I'm not really surprised at this one. When Google (equals lots of cash) acquired YouTube (equals business model depending on advertising driven by content owned by other folks [so says Viacom]) I thought, "Big lawsuit coming here..." I see from searching the blog that I didn't write about it, though.
Oh, well. I've missed major trends before. Here's the MSN entry into the analysis game over the suit. It's all over the email newsletter horizon today.
What do I think? I think that if--as the articles suggest--YouTube has been negotiating with these companies, there might be something there. After all, if you're using my comments on this blog on your blog and selling ads, you're basically stealing my property to sell your ads.
Not that anyone would want to read what I'm writing...
If YouTube is correct (and to a degree, I think they are), and they can't be responsible for policing all the content on YouTube because there's too much of it and they can't really tell without knowing every possible copyrighted piece out there (some amateurs are producing pretty professional stuff), then YouTube may have a point.
Viacom says that YouTube prevents porn from being shown on the site, so why not copyrighted material?
YouTube says...
Well, as you can see, it's one for the courts to work out.
