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Viacom Statements
The Court Ruling — 6/23/2010
We are disappointed with the judge's ruling, but confident we will win on appeal.
Copyright protection is essential to the survival of creative industries. It is and should be illegal for companies to build their businesses with
creative material they have stolen from others. Without this protection, investment in the development of art and entertainment would be discouraged,
and the many artists and producers who devote their lives to creating it would be hurt. Copyright protection is also critical to the web– because consumers
love professional content and because legitimate websites shouldn't have to compete with pirates.
Full Statement
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The Google Smokescreen, Part Two — 5/21/2010
The second round of summary judgment briefs in Viacom's infringement suit against Google has now been filed. Unfortunately, Google's new brief is a collection of ineffective counterarguments that amount to a smokescreen of invented procedural hurdles and absurd attacks.
Full Statement
Google Continues to Distort the Record — 5/21/2010
On May 21, 2010, Google provided the following "selective highlights" of their case. These "selective highlights"
are deliberately misleading and distort the actual facts and are easily debunked by the truth.
Full Statement
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Summary of Amici Briefs in Support of Viacom in Viacom v. YouTube
May 12, 2010 — Nineteen organizations — including guilds and unions, performing rights societies, content companies, trade associations and public policy groups — filed amici briefs in support of Viacom in the Viacom v. YouTube litigation. The briefs were filed in direct response to a legal brief filed in support of Google by a group of amici. The Google amici urged the Court to absolve site operators of infringement liability once a formal notice–and–takedown program pursuant to the DMCA has been set up and to disregard current case law regarding the standards for vicarious liability in favor of establishing new rules that limit the liability of site operators. The Viacom amici stressed the legal, economic and public policy dangers of following such a course.
AFTRA Amici Brief (PDF)
ASCAP Amici Brief (PDF)
WLF Amicus Brief (PDF)
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Viacom Releases Additional Documents
April 15, 2010 — Today, nine additional exhibits filed with our opening brief are being released to the public for the first time after Google dropped its objections. Newly public are excerpts from the deposition of Google CEO Eric Schmidt as well as documents that show Google's own analysis of YouTube's business prior to the acquisition. Taken together, these exhibits make clear one of our core claims in the case: that Google made a deliberate, calculated business decision not only to profit from copyright infringement, but also to use the threat of copyright infringement to try to coerce rights owners like Viacom into licensing their content on Google's terms.
Full Statement
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Summary Judgment Statement — 3/18/2010
YouTube was intentionally built on infringement and there are countless internal YouTube communications demonstrating that YouTube's founders and its employees
intended to profit from that infringement. By their own admission, the site contained "truckloads" of infringing content and founder Steve Chen explained that
YouTube needed to "steal" videos because those videos make "our traffic soar."
Full Statement
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Viacom Statement on Confidentiality of YouTube Data — 7/7/2008
A recent discovery order by the Federal Court hearing the case of Viacom v. YouTube has triggered concern about what information will be disclosed by Google and
YouTube and how it will be used. Viacom has not asked for and will not be obtaining any personally identifiable information of any YouTube user. The personally
identifiable information that YouTube collects from its users will be stripped from the data before it is transferred to Viacom. Viacom will use the data exclusively
for the purpose of proving our case against You Tube and Google.
Full Statement
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Viacom Press Release — 3/13/2007
NEW YORK, March 13, 2007 – Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B) today announced that it has sued YouTube and Google in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New
York for massive intentional copyright infringement of Viacom's entertainment properties. The suit seeks more than $1 billion in damages, as well as 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.
Download Full Statement (PDF)
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Viacom Takedown Statement — 2/2/2007
Today, Viacom informed YouTube that over 100,000 additional unauthorized clips of its video content – representing 1.2 billion video streams – must be removed immediately from its
site. After months of ongoing discussions with YouTube and Google, it has become clear that YouTube is unwilling to come to a fair market agreement that would make Viacom content
available to YouTube users. Filtering tools promised repeatedly by YouTube and Google have not been put in place, and they continue to host and stream vast amounts of unauthorized
video. YouTube and Google retain all of the revenue generated from this practice, without extending fair compensation to the people who have expended all of the effort and cost to
create it. The recent addition of YouTube-served content to Google Video Search simply compounds this issue.
Full Statement
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