Viacom and NBC intervene in Youtube lawsuit

May 9th, 2007

Heavyweights Viacom and NBC have joined in to support Robert Tur’s lawsuit against Youtube.

In a friends-of-the-court brief filed Friday, Viacom and NBC Universal asked a U.S. District Court judge in Los Angeles to deny a motion filed by Google to dismiss Tur’s suit.

Tur filed a copyright infringement suit against Youtube last year prior to their acquisition by Google. Google have now filed a motion to dismiss his case as Youtube is protected under the safe harbour provision.

Viacom and NBC are concerned that the judge’s decision in Tur’s case will have an impact on their own lawsuit against Youtube. In their legal brief they try to emphasise differences between Tur’s case and their own.

(Viacom and NBC Universal) request that the court consider that its works are more popular, more commercial, and far more numerous than Tur’s,” wrote Frackman, of the law firm Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp. “They comprise a significant portion of the infringing works contained on YouTube, viewed billions of times, and are among the most-viewed and highest-rated videos on YouTube.

Roughly translated they are saying ‘we have more copyrighted material than Tur and our copyrighted material is viewed more often and makes more money than his, so his case has no bearing on ours’

What double talk from Viacom and NBC, they’ll support Tur but if he loses then they are nothing to do with him. Personally I think they’re scared.

Source: ZDNet