NEWS: Viacom v. YouTube, aka “The Reason You Can’t Find Colbert Clips Anymore”

POLITICS: Viacom v. YouTube, aka “The Reason You Can’t Find Colbert Clips Anymore”

On March 13th, the copyright legal showdown we all saw coming officially began. Media behemoth Viacom, owners of Paramount Pictures, Noggin, Comedy Central, TVLand, BET and some channel I've never heard of called Neopets, decided to get all up in YouTube's grill… legally speaking that is. The text of the briskly-worded 27-page federal complaint makes the following major allegations:

Yeah, that's right. YouTube is using the "leverage of the internet" (whatever that means) to steal the intellectual property inherent in Lindsay Lohan's greatest work. How could we ever forgive them?



Seriously, though, the case is pretty fascinating to think about in terms of how copyright has been defined for the last 200 years and how that definition will evolve in the age of the Intertubes. The complaint contains five alleged causes of actions, but it's Count IV's "Inducement of Copyright Infringement" that has the legal world all a-twitter. Stanford Law Professor, founder for the Center for Internet and Society and all-around copyright law badass Lawrence Lessig recently broke it down for the Grey Lady's Op-Ed page:

Snarks at activist-judging aside, Viacom is basically seeking to overturn or severely limit the "safe harbor" provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which allowed for companies like YouTube to avoid liability for violations of copyright by its users so long as they were unaware of those violations and took steps to remove the offending materials once they were alerted to them. Viacom now seeks to use the Grokster decision as an end-run around the DMCA's safety net.



So what does this mean? Is YouTube pretty much fucked then? It's too early to tell, but now that they're backed by Google's cash and legal team, we're basically in for the fight of the century. As for what this means for you and I, it's pretty easy to see who we should be rooting for. An extension of liability to YouTube in this case could open the door to dozens more suits like this that could stifle creativity and cripple large sectors of internet industry, possibly even exposing sites like our beloved SuicideGirls to potential civil liability.



If breathing life into such mind-obliterating trash as "I Love New York" or "My Super Sweet 16" wasn't bad enough, Viacom has decided to up the Evil Quotient that much more. And we could all be the ones paying for it in the end.

Nice article. It will be an interesting battle but in the end, Viacom needs Utube a lot more than U tube needs Viacom. Viacom and other companies, like NBC, are going to start their own web pages - and some alredy have - that they can show their clips on.

Like any mojor corporation (music business) they totally miss why u tube is popular. Most people don't go to u tube to catch Colbert, they go for the videos some idiot kid in Des Moines made. The corporate media stuff is icing on the cake. And I'm afraid, like music, more people will watch their shows if they see a clip of it on u tube. I believe it is like adverstising. Could be wrong, but, for me, if I see a clip and it's funny I ususually think, "I should tape Colbert tonight"

Either was it is nice to see to massive companies to battle.

*sigh* Oh, Viacom. Lame, lame, lame.

I was actually looking for a Colbert clip the other night. No wonder.

there's a ton of comedy central stuff on ifilm

I wonder how much Youtube could potentially charge Viacom for all the free advertising and hits Youtube generates on the Viacom material.

I can't say I was surprised when I heard about this.

It's another really stupid move on the part of the entertainment industry (par for the course) but I think they'll probably get their way

...now i know why all the vids i uploaded were rejected

I wonder if Colbert is going to say anything about this. I don't have cable (or YouTube clips anymore) but I imagine it would be hilarious

there's a ton of comedy central stuff on comedycentral.com, too.

anything he says on the issue would have to be very tight because they wouldnt want the youtube defense team catching it and using it against Viacom...

*shakes head*

Why u gotta b h8in on D-Town, man?


On topic, I hope Viacom gets crushed.

