Google has come out publicly to say they are going to fight the Viacom lawsuit for $1 billion. They say it’s unfounded. This will be an interesting one to follow. Viacom says that Google/YouTube knowingly let people upload copyrighted videos and put the onus on the copyright holders to tell them to pull it down. The key part to debate is the “knowlingly” part. It’ll be interesting to see if you can still claim the DMCA defense when you’re well aware that copyrighted videos are going up on your site, and you promote it to create growth, value, and revenue.
For a little history, I appeared on KQED’s “This Week in Northern California” a while back to discuss the lawsuit.
