Google, owner of YouTube has responded to Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit saying it threatens the way information is exchanged over internet.
Viacom filed a lawsuit last year alleging Google has failed to keep copyrighted material off its popular video-sharing site.
Google’s lawyers made the claim in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan saying the threat comes from Viacom’s attempt to make “carriers and hosting providers” liable for what people post. infringement” by YouTube and others.
Viacom has filed an amended version of its lawsuit this month saying YouTube consistently allows popular, copyrighted material to be posted to its site, including from Viacom-owned MTV and Comedy Central. It has identified more than 150,000 unauthorized clips on YouTube and that the site has done “little or nothing” to stop the copyright infringement.
The crust of the matter is that Viacom wants to amend law so as to hold carrier or provider responsible for content posted by users. That is why the Safe Harbor law was created in the first place. When a website is created visitors have to hop through several different points hosted by several different organizations to get to the content. The Safe Harbor law was created so that only the individual who uploaded the content can be to blame, not the intermediaries.
The catch is, the intermediaries have to respond to requests as per Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to take down content if it is reported and Google has been fulfilling its part of the law.
Viacom said in a statement:
The availability on the YouTube site of a vast library of the copyrighted works of plaintiffs and others is the cornerstone of defendants’ business plan.
Google responded by saying:
YouTube goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works as it has faithfully followed the DMCA and responded to claims of infringement.
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