Viacom sues Google for $1,000,000,000

[clb]

Reuters reports...

http://tinyurl.com/3cpbx5

Is this the start of a "Sue Google/ Youtube trend?

[mad4]

Digg: http://digg.com/tech_news/Breaking_V..._for_1_billion

Viacom Inc. (VIA-NYSE) announced this morning that it has sued YouTube and Google (GOOG) for "massive intentional copyright infringement" of Viacom's entertainment properties. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks more than $1 billion in damages, In addition to the $1 Bilion Viacoms is seeking an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement.

The complaint contends that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom's programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times. While others have threatened the company and have sent warnings this may be the biggest suit of its kind. Last year Google set aside some $200 million for lawsuits against the company after the YouTube acquisition. If Viacom is doing this, then logic might dictate that CBS (CBS-NYSE) would not be too far behind because of the old ties with the companies.

Google (GOOG) has become somewhat used to suits and threats of suits against the company over numerous "opening up" of copyright issues at both the old-Google and the new Google post-YouTube and it has already made some basic disclosures on copyright suits in Filings, so even with the size of the suit this may not be the world's largest surprise of the day. GOOG shares are down less than 1% at $461.50 in pre-market activity.

[butterfingers]

Wow...that's hell lotsa money...

[alexdale]

This is interesting. But I doubt they're gonna win the case against the big G.

[mad4]

Youtube could end up costing them a lot more than they planned.

Originally Posted by mad4

Youtube could end up costing them a lot more than they planned.

With a company like Google, I am 100% sure they knew exactly what they were getting themselves into. They should have some tricks up their sleeve.

[hulkster]

Here's the PDF of the actual complaint.

[ReadyToGo]

Originally Posted by butterfingers

Wow...that's hell lotsa money...

Meh, that's pocket change to Google; they have over $10 billion in cash and short-term investments.

[TorchedSEO]

No doubt this was going to happen sooner or later, you can't just host videos and let anyone watch them without paying the creators of the content. My guess is google will settle out of court but as soon as they do other companies will start doing the same. But this is a chance somebody to setup a clickbank site with details on how to sue google for a 6 figure yearly income!

[NashTax]

Nice find

[jakomo]

Hello,

Youtobe and Google knew about it, there are millons of music videos, etc etc...

Jakomo

[Mr Skyline]

great publicity for them ... wonder how much more revenue they will gain as a result compared to what it costs them to settle out of court should they do so.

[Crusader]

This would be a very interesting case to watch and see what happens. Presumably the "safe harbor" clause under the DMCA will give YouTube/Google protection, but it will be interesting to see if it can be proven that they had knowledge of the infringement and didn't act upon it.

[Pierce]

Originally Posted by ReadyToGo

Meh, that's pocket change to Google; they have over $10 billion in cash and short-term investments.

At this rate that's 10 lawsuits. If you had 10bn in cash, would you want to give away 1/10th of it?

Pierce

[Freeaholics]

Google knew this was coming. They have everything from movies to music videos to tv sitcoms.

[psyberweb]

As always the DMCA will protect Google, Google did not buy YouTube if they knew that they cannot defend themselves in this kind of case. In the end, Viacom and Google will end up in a deal to license those videos that are owned by Viacom.

[grg]

Google sued beause youtube music videos. '1bn' - that's quite round number

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstor...name_page.html

[ReadyToGo]

Originally Posted by Pierce

At this rate that's 10 lawsuits. If you had 10bn in cash, would you want to give away 1/10th of it?

Pierce

Pfft, sure. It's not giving away. YouTube wouldn't be as popular without copyrighted materials.
Remeber that the $10 billion is not fixed; they're generating about $1 billion in OCF in one quarter alone.

[grg]

Ups, I'm latecomer... sorry

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=267313

[grg]

I think they just want to push Google to respect copyrights and pay royalties for this exposure. Because only from services like youtube Viacom can earn ANY money because of fact of exposing music videos in internet. If they destroy services like youtube, everybody will back under ground...