<cough> Lars <cough> Napster <cough>

I didn't think this would affect me... well, in truth, it didn't affect me in a way that carries any kind of importance. But I was in a chatroom the other night and we somehow got going on Cornholio. The cemetery-halloween-I need more candy for my bunghole-episode, in particular. Not only could I not find that one, but I couldn't find any Beavis & Butthead at all. It was kinda frustraiting - in more ways than one. Because at first, I was annoyed that what I wanted wasn't right there at my fingertips. But then I thought about it, and truth of the matter is that somebody owns B&B. And somebody IS loosing money if all you have to do to check out a scene you're talking about in a chatroom is go to YT. So, to a certain extent, I can see Viacom's side as well.

^ what bean said.

i think that big media companies are either going to take their piece of the online ad revenue pie or they're going to take their ball and go home, which would suck for everyone involved.

maybe im over simplifying things, but it seems to me that the problem comes out to people watching TV shows on youtube *without* seeing the advertising, vs seeing it on TV *with* the advertising.

its like newspapers - the TV industry makes its money on advertising sold, not the price of a cable hookup. might one possible solution be to ensure that media uploaded to youtube be uploaded in its entirety (meaning with commercials intact)?

Exactly. I have a hard time taking the side of Viacom, but...no, fuck it, I'm not going to take the side of Viacom, but this issue is more complicated than simply "Old Media is dumb and New Media is good."

If we're talking about entertainment, you can argue that it's a frivolous debate or that the democratization wrought by the internet is even a good thing, darwinian-like, and I'd agree with you. But a healthy democracy requires good information, which comes from reporters doing unsexy things like attending city hall meetings and digging through archives, and, those positions are all being cut because the internet doesn't pay, even though self-styled pundits everywhere are linking to somebody's original research.

Basically what I'm asking is when are the idiot kids in Des Moines going to start posting some city council coverage?

No, what I'm saying is that I am an artist who shares some stuff for free on the internet and I'm all for other people doing that. But something must also be done to help out the few remaining investigative journalists, because it's not cheap to dig under the surface of the official story. This lawsuit is somehow tied up in that idea. Now go buy a newspaper subscription--they need it. And you need them. Even if you live in the tubes.

How did they lose money, though? You just gave up, right?

The Daily Show did a pretty good bit on it last week, actually. It's what gave me the idea for the article. Well, that and the thought that the document review in this case would probably be a lot more fun than the document review in the case I'm currently working on is.

One last point: I think it's very likely that you're right, but that doesn't mean the legal loophole created by Grokster is going to close by itself. Either Congress is going to have to address it with on-point copyright legislation, or some other content provider in some other format some other time down the road is going to try to exploit it, and that could lead to all sorts of ickiness.

Tonight Colbert actually had on this guy, who runs the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who is helping to represent MoveOn.org in a suit against Viacom for forcing YouTube to take down clips of Colbert.

Barlow said basically nothing. But you have to give him credit for giving airtime to people who are suing his parent company.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't believe that most people go to YouTube to watch entire episodes of shows on a grainy 2x3 inch window. Most clips I see are single comedy bits pulled out of shows. People link to them in online discussions so that they can show the other person what the hell they are talking about, rather than trying to vaguely describe it.

If anything YouTube is free advertising for the shows that do get posted, because people see the short clip, and think Hey, that was cool, I should watch that show or I should go out and buy the DVD(s) of that show/movie.

I hate Viacom and the MPAA they are copyright NAZI's, who are determined to bleed people dry........ They are worse than most governments and seek only to control, own and exploit........ They use their billions to buy goverment policies and regulations in order to crush the rights of consumers......... It would be nice to see their utter collalpse....... It just shows my loathing for them

What? I don't understand your second question.

They loose money each time a DVD is NOT sold. They loose money because there is no demand for the show to be syndicated if everything is on YouTube. I'm sure Bean's comment has great merrit and is quite possibly 100% true, but there is money being lost because of YouTube. If there wasn't, nobody would have their panties in a bunch about it. And does anybody really think Viacom will be the only one to do this?