RIAA president calls YouTube victory 'bad public policy'

RIAA president calls YouTube victory 'bad public policy'
RIAA President Cary Sherman recently posted a statement responding to last week's summary judgement in the Viacom lawsuit against YouTube decrying the decision as a "dangerously expansive reading of the liability immunity provisions of the DMCA." He also called it "bad public policy."

He went on to claim the decision will "will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites."



This is nothing surprising coming from the RIAA. Like the MPAA and Business Software Alliance (BSA), they have consistently argued service providers should be responsibile for identifying copyright infringement rather than the content owners themselves.

But as Judge Louis Stanton pointed out in his decision on YouTube's DMCA defense, this responsibility falls solely on the shoulders of the content owners except in rare cases where the infringement is obvious without any investigation.

He wrote, "The DMCA is explicit: it shall not be construed to condition "safe harbor" protection on "a service provider monitoring its service or affirmatively seeding facts indicating infringing activity.""

Judge Stanton went on to explain, "the present case shows that the DMCA notification regime works efficiently," pointing out that it took less than a single business day for YouTube to remove nearly 100,000 videos once they received Viacom's takedown notices.

You can read the entire judgement below.

In his attack on the decision, Sherman claimed, "We need businesses to be more proactive in addressing infringement, not less." But the question is what do they need it for?

Clearly they don't need any such thing for their DMCA rights to be protected, which is exactly why YouTube was awarded a summary judgement.

In fact, the only reason they would "need" service providers to police copyright more closely is to avoid the expense of doing it themselves.

As anyone familiar with fair use can tell you, figuring out whether a work qualifies is fair use isn't possible for a computer. It can only be done by a human, and even then there's a lot of gray area which can only be definitively ruled on by a judge.

Additionally, there's no way for a service provider like YouTube to know whether a particular use of copyrighted content is licensed or not.

The RIAA isn't just looking for help. They're demanding the impossible.

Viacom v YouTube Summary Judgment

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 1 Jul 2010 20:10
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  • 23 comments
  • toked

    Squirm you RIAA scum! SQUIRM!

    1.7.2010 20:30 #1

  • Josipher

    Originally posted by toked: Squirm you RIAA scum! SQUIRM! lol!

    1.7.2010 20:36 #2

  • Jhult

    *Laughs hysterically* Hear hear!

    1.7.2010 21:44 #3

  • KillerBug

    It is a bad day to be a Nazi I guess.

    1.7.2010 23:28 #4

  • Mysttic

    Let this case set precedence, and hopefully this foolishness of the RIAA avoiding paying out for their own damn ignorance be done with.

    2.7.2010 00:44 #5

  • ZippyDSM

    Thats good public policy because it allows liberty over assumed protection....

    Until lobbying is a hanging offense I choose anarchy!
    Ah modern gaming its like modern film only the watering down of fiction and characters is replaced with shallow and watered down mechanics, gimmicks and shiny-er "people".
    http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/

    2.7.2010 07:25 #6

  • xtago

    The FAST Australia (RIAA) just got told they have to pay all the legal costs again of their own court case against iinet.

    it's around 6+ million they owe.

    saying they didn't think they should pay back the full amount and they should get a reduce amount because they got some agreements to what they said in court.

    That the judge last week canned all that for a 2nd time and said they must pay the full amount and no more apples will be granted.

    FAST are seeing if the can appeal in some other way see what happens.

    I think judges and courts are catching up with the way RIAA are trying to side step laws and now turning around and pulling RIAA's head in big time.

    Sueing 5000 people the other month doesn't bode well if you want to win in court as people get fed up with the same cases over and over, they become pointless.

    2.7.2010 09:40 #7

  • KillerBug

    Wouldn't it be great if all the RIAA people ended up in jail...put them in maximum security; with the rest of the rapists.

    2.7.2010 21:38 #8

  • ntense69

    i think these riaa lawsuits are a bunch of crap and im glad they lost and i hope the loose even more maybe then they will bring prices down on merchandise and more artist get off major label contracts and make music independently or for a crap load of musicians to create there own label

    3.7.2010 00:44 #9

  • RastaDave

    RIAA 0 - THE PEOPLE 1

    3.7.2010 14:37 #10

  • juventini

    Originally posted by KillerBug: It is a bad day to be a Nazi I guess. yup.

