AfterDawn: News

YouTube hit with another lawsuit

Google Inc.'s YouTube service has been hit with yet another copyright infringement lawsuit, this time from David "Dawg" Grisman, who once recorded with The Grateful Dead. He filed a complaint on May 10th seeking an unspecified amount of damages for the illegal posting of his videos. Grisman and his business partner, Craig Miller, claim the legal action is aimed at "helping independent musicians whose music is distributed without authorization by YouTube's owner, Google Inc".

The lawsuit filed specifically accuses that Google "deliberately refuse to take meaningful steps to deter the rampant infringing activity readily apparent on YouTube". "We are looking out for ourselves and all the other people like us - musicians and independent publishers," Grisman told the Associated Press.



The Grateful Dead is noted to have always had a relaxed attitude toward bootleg tapes of its shows but Miller claims there is "a difference between fan bootlegs and the global distribution of Google".

Source:
The Register

Written by: James Delahunty @ 16 May 2007 19:49

• Previous article

• TiVo announces Universal Swivel Search feature

• Next article

• EMI releases full catalogue DRM-free again

• 7 comments

• georgeluv

  thats funny because most surviving members of the greatful dead are very pro file sharing, obviously.

  17.5.2007 05:17 #1

• fungyo

  dipshit! guess he don't like free marketing or is it his music sucks resulting in declining sales so he blames it on someone else.

  17.5.2007 06:29 #2

• navsav

  I am a big Deadhead and have seen Grisman a number of times when he has been in town. He never lets you record (audio) his shows - the Dead, Phish, even Bob Weir in Ratdog let you record audio. So its no surprise that Grisman took this stance.
  
  Grisman is an awesome musician and its too bad he is getting involved in this crap. He should be happy his vids are on U-tube - no one really know this guy outside of the hippie/bluegrass circle.

  17.5.2007 08:06 #3

• borhan9

  What did they think fans do with bootleg versions of their show they will distribute it view Youtube. It's that simple. Give me a break.

  17.5.2007 20:04 #4

• Unfocused

  This is just like Metallica. They used to encourage their fans to record the shows. Look where their fans are now.

  19.5.2007 17:53 #5

• Steve83

  What would happen if filesharers started mailing burned CDs & DVDs back & forth? Would USPS get sued, shut down, & banned?

  19.5.2007 21:13 #6

• Unfocused

  That sounds like a good idea to use the mail service. Tampering with the mail is also a federal offense, so the RIAA really couldn't check into it.

  21.5.2007 16:06 #7