YouTube Sued For $1B

[mrtonguetwista]

NEW YORK -- Media giant Viacom Inc. today sued online video site YouTube Inc. and its corporate parent, Google Inc., accusing both of "brazen disregard" for its copyrighted shows and movies.

The civil suit, filed this morning in a federal court in Manhattan, alleged that YouTube had become a place where unauthorized copies of Viacom's television shows — including children's shows such as "SpongeBob SquarePants" and adult fare such as "South Park," "The Colbert Report" and "MTV Unplugged" — are regularly posted and watched.

The lawsuit also sought an injunction barring Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement. Viacom contended in its 27-page complaint that nearly 160,000 unauthorized video clips of Viacom's programming had been posted on YouTube and viewed more than 1.5 billion times.

The New York-based media company also said YouTube failed to take "reasonable precautions" to halt the rampant infringement on its site, which was created for people to share their amateur videos but quickly became known for Hollywood programming, such as the "Saturday Night Live" skit, "Lazy Sunday." Viacom accused YouTube of deliberately amassing a vast library of unlicensed works to draw traffic to its website.

"YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google," said Viacom in a statement. "Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and in obvious conflict with copyright laws."

Viacom asked the court to find that YouTube's behavior constituted "willful" infringement, a finding that would allow Viacom to claim a maximum penalty of $150,000 for each bootlegged copy of its television shows. Viacom claims that it has identified more than 150,000 unauthorized copies of its shows, which have been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.

[MontrealCity's Most]

YOutube will end up getting sut down or its gonna be just amatuer videos.

[QuietTruth]

That's just beautiful...

[thisoneguy360]

Gay

[jeromechickenbone]

Shit, you thought YouTube sucked lately, wait till this is over.  Also, FUCK VIACOM.  That is all.

[dredayeverydayy]

Can't we all just get along?

[[Stoned]Jesus H. Christ[Wheat]]

Can't we all just get along?

....where are you from?

[djbeto]

looks like another good website will be shut down in that note

R.I.P YouTube

another one bites the dust


also .
R.I.P. Napster ,Audio Galaxy

[Low Key]

You'd think it would be good advertisement for shows to be posted on youtube, especially since you can't post the whole show. I guess networks are bigger morons than I though.

[swangin and bangin]

Can't we all just get along?

[Bones01]

FUCK VIACOM.

[M Dogg™]

Viacom is a bitch. They offically killed rock music, raped hip-hop, and now they are looking to take out YouTube. I hate this company more everyday.

[jeromechickenbone]

Viacom is a bitch. They offically killed rock music, raped hip-hop, and now they are looking to take out YouTube. I hate this company more everyday.

Don't forget MTV / BET.

[Javier]

Viacom is a bitch. They offically killed rock music, raped hip-hop, and now they are looking to take out YouTube. I hate this company more everyday.

Don't forget MTV / BET.

They're both under the Viacom umbrella

[Bramsterdam (see ya)]

what a bunch of assholes