Viacom Could Sue Us All
Posted in Industry News on July 4th, 2008 by Amin
So it looks like Viacom’s $1bn case against Google over Youtube is going to work against not only Google, but over Youtube users too, as Viacom will now be able to gain access to the names and IP addresses associated with Youtube viewers and uploaders that have ‘infringed’ upon their copyright.
While I strongly doubt Viacom is going to sue anyone over watching clips of the Daily Show on the site, I do think it’s a possibility that Viacom will go after Youtube account holders who have uploaded large amounts of video footage of programs owned by Viacom.
Even more worrying, is the problem this would cause video marketers, who employ tactics of mass downloading videos from the popular video sites, mass watermarking them with their own websites’ URLs, before mass uploading them to video sites again, including Youtube. And because of the scalability and automation involved in such an operation, the damage against individual video marketers could be severe, should Viacom choose to take action.
Let’s just hope they’ve been using proxies…
July 6th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
While I’m pretty sure they aren’t going after the guy with 500 bucks in the bank, and who scraped 1000 videos - proxies aren’t going to solve his problems since I’m sure they have been watermarking the vids.
August 12th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Interesting post. But is it really technically possible for Viacom to sue all users who watched their copy righted vidoes? I realize it would be virtually impossible and stupid for Viacom to do but are people who just viewed youtube copy right videos at fault under the law?
If that really is the case it would mean it would be impossible to watch any videos online with out having a lawyer check to make sure that the particualr vidoe you are going watch has no copy right infringments in it. Could you supply some links or some evidence showing how a common youtube viewer is liable for the copy right videos they watch.