Viacom v. YouTube
In 2010 the Second Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals granted YouTube’s motion for summary judgement in Viacom’s lawsuit against the company (originally filed in 2007) for intentional copyright infringement. Judge Louis Stanton, who issued the ruling, stated that YouTube is protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act from liability through the “safe harbors” that the act affords online service providers.1 In particular, these safe harbors include “system caching,” “information residing on systems or networks at direction of users,” and “information location tools;” in essence, this means that YouTube is not liable for the infringing user generated content (the videos) housed on its site nor the distribution of the content through its searchable archive, provided (a) that it was unaware of the infringement when the users posted the videos, and (b) that when notified of the infringements by Viacom or other companies, it would act in compliance to take down the videos in order to protect the copyrighted material.2
Viacom appealed the ruling in 2012 on the grounds that YouTube had “intentionally” blinded itself to possible copyright infringements on the site by not pre-screening or filtering all uploaded material and by disabling the “flagging” system that allowed Viacom and other companies to notify the site of specific infringing content.3 As the Hollywood Reporter noted, when the appeals court revived the lawsuit and sent the case back to Judge Stanton after Viacom’s continued appeal, the appeal judges observed that “75 percent to 80 percent of all YouTube streams contained copyrighted material… and that suggested ‘that the defendants were conscious that significant quantities of material on the YouTube website were infringing.’”4 In effect, the appeals court agreed with Viacom’s position that, given the percentage of copyrighted content on the site, YouTube and Google must have been aware of possible infringements on the site, if not their specific locations.
Thus, the proceedings in Viacom v. YouTube in early 2013 largely surrounded establishing which party carried the burden of proving whether YouTube was or was not aware of specific infringements, and if YouTube could be found guilty for having general knowledge of infringing activity without knowing the specifics of the content location or what copyright the material was in violation of.5 Viacom continued to argue that because the majority of content uploaded to the site violated copyright, the burden fell to YouTube to prove that it was somehow unaware of the illegal activity. YouTube, on the other hand, argued that without specific awareness of individual videos that were in violation, it could not be held liable for caching the infringing content nor for making it searchable. Moreover, YouTube maintained that it was incapable of identifying all infringing material on the site, and as such it could not be held liable for content that it could not identify.
After reviewing the case a second time, in April 2013 Judge Stanton again ruled in YouTube’s favor. Stanton held that the burden of proof still fell to Viacom, and that since they had failed to demonstrate that YouTube had specific knowledge of individual violations, it could not (a) be held liable for that content, nor (b) be found guilty of willfully blinding itself to that content.6 Moreover, according to a brief published in BloombergLaw, “according to [Stanton’s ruling], general knowledge that infringing works may exist — without knowledge of their specific locations — is insufficient to cross the line into willful blindness and trigger a duty to investigate.”7 In effect, just because YouTube is aware that as a general trend its users upload infringing material does not mean that it is liable for that content, nor does that awareness legally compel the company to actively seek out any or all violations.
Citations
1. Bohroquez Jr, Fernando & McMillan, David M. (2013, April). “Viacom V. YouTube Postscript — Copyright Infringement, Social Media and The Blurred Lines of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s Safe Harbors.” BloombergLaw. Retrieved from: http://about.bloomberglaw.com/practitioner-contributions/viacom-v-youtube-postscript-copyright-infringement-social-media/
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Gardner, Eriq. (2013, April 18). “YouTube Again Beats Viacom’s Massive Copyright Infringement Lawsuit.” The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/youtube-again-beats-viacoms-massive-442233
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Bohroquez Jr, Fernando & McMillan, David M.
Viacom appealed the ruling in 2012 on the grounds that YouTube had “intentionally” blinded itself to possible copyright infringements on the site by not pre-screening or filtering all uploaded material and by disabling the “flagging” system that allowed Viacom and other companies to notify the site of specific infringing content.3 As the Hollywood Reporter noted, when the appeals court revived the lawsuit and sent the case back to Judge Stanton after Viacom’s continued appeal, the appeal judges observed that “75 percent to 80 percent of all YouTube streams contained copyrighted material… and that suggested ‘that the defendants were conscious that significant quantities of material on the YouTube website were infringing.’”4 In effect, the appeals court agreed with Viacom’s position that, given the percentage of copyrighted content on the site, YouTube and Google must have been aware of possible infringements on the site, if not their specific locations.
Thus, the proceedings in Viacom v. YouTube in early 2013 largely surrounded establishing which party carried the burden of proving whether YouTube was or was not aware of specific infringements, and if YouTube could be found guilty for having general knowledge of infringing activity without knowing the specifics of the content location or what copyright the material was in violation of.5 Viacom continued to argue that because the majority of content uploaded to the site violated copyright, the burden fell to YouTube to prove that it was somehow unaware of the illegal activity. YouTube, on the other hand, argued that without specific awareness of individual videos that were in violation, it could not be held liable for caching the infringing content nor for making it searchable. Moreover, YouTube maintained that it was incapable of identifying all infringing material on the site, and as such it could not be held liable for content that it could not identify.
After reviewing the case a second time, in April 2013 Judge Stanton again ruled in YouTube’s favor. Stanton held that the burden of proof still fell to Viacom, and that since they had failed to demonstrate that YouTube had specific knowledge of individual violations, it could not (a) be held liable for that content, nor (b) be found guilty of willfully blinding itself to that content.6 Moreover, according to a brief published in BloombergLaw, “according to [Stanton’s ruling], general knowledge that infringing works may exist — without knowledge of their specific locations — is insufficient to cross the line into willful blindness and trigger a duty to investigate.”7 In effect, just because YouTube is aware that as a general trend its users upload infringing material does not mean that it is liable for that content, nor does that awareness legally compel the company to actively seek out any or all violations.
Citations
1. Bohroquez Jr, Fernando & McMillan, David M. (2013, April). “Viacom V. YouTube Postscript — Copyright Infringement, Social Media and The Blurred Lines of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s Safe Harbors.” BloombergLaw. Retrieved from: http://about.bloomberglaw.com/practitioner-contributions/viacom-v-youtube-postscript-copyright-infringement-social-media/
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Gardner, Eriq. (2013, April 18). “YouTube Again Beats Viacom’s Massive Copyright Infringement Lawsuit.” The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/youtube-again-beats-viacoms-massive-442233
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Bohroquez Jr, Fernando & McMillan, David M.
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