Viacom sues YouTube over copyrights
Viacom filed a $1 billion copyright lawsuit against the
video-sharing site and corporate owner Google Inc.
Last month Viacom demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000
unauthorized clips from its site, and since that time the company
has uncovered more than 50,000 additional unauthorized.
Viacom is especially at risk because many of its shows are aimed at
younger audiences who also are heavy Internet users. At the same
time, Viacom is trying to find other, legal ways to distribute its
shows digitally, such as by selling episodes of "The Daily Show"
and "South Park" for $1.99 each through Apple Inc.'s iTunes
service. Those shows can then be viewed on a computer or video
iPod.
In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, Viacom
says YouTube "harnessed technology to willfully infringe
copyrights on a huge scale" and had "brazen disregard" of
intellectual property laws.
YouTube's soaring popularity has been a cause of fascination but
also fear among the owners of traditional media outlets, who worry
that YouTube's displaying of user-uploaded clips from their
programs without compensation will lure away viewers and ad
dollars from cable and broadcast TV.
A major lawsuit against YouTube has been widely anticipated because
so much of the online video pioneer's success has been driven by
easy access to copyrighted clips shared by its users.
