For years, Viacom has been embroiled in a bizarre lawsuit against Google, asserting that Google had a duty to figure out exactly which videos uploaded by it users infringed on Viacom's copyrights and stop them from showing (Viacom's internal memos showed that they themselves had paid dozens of companies to secretly upload Viacom videos disguised to look as leaked internal footage to YouTube, and that the company's executives had viewed the suit as a way to seize control of YouTube from Google and run it themselves). — Read the rest
In a scorching post on the company's blog, YouTube Chief Counsel Zahavah Levine accuses Viacom of going to great lengths to secretly upload videos to YouTube in order to take advantage of its promotional value even as they were suing YouTube, arguing that YouTube should be able to tell the difference between Viacom videos that were uploaded by actual infringers as opposed to Viacom employees and agents being paid to pretend to be infringers. — Read the rest
The Ontario Privacy Commissioner is urging Google to fight a ruling that will force it to turn over the logs of YouTube downloads to Viacom, stating that copyright enforcement should not be a used as the rationale for surveillance:
In an open letter to Google, the Ontario Privacy Commissioner encourages Google to challenge the ruling and states, "business should not, in my opinion, rely on the surveillance of consumers to protect their copyright interests.
A federal judge this week ordered Google to provide Viacom with records of which users watched which videos on YouTube. The ruling raises fears that the video viewing histories of tens of millions of people could be exposed. The sheer amount of data we're talking about here is massive — for each and every YouTube video ever watched since YouTube launched in 2005, Google now has to to turn over to Viacom the login name of every user who had watched every video, and their the IP addresses. — Read the rest
In this youtube, Daily Show writer Jason Rothman delivers an hilarious monologue about the Writers' Guild strike against the studios, who claim that they can't compensate writers for digital media because no one knows how much this stuff is worth. The clip delivers a Daily Show-style montage of coverage from the $1 billion+ Viacom lawsuit against YouTube, including clips of Viacom's CEO talking about how digital content is worth tons of money and getting paid is the name of the game. — Read the rest
Court filings reveal that YouTube asked Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, whose shows are historically among the most-viewed on the video sharing site, to testify in court proceedings as YouTube defends itself in a billion dollar lawsuit from Viacom. Link.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation today announced that it is suing Viacom on behalf of MoveOn.org and Brave New Films, over YouTube's takedown of Colbert parody. Here's a snip from the EFF's statement:
The video, called "Stop the Falsiness," was created by MoveOn and Brave New Films as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on Colbert's portrayal of the right-wing media and parodying MoveOn's own reputation for earnest political activism.
Wagner James Au sez, "As featured on Boing Boing last October, a filmmaking team created a hilarious spinoff of Stephen Colbert's 'Green Screen challenge' which had him fighting an army of Nancy Pelosi clones, created entirely within Second Life. It included a 15 second section of avatars *watching* the 'Colbert Report' from within Second Life, but the rest of the 90 second, CC-licensed video is all original content and clearly parody, both of the show and the American political scene. — Read the rest
Viacom Inc., which owns MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, and Nickelodeon, today sued YouTube Google for $1 billion in damages over claims of copyright infringement. Link to story via msnbc, here's the BBC's. (thanks to the many people who suggested this. — Read the rest
EFF is collecting reports on innocent videos that were censored off the net by Viacom's legal attack on YouTube last week. The entertainment company sent over 100,000 indiscriminate takedown notices to YouTube, resulting in the disappearance of countless personal, noninfringing videos and untold fair use videos. — Read the rest
Viacom did a general search on YouTube for any term related to any of its shows, and then spammed YouTube with 100,000 DMCA take-down notices alleging that all of these clips infringed its copyright and demanding that they be censored off the Internet. — Read the rest
Recent revelations that the content industries are demanding that Canada implement SOPA-style provisions into its copyright law have raised concerns the law could be used to target legitimate sites. Industry lawyers say there is no reason for worry, yet an analysis of the proposed law set against the claims made by Viacom against Youtube show that there is a very real possibility that new law could be used to target the Internet's most popular video site.
Here's yet another example of the TV industry's love-hate relationship with YouTube: a CBS website hosting a YouTube clip that has been removed due to a copyright claim from CBS.
* Third party posts clip of a reporter speaking strangely at the Grammy's on youtube.
When popular YouTuber ASL Ally — who posts videos that interpret song lyrics in American Sign Language for deaf and hard-of-hearing people — had her YouTube channel yanked after complaints by Warner and Universal, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cindy Cohn came to the rescue. — Read the rest
Sources at YouTube tell us that online video giant will soon increase the maximum duration of uploaded video clips from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. The move may not mean much to some, but if you're a YouTube uploader, the increase would mean significantly less chopped-up installments of longer form works, and subtly redefine the medium, given that YouTube is the largest video hosting service online. — Read the rest
Google's won the first round of the enormous lawsuit Viacom brought against it. Viacom is suing Google for $1 billion for not having copyright lawyers inspect all the videos that get uploaded to YouTube before they're made live (they're also asking that Google eliminate private videos because these movies — often of personal moments in YouTubers' lives — can't be inspected by Viacom's copyright enforcers). — Read the rest
You know what I'm interested in? Copyright lawsuits.
And profanity.
Lucky for me, Google and Viacom have provided both today, in the form of a series of emails released through the discovery process in Viacom's billion-dollar lawsuit against YouTube. In these emails, the two companies take turns cussin' and spittin' and swearin' about each other. — Read the rest
My latest Guardian column, "Viacom v YouTube is a microcosm of the entertainment industry," examines the way that copyright law has encouraged Viacom to stop making and promoting programs in favor of making lawsuits:
Could it be that Viacom is suing YouTube for depriving it of revenue by allowing short clips from its properties to be viewed online, even as its production people are desperately trying to get as much of their video as possible on to YouTube?
The video, called "Stop the Falsiness," was created by MoveOn and Brave New Films as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on Colbert's portrayal of the right-wing media and parodying MoveOn's own reputation for earnest political activism.
Viacom Inc., which owns MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, and Nickelodeon, today sued YouTube Google for $1 billion in damages over claims of copyright infringement. 
