5 ms·

Viacom has already failed in this lawsuit. If YouTube can prove conclusively that Viacom uploaded the videos then tried to sue YouTube then there is no way the

• zaphar 17y ago
  Makes you wonder what they actually expected to achieve? I mean they can only hurt themselves if this is true.
  • deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
• dschobel 17y ago
  At a company the size of Viacom it's not hard to imagine that one hand (marketing) was not talking to the other (legal). If it were the legal people uploading content to plant evidence, that's another matter, but I don't think have one department out of sorts with your legal position necessarily undermines the case (tenuous as it was to begin with). By analogy, think of a software company which has one dept. that steals its tools, does that preclude the company from defending its own IP? Morally, maybe, but I don't think you waive your legal rights by breaking the law by default. IANAL but I've never heard such of such a principle.
  • lutorm 17y ago
    You missed the point: it would be like a software company where one department distributed the tools on the internet and then the legal department tried to "defend" their IP by suing the people who had gotten those tools. Come to think of it, it sounds a lot like the Monsanto case. Since they won, I guess Viacom can win here, too. Common sense is absent at these levels.
    • dschobel 17y ago
      The subtle but essential difference is what the Viacom marketing team was perpetrating just a small subset of the claimed infringement. To reiterate, I don't think the original claim has any merit, but I'm wondering whether this parallel action to the claimed grievance legally sinks their case. Put it in front of a jury and Viacom would probably get blown out of the water, but the rhetoric makes it sound like this one action renders the whole thing legally frivolous (which I'm not convinced of).
  • brown9-2 17y ago
    Even if one hand is not aware of the other, what they did goes far beyond innocent and accidental uploading - it sounds like a pretty systemic policy: It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately “roughed up” the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko’s to upload clips from computers that couldn’t be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt “very strongly” that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.
    • Nwallins 17y ago
      All of that can be explained by attempts at viral marketing. They don't want be 'outed' as the source, not to sabotage YouTube but because the viral kids won't promote BigCo. I don't know if this will be Viacom's position, but it's one that Google should be prepared for.
      • brown9-2 17y ago
        It wouldn't matter. Viacom is a single legal entity. It can't both willingly participate in an act and then sue someone for allowing the act to happen.
        • mfr 17y ago
          IANAL, etc., but I believe you have it exactly right. The principle in question is the Clean Hands Doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_hands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_hands). In short, an entity can not seek an equitable remedy if they themselves have acted in bad faith.
  • sdh 17y ago
    lol, basically ... we're too big to be responsible for our actions. brilliant!
• fnid2 17y ago
  I can see some defenses, for example, "We uploaded the content to verify the validity of assertions that filtering and content protection mechanisms were working as stated." Or, "We were uploading content to quantify viewers and calculate losses due to copyright infringement." Regardless, tons of users were uploading viacom content and youtube and then google profited off it, so their case is just as valid -- if it is valid at all.
• CWuestefeld 17y ago
  How in the world could anybody prove these allegations? The YouTube statement claims It deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. ... It even sent employees to Kinko’s to upload clips from computers that couldn’t be traced to Viacom. It seems they've got their bases covered, that any upload vector might plausibly be from Viacom themselves. But how could they conclusively prove that this is what happened?
  • jonknee 17y ago
    Maybe the employees that did the uploading have come forward.
    • mechanical_fish 17y ago
      And will be deposed, under oath.
      • isleyaardvark 17y ago
        And maybe have relevant emails disclosed during discovery.