Viacom v. YouTube [1]

On March 13, 2007, Viacom International, which owns, among other properties, Comedy Central, MTV, BET, and Paramount Pictures, sued YouTube and its parent Google for copyright infringement seeking $1 billion in damages. Viacom asserts a number of copyright related claims, including direct copyright infringment for public performance, public display, and reproduction, as well as several indirect claims for inducement of copyright infringment, contributory copyright infringment, and vicarious copyright infringement.

Update:

04/28/08 - Viacom filed a first amended complaint [2].

05/23/08 - YouTube filed an answer [3] to the first amended complaint.

07/02/08 - Court ordered [4] Google to produce to Viacom "all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website."

Update 2:

06/23/2010 - The District Court granted [5] YouTube's motion for summary judgment. The court ruled that YouTube was eligible for the safe-harbor provisions of Section 512(c) of the DMCA [6], meaning that YouTube was immune from copyright liability stemming from user-posted content. According to the court, even if YouTube "not only [was] generally aware of, but welcomed, copyright-infringing material being placed on their website," YouTube lacked specific knowledge of particular infringing clips. Viacom had argued that YouTube's "general awareness" of "widespread and common" infringement was enough to disqualify YouTube from the safe harbor, but the court disagreed with that interpretation of § 512(c)(1)(A).

The District Court also ruled in YouTube's favor with respect to § 512(c)(1)(B), which disqualifies a service provider from safe-harbor protections if it receives "a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity." The court ruled that a service provider "must know of the particular case [of infringement] before he can control it," and that YouTube lacked the necessary knowledge to have the “right and ability to control” the infringement.

The court also ruled for YouTube on a number of related issues, including whether certain technical processes (like encoding) that take place automatically on YouTube are not eligible for protection as they are not done at the direction of a user.

04/05/2012 - On appeal, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the grant of summary judgment [7] and remanded. First, the Second Circuit ruled that the district court was correct in deciding that § 512(c)(1)(A) "requires knowledge or awareness of specific infringing activity"; the Second Circuit ruled, however, that there was evidence (mainly, some internal email exchanges between YouTube employees) to suggest that YouTube may have had such specific knowledge of some infringing clips. The Court of Appeals remanded on this issue, to determine if YouTube in fact had specific knowledge of any of the clips at issue in this lawsuit.

In addressing Viacom’s argument that YouTube’s actions constituted willful blindness, the court ruled that the common-law "willful blindness" doctrine could still apply in some circumstances, even though the DMCA, at § 512(m), states that a service provider does not need to affirmatively monitor its service for infringing content.

The Second Circuit disagreed with the District Court’s interpretation of the "control and benefit" provisions of § 512(c)(1)(B). The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court’s holding that a service provider does not have the “right and ability to control” the infringement based on the bare ability to remove or block user-posted materials. Unlike the District Court, though, the Second Circuit did not rule that (c)(1)(B) required particular knowledge of specific cases of infringement. If a service provider was "exerting substantial influence on the activities of users, without necessarily—or even frequently—acquiring knowledge of specific infringing activity," a service provider would have a “right and ability to control” under § 512(c)(1)(B). (The second element of this safe harbor exception, financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, was not before the court.) The Court of Appeals thus remanded this issue as well.

Finally, the Second Circuit agreed with the District Court that three of YouTube's automated processes were protected by the safe harbor: transcoding user-uploaded clips into different video formats, playing the clips at the request of users, and finding "related videos." A fourth function—syndication of a limited number of clips to third-party companies—drew more suspicion from the Court of Appeals, but it was unclear whether any of clips at issue in this lawsuit were actually syndicated. The Second Circuit thus remanded for more fact-finding.