Milan — Italian broadcaster Mediaset SpA, the television company, founded and controlled by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, joins the number of other petitioners, has sued Internet search company Google Inc. and its video-sharing site YouTube for 500 million euros ($780 million) in damages for copyright violation of its material.
Google and YouTube, the popular video-sharing website, allegedly executed the “illegal distribution and commercial use of audio and video files” owned by Mediaset, the Milan-based company said in an e-mailed statement today.
The lawsuit, filed with Rome civil court, claims that after carrying out a survey on June 10 of this year for videos on YouTube, Mediaset said it found 4,643 copies of its programming, equaling 325 hours of video clips, on the website, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
The media company also stated that, counting on the number of video clips and hits generated, it lost 315,700 broadcasting days. Mediaset did not specified how much ad revenue was lost, but said it is seeking 550 million euros (US$780 million) in damages.
Apart from Mediaset, Gestevision Telecinco SA, a Mediaset unit that owns Spain’s most-watched TV station also filed a suit against YouTube last month for copyright infringement and illegally posting its video content on the Web.
“YouTube and Google are also being sued by Viacom and France’s TF1.”
This is not the first instance that YouTube and Google have been sued for copyright violation. YouTube issued a short and snappy statement about the Mediaset lawsuit:
YouTube replied to the allegations by saying that the website respects copyright holders and takes copyright allegations very seriously, the spokeswoman said in London.
She further added that “There is no reason for legal action and other associated costs. We prohibit users from uploading infringing material, and we promptly cooperate with all copyright holders to identify and remove any violating content as soon as we are officially notified.”
“The European media company, France’s largest commercial broadcaster TF1 TFFP.P is demanding 100 million euros from YouTube in damages.”
Lawsuits and trials with subsequent appeals are often lengthy and may probably take a few years in Italy.
Here in the United States, Viacom Inc. filed a lawsuit against Google demanding $1 billion. Viacom’s case against YouTube was at first filed in March 2007, but was re-filed in a modified form last month.
The media giant, that owns Paramount Pictures, Dreamworks, MTV and other businesses, charged that 160,000 unauthorized Viacom video clips were viewed 1.5 billion times on YouTube. Viacom sought an injunction blocking Google and YouTube from any additional infringement. The case is not expected to be heard in court until next year.
That practice originates from the US DMCA provision that offers a safe harbor to websites that remove such content when informed by the content owner. It is a defense Viacom, and now Mediaset, will try to dismantle in the courtroom.
According to Viacom, Google should get more involved in finding ways to stop users from uploading copyrighted materials, seeing that at this point YouTube’s only measure for this problem enables owners to complain about a certain post and block it from being viewed.
Besides Viacom, Gestevision and Mediaset, France’s largest commercial broadcaster, TF1, has also filed a lawsuit against YouTube for illegal video content and asked for 100 million Euros (US$155.72 million) in damages. The case is expected to be heard in Paris.
Copyright infringement in the United States in fact states that users are liable when they illegally copy works, even if they are not aware that this is wrong, particularly when the work is protected by copyright, Chris Soghoian of CNET reports. This indicates that clicking, even by mistake, on a clip which is copyrighted, makes you a potential target of a $750 fine.
But the media companies, long accustomed to getting the whole share, do not want to settle for small bites of it even if they come from a vastly bigger animal. They want it all, fans be damned, copyright is the corporate shield, and they will go home carried on that shield before they back off and let fans be fans.
Skeptics assert that there is no way to fully police infringement. Still, lawsuits have been filed against users with damages ranging from $30,000 to $150,000 per video and, if prosecuted, five years in jail, according to the MPAA.