YouTube Users Threatened by Viacom

If you didn't know it, let me present the short story so far: YouTube the online video sharing service acquired by Google in October 2006 for $1.6 billion, had to delete almost 100.000 clips from the page because Viacom requested the removal. The owner of MTV and Comedy Central demanded the video service to remove the videos because the parent company Google doesn't pay for the content provided by other publishers. YouTube agreed and removed all the videos provided by Viacom but MTV's owner decided to go further and to sue the search giant.

Viacom filed a complaint against Google, requiring $1 billion in damages because the company published videos without authorization. Today, NewsFactor reported that Viacom is now threatening the YouTube users because they uploaded the clips on the Google's video service.

"Viacom called YouTube a "significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google." Whether those "fans" to which Viacom referred mind Google making money from the traffic they drive to the video-sharing site is not the issue. Whether the fans are liable in future copyright suits is. According to some legal experts, YouTube's uploading community could find itself in the line of fire," the publication sustained.

In the past, Fox required some private information from YouTube concerning a user who uploaded pirated copies of its "24" TV program before the product was officially released in US. Google's video service agreed to the demand and sent additional information about the IP and member details to Fox. This time, the matter is a little different because there were no pirated videos and I really believe Google would never blame users for the content published on its page.