YouTube - Don't Be Evil!

If you didn't know, Google has an interesting motto: "Don't be evil". Since the debut of the company, Google tried to promote a calm atmosphere for every of its products but, only one of them infringes it. YouTube is the only service owned by Google that created a lot of trouble for the parent company, bringing a huge number of lawsuits against the search giant. Since the Google acquisition in October 2006 for $1.6 billion, YouTube was often sued for copyright infringement after numerous companies or celebrities filed complaints against the company.

The first major lawsuit was filed by Daniela Cicarelli, Ronaldo's ex-wife, who sued Google for publishing videos without authorization. At that time, a Brazilian court closed YouTube Brazil until the search giant managed to remove all the clips with the model. As I said, this was the first major hit recorded by the company. Soon after this, Google was attacked by lots of minor lawsuits filed for the same reason: copyright infringement. Although the company was defended by the laws that sustain YouTube has no fault for the content uploaded by the users, the companies were continuously bringing Google to the judge.

Of course, the most important lawsuit in YouTube's history is the one filed by Viacom, the company that also requires almost the same amount of money invested by Google for the acquisition: $1 billion. The case was quite interesting: Viacom demanded YouTube to remove 100.000 clips from the page because it considered the search giant receives praises without paying for the content. Although Google accepted and started the removal, Viacom filed a complaint against the search giant, accusing it for copyright infringement and requiring $1 billion in damages.

So, YouTube caused more trouble than good things. Is the Google motto proper for the video sharing service's functionality? I guess not, but YouTube can defend itself because the content was uploaded by the users and not by the company's employees.