Youtube/Google vs Viacom

Viacom is in the process of suing Youtube/Google as they claim that Youtube has not taken responsibility to properly monitor videos for copyright infringement. Documents released today show that Google executives knew of the piracy problems and had even commented on it saying "Youtube's business is completely sustained by pirated material but authors of the document sought to steer Google away from this business model, "the company should differentiate based on our respect for copyright".

Google takes a huge swing at Viacom claiming that the media outlet subverted copyright practices by secretly uploading pirated content to Youtube from Viacom's very own networks.

To me here's the real story. Viacom missed the boat on Youtube back in 2006 when they seriously entertained the idea of buying Youtube, now they are pissed they missed out on something great and they want to take it down any possible way they can. Viacom is uploading content to Youtube claiming that it is Youtube's responsibility to police uploads even though it is not up them to do so. Under american copyright law ISP's and Webmasters are not directly responsible for policing the content.

When p2p filesharing network Grokster tried to cite the 1984 case ruling vcr's to be legal since they could be used for legal reasons not only piracy, the judge didn't see the two comparable as Grokster encouraged illegal file sharing to it's users, if they had made it clear to users not to use the service for illegal practices the case may have gone different.

So Viacom vs Youtube looks like Viacom needs to just shut up and eat the sour grapes, Viacom you missed the boat don't fuck with Google you don't know what your messing with.