Viacom sues google over copyright violation

Defending the Copyright

Viacom vs . Google

April 2007

The internet has undoubtedly become the number one source of almost anything and everything - information , news , pictures , music and audio content , and visual content such as pictures and videos are freely shared and made public with this wonderful frontier of technology . This is good for websites and web users alike , but there are detriments to this resource as well . Last month , Viacom , the major media player which owns the music channels MTV and VH1 , kids ' shows giants Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite

, the Comedy Central channel , and Paramount Pictures , d a 1-billion lawsuit against Google , the parent company which purchased YouTube in 2006 (Helft and Fabrikant 2007

The Google-Viacom case can be considered a first , and could be the biggest of its kind to date . While it is not the first time that a media company summoned YouTube and Google for the video-sharing framework of the popular website , this is only the time that Google received a copyright infringement lawsuit and at this cost , sparking talks on how piracy is proliferating online - and how website companies are intervening to aid in eliminating such from happening

Six weeks before the case was d , Viacom sent word to Google and YouTube for the removal of more than 100 ,000 unauthorized video clips uploaded in the video-sharing site acquired by Google in November 2006 for 1 .76 million (Associated Press 2007 ) Google claims to have aided the complaint and responded to the problem according to the terms of Viacom . Viacom , it turns out , was not satisfied . At the time of the lawsuit , over 160 ,000 Viacom clips have been illegally uploaded into the YouTube database , with a These and other videos , both amateur and copyrighted , uploaded in YouTube and many other video-sharing internet sites are attracting advertisers more than ever , giving revenue to the website and to video clip owners who have gained licensing agreements

This has not been the case for Viacom . Prior to the lawsuit , licensing arrangements have been on the run between the two companies , where Viacom demanded deserved compensation for their copyrighted material posted on YouTube . CBS Corporation and NBC Universal have had the same deals . Should the licensing agreement pushed through , Viacom will receive a percentage of advertising revenue for each of their ad-supported material in YouTube , plus the added exposure of their shows online . However , the talks were unsuccessful (Associated Press 2007

Growing bigger

At the start of the year , YouTube proved to be getting more popular 133 .5 million visitors were recorded in January , up by a big percentage from 9 .5 million in 2006 (Associated Press 2007 ) The numbers are growing . YouTube 's popularity spans its two main components - it allows any kind of video recorded in an acceptable format to be uploaded on the site , free for all users to see and it allows these videos to be downloaded by viewers as many times as they want

With the company growing bigger every day , as the...