Viacom orders YouTube to remove 100,000 videos
After months of negotiations with Google, Viacom has asked YouTube to remove over 100,000 videos representing 1.2 billion streams of copyrighted content.
This is the first public, mass takedown notice from an American media company. Previously, Comedy Central (owned by Viacom) had asked YouTube to remove some clips, though the details of that request were never made public. And last year, a Japanese copyright group asked YouTube to remove 30,000 videos. YouTube has also been subpoenaed by Paramount and Fox, and sued by Robert Tur for copyright infringement.
More details from Paidcontent and the Wall Street Journal. Marketwatch buddy Ben Charny says there's no comment from YouTube or Google yet, and that News Corp's Fox, which subpoenaed YouTube last week, will not be making similar demands.
The long and short of it: Google has been encouraging content owners to post their clips on YouTube and measure the audience. Since YouTube's demographic is every media company's dream, and since Google ostenisbly has the best ad-targeting technology around (though that's unproven with video), Google is arguing that advertisers will want to pay big bucks for placement on YouTube, and media companies should thus be very happy to work with Google. Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the company's Q4 conference call this week: "We are encouraging copyright owners to submit content to us and then to measure how many fans, how many tremendous viewers, what that community is… that's a very, very qualified viewer."
Viacom, however, is apparently not willing to be held hostage by YouTube's large audience, or Google's attempts to use that scale as a bargaining chip. As Viacom's counsel told the Mercury News, Viacom had reached the point of "zero tolerance" after sending YouTube tens of thousands of takedown notices since the video-sharing site went live more than a year ago. Viacom is willing to continue negotiations, but expects the content to be removed by this afternoon.
Update: Statement from a YouTube rep: "It's unfortunate that Viacom will no longer be able to benefit from YouTube's passionate audience which has helped to promote many of Viacom's shows. We have received a DMCA takedown request from Viacom, and we will comply with their request. We take copyright issues very seriously. We prohibit users from uploading infringing material, and we cooperate with all copyright holders to identify and promptly remove infringing content as soon as we are officially notified. We will continue to work with content partners large and small to provide them with a platform to promote their content and engage and grow their audiences."
