On Tuesday March 13, 2007 media giant Viacom took its ongoing "negotiations" with Google and the recently-acquired YouTube to the next level, filing its complaint for copyright infringement, seeking damages in excess of $1 billion. Viacom and the affiliated co-plaintiffs which operate Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and BET television networks (among others) seek injunctive relief and damages for the reproduction, distribution, and public display of their respective programming content online at www.youtube.com.
The suit comes on the heels of a breakdown in negotiations between the parties, in which Viacom claims that YouTube's ongoing failure to implement readily available copyright protection measures amounts to the coercion of rights owners for favorable licensing terms. YouTube's officers have publicly stated that the company will not implement protective measures for material not under license.
Viacom's complaint accuses Google and YouTube of "massive" intentional direct infringement, as well as secondary copyright infringement, by failing to supervise and control its users' own directly infringing behavior, and also as a result of YouTube's facilitating technological features, such as "sharing", "embedding", and the "friends" feature, all of which allegedly induce and contribute to the widespread infringement. In addition, Google has apparently compounded the problem by adding YouTube content to its own Video Search function, and also by providing thumbnail still screenshots in its video search results culled from the vast online YouTube library.
In its defense, Google appears poised to invoke the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which limit the liability of internet service providers who act promptly to enforce copyrights upon notification of infringement. If the lawsuit proceeds, it is likely to lead to a deeper examination of the boundaries of the DMCA's safe harbor provisions, with increased explication of the obligations of internet service providers with regard to the "free" availability of copyright protected expression online.
However, a decision on the merits is highly improbable in this instance, according to many interested industry observers. The suit will most likely conclude with an out-of-court licensing agreement, at a price that could restore some of the market value in copyrighted material which has allegedly been eroded in the intervening period since YouTube's meteoric rise to prominence.
While some insiders believe that the lawsuit will do nothing to slow the burgeoning online video industry, with its almost nonexistent barriers to entry, others view the litigation as the first step in restoring this upset online video market to some level of free market "normalcy", allowing numerous smaller competitors such as Viacom's recent associate Joost, and Metacafe, not to mention obvious favorites AOL Video and Yahoo Video, to close in on the internet search leader.