Viacom, a media company, has recently sued Google for $1 billion, for the copyright infringement on the website YouTube. More lawsuits are predicted to come from the company Viacom, who claims the website YouTube has infringed on its copyrights. It is a battle of two giants and the outcome is less than certain.
Over 160,000 clips of materials owned by Viacom have been viewed over a billion times, reports the company. In addition to damages, Viacom wants Google to ensure it will not infringe on such copyrights again. Google claims that they have made great effort in removing such video clips, and is not responsible for the actions users have taken. Horns are being locked in the forthcoming battle.
Other companies like Viacom side with YouTube, claiming it is good advertisement and reputation to have video clips on YouTube. Google reportedly has over $11 billion in cash right now, so $1 Billion could take a large chunk of the money, another reason Viacom is suing.
Google reports that YouTube will continue business as usual- offering free video clips for users to share, upload, and download. The site itself doesn’t upload the videos, but lets users instead upload what they wish.
Google has remained calm in all of the claims, and threats of lawsuits. They are apparently unconcerned with the potential loss of money, and feel extremely confident they will win the court battle. From here, it will be interesting to see how further lawsuits will go, as this will set the standard.
The outcome will be eagerly awaited by many.
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