On the issue of Viacom’s takedown notice, and GooTube in general:
In this corner, against GooTube: Mark Cuban
Gootube has taken the arrogant position with big media that “You can’t stop us. You can’t stop people from uploading your copyrighted materials and if you want us to, you have to do a deal with us”. With the little copyright owner who feels their work has been illegally hosted on Google Video they simply try to intimidate them.
And in this corner, against both Viacom and GooTube, Cory Doctorow:
This is shockingly bad behaviour on the part of both Viacom and Google, YouTube’s owner. Viacom’s indiscriminate spamigation is incredibly negligent and evil. They certainly know that a search for a term like “Redbones” will catch videos like Jim Moore’s Sunday nite dinner at Redbones in Somerville, Mass (a 30 second clip of Moore and several friends “having dinner in a ribs place in Somerville”). The idea that they have members of the bar — officers of the court! — signing affidavits swearing that they have a good-faith belief that these clips infringe their copyrights is disgraceful. Practicing law is a privilege, not a right. The law societies should be holding these attorneys to account for this kind of behaviour.
But Google’s lawyers should have known better, too. The DMCA says that if a web-hoster ignores a takedown request, it’s liable for copyright damages if the material in question is found to be infringing. YouTube can’t afford to just let any lunatic — including the savage pricks at Viacom — indiscriminately censor the content it hosts. That’s not fair to its customers.
I haven’t found anyone who is pro Google yet. Anyone?