Viacom-YouTube battle underway
The three-year-old legal battle between Viacom and Google over alleged copyright infringements on YouTube has finally reached trial. That’s led to the public release of some particularly revealing court filings.
Viacom filed the lawsuit after talks to bring its TV content to YouTube broke down when Google appeared to be slow to take down clips which had already been uploaded without permission. It led to a series of legal developments, most notably Google handing over some details of individual activity on the site.
The documents released this week include:
A filing in which YouTube accuses Viacom of deliberately uploading clips to give the impression they have been pirated, claims Viacom calls “red herrings”.
An e-mail from YouTube’s co-founder which said that if legally dubious content was removed, only 20 percent of videos would be left online, a statement which Google appears to be aware of when it bought the site.
Financial details which show one venture capital firm which put $9 million into YouTube wound up with a $516 million return (in Google stock) after the sale.
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