    Forza Juve!!

    6.7.2010 18:29 #11

  • jacobjpos

    I think that enough is enough this vultures cant grab all of the money that is out there
    At some point the response has to com from the public at large how many time do thy expect to be paid for the same thing

    9.7.2010 08:37 #12

  • kfir1

    I hope this hungry money grabbing t$rd gets run over by train. LOL.

    9.7.2010 09:13 #13

  • kfir1

    I hope this hungry money grabbing t$rd gets run over by train. LOL.

    9.7.2010 09:13 #14

  • editmon

    Looks like, in my opinion, RIAA President Cary Sherman forgot to pull his head out of his south end ... yet again.

    9.7.2010 11:20 #15

  • rick930

    What gets me is that for all the "logic" the RIAA, MPAA and these other Hitler league groups think they are using, they seem to be missing the bigger picture. The more they go after those who actually listen, watch, and in general use the very products they are suing people over, the less people will be inclined to pay for them. They've created their own "Catch 22" scenario, sure they may on occasion scare the pants off someone (not me that's for sure :P) and get some measley payoff, but in the end the lose all the big cases, and then help steer laws and future legislation against them because of the failures they create along the way. At some point someone in these groups has to wake up and realize they are on their own creating the very demise of the industry that they claim file sharing is. They are so stuck in the old ways of doing things that they don't realize the real profit potential of file sharing. Thank goodness a lot of individual music and movie companies, along with artists, are starting to and are pulling away from these groups.

    Yes this is a good day, and with it many more will come as these punks spend millions of dollars trying to defend unsustainable policies, all the while prosecuting someone over what amounts to a $.99 piece of music. Someone in these industries has to wake up and see that the costs for seeking out file sharers does not make them money, but in the end is costing them tons of money hand-over-fist in legal fees, and lost product revenue.

    9.7.2010 12:15 #16

  • Daniel_1

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..ehh, umm Hrum.

    uh Sorry bout that. We should not make fun of the poor RIAA and MPAA because they now have a few billion less to play with.


    Boy isnt sarcasm a wonderful thing?

    9.7.2010 12:46 #17

  • dufas

    What I find ironic is that politically, the RIAA and MPAA lawyers represent people who in their political views are against 'BIG' business and continually make public statements against corporations and for the "little people".

    It seems that "Power to the people" only applies when they can make a profit from "The people" other wise, they sue anybody and everybody they can.

    9.7.2010 13:35 #18

  • 19877891

    I agree with dufas

    10.7.2010 00:57 #19

  • babelfish

    lmao - funny how people who make roads arent to blame for the deaths on roads, yet the RIAA want this.

    also amusing how the USA companies can steal IP from all over the globe and the US courts help them, yet they cry like babies when the boot is on the other foot.

    also - dont they owe billions to artists whose work is put on compilations but they are never paid. oh the irony.

    12.7.2010 10:12 #20

  • Mez

    Originally posted by RastaDave: RIAA 0 - THE PEOPLE 1 Well it is really something like RIAA 256 the people 7.

    What the RIAA claims as the foundation for their rights is dubious then they build on it up into the clouds. A few weeks ago 60 minutes did a piece on a new set of blood suckers. If you use a quote from Mark Twain and you make a good deal of money of it. This guy will try to find the heirs of the guy then get you to sign some papers. Then he sues the guy that made money off Mark Twain on the behalf of the heirs. The heirs probably get 5% but it is found money for them.

    Why in the US does a drug patent costing a billion dollars to develop lasts 17 yrs but an idea is protected for a century.

    In the future will will probably have to pay up if we hum a tune.

    Pretty soon toilets will have a coin slot so you have to pay the plumber who installed your toilet to use it.

    12.7.2010 14:55 #21

  • Mez

    Originally posted by dufas: they sue anybody and everybody they can. I just trimmed out the fat. Now it exactly right.

    12.7.2010 14:58 #22

  • badbadbad

    this is ridiculous! 1 working day to remove 100k videos that may infringe on Viacom's rights... that's some hefty work for Youtube... they should be glad YT have been so helpful...

    http://www.drugreality.info

    12.7.2010 16:07 #23

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