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Google Calls Viacom Suit on YouTube Unfounded
« on: 2007-05-01 00:30:54 » |
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The Battle of the Titans Continues
--Walter
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The New York Times
May 1, 2007
Google Calls Viacom Suit on YouTube Unfounded
By MIGUEL HELFT
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 30 — Responding to Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement suit over video clips on YouTube, Google said Monday that it would not back off, declaring that the law was on its side.
“We are not going to let this lawsuit distract us,” Michael Kwun, managing counsel for litigation at Google, told reporters.
In its response to the lawsuit, filed Monday in United States District Court in Manhattan, Google said that Viacom’s allegations were unfounded and asked for a judgment dismissing the complaint.
In March, Viacom, the parent company of MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, sued Google and YouTube, the video sharing site it acquired last year, saying they were deliberately building a business on a library of copyrighted video clips without permission. Earlier this year, Viacom had asked YouTube to take down 100,000 clips that it said infringed on its copyrights.
Google’s court filing gives few new details of its legal thinking, which relies heavily on the so-called “safe harbor” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, enacted in 1998. Those provisions generally hold that Web sites’ owners are not liable for copyright material uploaded by others to their site as long as they promptly remove the material when asked to do so by the copyright owner.
The 1998 law “balances the rights of copyright holders and the need to protect the Internet as an important new form of communication,” Google said in its filing. “By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications, Viacom’s complaint threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression.”
Viacom said Google’s response misses the mark. “This response ignores the most important fact of the suit, which is that YouTube does not qualify for safe harbor protection under the D.M.C.A.,” Viacom said in a statement. “It is obvious that YouTube has knowledge of infringing material on their site, and they are profiting from it.”
Mr. Kwun, the Google lawyer, said there had been no talks between Google and Viacom to discuss a settlement. “We feel pretty confident about the case and are ready to take it to court,” he added.
In the suit, Viacom had complained that it was unfairly forced to devote significant resources to police YouTube. “Every day we have to scour the entirety of what is available on YouTube, so we have to look for our stuff,” Philippe P. Dauman, Viacom’s chief executive, said in an interview earlier this year.
In recent weeks, Google’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, has said that the company will soon unveil new tools that will make it easier for copyright owners to spot their content on YouTube. Mr. Schmidt had said that those tools, to be called Claim Your Content, will make Viacom’s complaint moot.
But Mr. Kwun said Monday that Google was not compelled by law to develop those tools or to make them available to content owners.
To defend itself, Google has retained Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a well-known Silicon Valley firm that has been one of its principal outside law firms.
In addition, it retained the law firm Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott, which led George W. Bush’s efforts to stop the recount of the Florida vote during the contested 2000 presidential election. The firm has also represented companies including DuPont, Bayer, Phillips Petroleum, General Motors and Merck in its Vioxx product liability cases.
The first case management conference, at which the judge may set an initial timeline for the trial, is scheduled for July 27, Mr. Kwun said.
Google has asked for a jury trial.
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