that says the host site is not liable if it promptly takes down infringing content once notified by the copyright owner. But what happens if users just keep posting the content over and over again? Is it really legal for YouTube to make millions of dollars from advertising, when one of the main attractions of its site is all the pirated content?
No court has yet answered that question definitively, largely because most previous lawsuits testing the legality of user-generated sites have settled. Chances are the Viacom suit will also settle – both sides would probably risk too much by going to court. Viacom’s suit is probably just negotiation by another name: a way to step up pressure on YouTube and Google to pay a fair price for its content.
That would be a shame: digital behemoths can afford to face each other down, whether it is Microsoft facing down Google over its book digitisation project or Viacom v YouTube. But the YouTubes of the future cannot exist in such a tenuous legal environment. They need more clarity – or the next new new thing may never be born.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: March 14 2007 21:25 | Last updated: March 14 2007 21:25
Viacom’s $1bn lawsuit against YouTube, and its parent Google, poses the central question of the digital age: how can old laws be applied to new technologies, in ways that balance the rights of copyright owners with the public interest.
It is high time America’s courts answered that question, as it applies to the internet’s newest new thing: websites such as YouTube and MySpace, which host the user-generated content of millions of people – not to mention reams of content that is actually owned by somebody else.
At the moment, such sites exist in a precarious state of legal limbo: no one knows for sure how America’s digital copyright law – written back in the dark ages of the internet era, 1998 – applies to them.
Much of what they do is clearly legal. Wednesday’s top videos on YouTube, for example, included a clip showing the mating of ladybirds and another demonstrating a toilet roll winding machine. No copyright violations there.
But it is common knowledge that much of the video content posted on YouTube and other such sites is unlicensed copyrighted material. Viacom says over 160,000 of its clips, from hit programmes such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or SpongeBob SquarePants, have been posted without permission. It says YouTube has demonstrated a “brazen disregard” for copyright law.
Unfortunately for Viacom, copyright law is simply not clear enough, at this stage, to be blatantly disregarded by the likes of YouTube. The 10-year-old Digital Millennium copyright act does not make clear whether user-generated content sites are liable for what users do with copyrighted content.
The law contains a “safe harbour” provision, designed mainly for internet service providers, that says the host site is not liable if it promptly takes down infringing content once notified by the copyright owner. But what happens if users just keep posting the content over and over again? Is it really legal for YouTube to make millions of dollars from advertising, when one of the main attractions of its site is all the pirated content?
No court has yet answered that question definitively, largely because most previous lawsuits testing the legality of user-generated sites have settled. Chances are the Viacom suit will also settle – both sides would probably risk too much by going to court. Viacom’s suit is probably just negotiation by another name: a way to step up pressure on YouTube and Google to pay a fair price for its content.
That would be a shame: digital behemoths can afford to face each other down, whether it is Microsoft facing down Google over its book digitisation project or Viacom v YouTube. But the YouTubes of the future cannot exist in such a tenuous legal environment. They need more clarity – or the next new new thing may never be born.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 1:22 PM
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