June 25, 2010 | Online

YouTube beats Viacom

Viacom sued YouTube over copyright infringement. Viacom lost.

A federal court decided this week that YouTube was not responsible for Viacom's properties being uploaded on the free video-sharing site, The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), said the judge, protected YouTube against claims of copyright infringement.

Viacom argued that “tens of thousands of videos on YouTube, resulting in hundreds of millions of views, were taken unlawfully from Viacom’s copyrighted works without authorization.” The company claimed YouTube was ultimately liable because it had “actual knowledge” and were “aware of facts and circumstances from which infringing activity was apparent,” but failed to “act expeditiously” to stop it.

YouTube countered that any request to remove copyrighted material was addressed as quickly as possible. This was supported by the evidence in the case; a takedown order from Viacom, listing 100,000 videos in question, resulted in nearly all vids being removed within 24 hours.

Viacom is appealing the ruling. Perhaps a case of this nature should go directly to the Supreme Court for a final ruling one way or the other.

YouTube Wins Case Against Viacom [XBiz]