YouTube/Viacom suit gets nasty | Hacker News Reader

YouTube/Viacom suit gets nasty

arstechnica.com

16 pointsevo_97 comments

> [Viacom document] "User generated content should never be monitored. Something that can't bear enough repeating is that the User Abuse Team and Atom Entertainment in general, does not and should not, actively monitor any of its web sites for content violations regarding content submitted or generated by its users."

The uglier this gets the harder I laugh. There are some real gems in an earlier article[1].

> In addition, "Viacom has altered its own videos to make them appear stolen, like 'footage from the cutting room floor, so users feel they have found something unique.'" The final result, says Google, is that there's just no way to tell, short of a notice from the company, what works must be taken down.

Viacom deserves every bit of grief they are getting and more.

[1]: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/smoking-guns...

A Viacom VP even complained about the "fucking assholes" at YouTube — because the company "enforced its repeat-infringer policy concerning a Viacom marketing account that had received multiple take-down notices from Viacom's legal department."

Merely reading this sentence is making my eyes cross. Is it possible for this case to become any more absurd?

Why should Viacom be responsible for their own actions? THEY MAKE TV SHOWS!!!!

I don't know about Viacom's channels, but I swear nearly every major label musician/artist's channel that I've been to lately has had at least one of their videos missing due to a takedown request from their own record company. That said, most of the channels that I looked at were run by the artists themselves, I guess it wouldn't happen so much on marketing-dept run channels, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.

I wish the copyright holders would get what they're asking for -- no more free advertising on YouTube. It's probably true that YouTube grew quickly because people could watch 3 minute clips of The Simpsons or whatever, but now most of the good videos are independently produced -- quickly making the major media companies irrelevant. (I still like "normal" TV shows, but there's less and less of a reason for the writers to work for a network and not for themselves.)

i'm hoping the viacom emails were typed on blackberries.

This what happens when those who can't do right meet those who think they can't do wrong.

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