James Delahunty
17 Mar 2007 18:10
After it emerged earlier this week that Viacom Inc. had filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google over its YouTube video sharing site, Google was quick to claim it had protection under the "safe harbor" provisions set present in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Google also said that the lawsuit would not alter its service or distract it from its work.
However, Viacom lawyer, Don Verrilli, has struck at Google's claim of protection under DMCA and at the law itself. Firstly, he said that Google does not fit the criteria needed to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions. He said that under Section 512 of the DMCA, a "service provider" must be unaware of infringing activity and must not make direct financial gain from it.
He believes that Google is aware of the mass-infringement on the site and has no problem filter content for any distribution partners. "YouTube has done a lot of social good that comes with a very significant problem," Verilli said. "And the significant problem that comes along with the good is that there is an enormous, enormous amount of copyrighted video works uploaded onto YouTube and viewed on a staggeringly high level by YouTube users."
He also feels that Viacom and other content companies are in an unfair position under the DMCA. "What that means is we've got to employ an army of people around the clock who do nothing but monitor YouTube, catalog those works, (send takedown requests)...and find out the next day that the works go back up," he said
Source:
News.com