Viacom v. YouTube

Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. was a court case in which Viacom sued YouTube for alleged copyright infringement of their material. While Viacom initially won the case, YouTube and their parent company, Google, later ended up winning by arguing that the website was protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and Viacom purposefully uploaded their material to manipulate the case.
==Overview==
On March 13, 2007, the American conglomerate, Viacom (now Paramount Global), had sued YouTube and Google for $1 billion dollars for four cases of plagiarism. Viacom argued that 100,000 videos uploaded to the website were their property (i.e. SpongeBob SquarePants and Comedy Central) and were done without their permission. YouTube had claimed they were unaware of the videos on the website and had stated they were protected by the DMCA safe harbor law, which means that YouTube and Google shouldn't be held accountable for infringement of other's material. 
==Court cases==
===July 2008===
In 2008, YouTube implemented their Content ID system, in which companies could quickly identify what counts as plagiarized material and claim the videos as their own. In July 2008, the judge, Louis Stanton, ordered Google and YouTube to hand over 12 terabytes of information about users visiting the website. YouTube had argued that they weren't forced to because they were protected under the Video Privacy Protection Act. Judge Stanton revoked the claim saying they weren't a "videotape service provider". Multiple users heavily criticized this decision on YouTube, fearing their privacy could be leaked online. Due to the backlash, Viacom allowed users' data to be anonymous. 
===June 2010===
YouTube's chief council, Zahavah Levine later showed that Viacom had purposefully uploaded videos of their property, under different online pseudonyms. Google and YouTube criticized Viacom as some of their employees couldn't be able to tell what videos were uploaded by companies or online users. On June 23, 2010, Judge Stanton leaned towards YouTube and Google's defense since YouTube was actually protected by the DMCA safe harbor law. He also says that YouTube and Google would have difficulty on what videos were Viacom's and which weren't. Immediately after the decision, Viacom had decided to appeal the court case. 
===April 2012===
When Viacom allowed the data handover to be anonymous, the privacy of YouTube employees didn't count. As a result, Viacom used emails between staff members as evidence, using their previous claim that YouTube was aware of the plagiarized material. On April 5, 2012, judges José Cabranes and Debra Ann Livingston revoked Stanton's decision as they argued that YouTube was fully aware of the infringed videos. The jury argued that YouTube still wasn't eligible under the safe harbor law since they violates four qualifications. However, the courts agreed that YouTube still followed three of the four factors of safe harbor, including transcoding, playback, and thumbnails. On April 18, 2013, Judge Stanton finally concluded by ruling in favor in YouTube and Google. In 2014, Viacom settled out of court with YouTube and Google.
==References==
Category:History of YouTube