Technology Talk

It’s been a long week for Google. At the beginning of the month, Google finally submitted their response (PDF) to Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit over video content on YouTube. The gist - they’re claiming they’re protected by the DMCA. Search Engine Land and TechDirt have good summaries of the response. Read the rest

Last month, Viacom caused a major stink when it demanded YouTube remove all it’s copyrighted materials. YouTube complied and removed 100,000 videos - including some that weren’t infringing on Viacom’s copyright. Since then, all sorts of copyright bickering has gone on. Read the rest

I wrote previously about the lawsuit YouTube faces for showing copyrighted video clips of Robert Tur’s 1992 LA riot footage. This week’s BusinessWeek (Aug 7, 2006) addresses the revenue generating concerns.

As I mentioned previously, most lawyers seem to agree that YouTube is protected by copyright law as long as it responds to the copyright owners’ requests to remove their content. A side question seems to be whether it’s ok to run advertising beside the videos. Read the rest

The Los Angeles News Service and its owner Robert Tur have sued YouTube for posting copyrighted footage on their website. Specifically, someone posted a video of the beating of trucker Reginald Denny during the 1992 LA riots.

Tur, who apparently has a reputation as “an active litigant”, is asking for $150,000 for each infringement (it was viewed 1000 times) - or $150 million in damages! He decided to sue YouTube rather than the person that upload because Read the rest