YouTube's inability to remove copyrighted clips could get it sued
Lest you be bewitched by the Google execs behind the curtain, let me disabuse you of any notion that YouTube's purge of Viacom videos actually worked.
Although the video-sharing site said on Friday they would capitulate to Viacom's demands to remove 100,000 videos, a brief scan of the site shows there's still a bevy of copyrighted Viacom material available. And we're not talking esoteric TV pilots or 30-second cartoon clips. Simply searching for "Daily Show" returns 2644 results, many of which are actual clips from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Some of those clips were uploaded as long ago as last June.
Under the DMCA safe harbor provisions, YouTube is only responsible for removing videos for which they received a takedown notice. But a) I find it hard to believe Viacom didn't type "daily show" when searching for their content on YouTube, and b) I imagine, if push comes to shove, that Viacom could make a case in court that they are unable to find each individual infinging clip on YouTube, but such clips are known to exist.
