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YouTube's founders hoped to build a massive user base as quickly as possible and then sell the site. "Our dirty little secret... is that we actually just want to sell out quickly," said Karim at one point. In an e-mail, Chen talked about “concentrat[ing] all of our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil.”
"In response to YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley’s August 9, 2005 e-mail, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen stated: 'but we should just keep that stuff on the site. I really don’t see what will happen. what? someone from cnn sees it? he happens to be someone with power? he happens to want to take it down right away. he get in touch with cnn legal. 2 weeks later, we get a cease & desist letter. we take the video down.'"
"A month later, [YouTube manager Maryrose] Dunton told another senior YouTube employee in an instant message that 'the truth of the matter is probably 75-80 percent of our views come from copyrighted material.' She agreed with the other employee that YouTube has some 'good original content' but 'it’s just such a small percentage.'"
Viacom argues that the startup's strategy was, at its core, a decision to profit from copyright infringement. It doesn't matter whether YouTube showed ads on its video pages or not (for years, it did not, apparently concerned about just this issue); to Viacom, the entire business strategy was a way of profiting from infringement.
Knowingly profiting from copyrighted materials
joined:Dec 23, 2009
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If the copyright holder isn't doing everything in his power to reduce infringement, why should anyone else do anything at all? It's basic equity.
That logic is like saying that it's okay for a thief to come in to my house because I only had one lock on my front door and not fourteen.
joined:Dec 23, 2009
posts:52
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ViaCom hired people to upload copyrighted materials so that they could claim YouTube is hosting such materials
Revealing e-mails and other internal communications unsealed Thursday as part of a $1 billion lawsuit brought by Viacom show that many top Googlers — all the way up to co-founder Sergey Brin — were concerned about YouTube's copyright piracy problems and how they could reflect badly on Google's ethics.
"As Sergey pointed out," Google executive David Eun wrote in a June 2006 e-mail circulated among top Google executives, "is changing a policy to increase traffic knowing beforehand that we'll profit from illegal downloads how we want to conduct our business? Is this Googley?"
"I can"t believe your recommending buying YouTube. Besides the ridiculous valuation they think they"re entitled to, they"re 80% illegal pirated content."
"” A May 10, 2006, e-mail from Google Video business product manager Ethan Anderson to Google executive Patrick Walker
"As Sergey pointed out," Google executive David Eun wrote in a June 2006 e-mail circulated among top Google executives, "is changing a policy to increase traffic knowing beforehand that we'll profit from illegal downloads how we want to conduct our business? Is this Googley?"
There are tons of America's Funniest Home Video shows clipped and a bunch of others, we ALL know it, Youtubes ALL knows it, and that fact alone means the safe harbor provision is already worthless and they can't officially claim the Sgt. Schultz defense "I KNOW NUTHINK! NUTHINK!" when it's on THEIR SERVERS.
Google owns Youtube. Surely their attorney's knew this during their due diligence of Youtube prior to the purchase.
...
This fact is powerfully demonstrated by examining the countless errors that Viacom and many other content owners make in sending takedown notices to YouTube. YouTube routinely received takedown requests that were subsequently withdrawn after the media companies who sent them realized that their notices had been targeted to content that they themselves had uploaded or authorized.
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These self-inflicted infringement claims led to counternotices from Viacom’s marketers, sheepish retractions from BayTSP, and even to the suspension of Viacom’s own authorized YouTube accounts for supposed copyright violations.
Again, google didn't upload the content and users agreed not to upload copyright content while creating accounts.
A safe harbor is a provision of a statute or a regulation that reduces or eliminates a party's liability under the law, on the condition that the party performed its actions in good faith. Legislators include safe-harbor provisions to protect legitimate or excusable violations. An example of safe harbor is performance of a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment by a property purchaser: thus effecting due diligence and a "safe harbor" outcome if future contamination is found caused by a prior owner.
Unfortunately, not only didn't they clean it up, they allowed the problem to persist.
"In a July 19, 2005 e-mail to YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen wrote: 'jawed, please stop putting stolen videos on the site. We’re going to have a tough time defending the fact that we’re not liable for the copyrighted material on the site because we didn’t put it up when one of the co-founders is blatantly stealing content from other sites and trying to get everyone to see it.'"
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 3:50 am (utc) on Mar 22, 2010]