New York — Delighted with court’s ruling that endorsed the viability of sites that accept content from users, search engine behemoth Google Inc., has scored a landmark victory over its long-running battle against media companies as a Manhattan federal judge rebuffed Viacom Inc.’s $1 billion lawsuit accusing the Internet company of allowing copyrighted videos on its YouTube service without permission.
A New York District Court Judge Louis Stanton, presiding over the longtime copyright tussle between Viacom and Google over YouTube, on Wednesday granted summary judgment in favor of the search company in the case, concluding that the company had taken adequate measures to deal with infringing content to meet the safe harbor requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Google said.
“The court has declared that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement,” Google said on its site.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s side prevailed over Philippe Dauman’s Viacom in this important copyright case.
Google VP and general counsel Kent Walker described the decision as “an important victory not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other,” wrote in a blog post. “We are excited about this decision and look forward to renewing our focus on supporting the incredible variety of ideas and expression that billions of people post and watch on YouTube every day around the world.”
Viacom, however, said the ruling was basically flawed and contrary to the language of the DMCA, the intent of Congress, and the views of the Supreme Court.
A spokesperson for Viacom was not immediately available. But in a statement collected by The Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital Web site, Viacom, parent company of Paramount Pictures and MTV, promised that it plans to appeal the decision.
Viacom has insisted throughout the legal proceedings that Google executives knowingly allowed copyrighted content to persist on YouTube as a means of ensuring the site’s popularity.
“We believe that this ruling by the lower court is basically flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),” Viacom said in a statement. “We plan to seek to have these issues before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as soon as possible,” Viacom’s statement read. “After years of delay, this decision gives us the opportunity to have the Appellate Court address these critical issues on an accelerated basis. We look forward to the next stage of the process.”
The conflict dates back to March 2007 when Viacom filed a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against Google owned video-sharing website YouTube, accusing the company of encouraging its users to commit copyright infringement. Viacom alleged that infringing materials were in “thousand and thousands of videos on YouTube, resulting in hundreds of millions of views,” had been uploaded based on its copyrighted works, and that the defendants knew about it but did nothing to stop illegal uploads.
However, before YouTube and Google enforced a screening system and other content protections, YouTube users generally posted forbidden clips of TV shows and movies. Stanton noted that YouTube removed copyright-infringing clips once notified by an owner and that was all that was required to qualify for DMCA protection.
“If a service provider becomes aware of specific instances of infringement, the provider must promptly remove the infringing material,” Stanton wrote. “If not, the burden is on the owner to identify the infringement. General knowledge that infringement is ‘ubiquitous’ does not impose a duty on the service provider to monitor or search its service for infringements.”
But in a 30-page ruling, (Viacom-Google summary judgement opinion), U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton said it would be unlawful to hold Google and YouTube responsible under federal copyright law simply for having a “general awareness” that videos might be posted illegally.
“Simply having the information of prevalence of such activity in general is not enough,” he wrote. “The provider need not monitor or seek out facts indicating such activity.”
In spite of the case could continue to drag on in the appeals process, the summary judgment handed down in the Southern District of New York is a major victory for Google as well as for those who share content online and the technology sector at large.
Legal experts have prophesied the outcome of this landmark suit would determine who profited the most from content: the people who pay for its creation, or the people who help disseminate it over the Web.
“The film and television industries learned the lessons of the music industry that you need to fulfill consumer demand in an approved manner and keep those who offer unauthorized access at the fringe,” Gabelli & Co analyst Christopher Marangi said.
The cases are Viacom International Inc et al v. YouTube Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 07-02103; and The Football Association Premier League Ltd et al v. YouTube Inc et al in the same court, No. 07-03582.