Just letting you know I went to a peace rally once. Yeah a lot of people where there and really into it. Lots of people sent letters to GWBush and nothing really happened. The only time I see things like this work if there is a union at a company and employees refuse to work for better pay.

I never really heard of anything else being won by picketing
or sending letters. I could be wrong. I mean if you find me something that won just off of that please link it here to the sight. Maybe we can see what there odds where to see if this has a chance.

So you all see nothing wrong with a site allowing others the ability to post copyrighted material, and obviously not doing enough to crack down on the amount of it on there. So I think Viacom is entitled to some money. For all the people that do put up original material, yeah that's fine and I think they should have a place to do it (btw there are tons of other sites out there like YouTube that don't have as much copyrighted material on them where people can upload ORIGINAL video they made). While we might enjoy being able to watch these videos for free it's still piracy, and piracy is still stealing. Whether it's altruistic or not is up for debate, but the lawfulness of it sure isn't. So think of it this way, if they can't go after YouTube, then they start going after users like the RIAA did. I think YouTube can afford to lose a few million and keep their site less copyright infringing.

And to end this YouTube DOES MAKE MONEY OFF THE SITE, and therefore indirectly through the videos hosted on there. Just like TV they get their money from advertising. Just this money is not shared with the contributors of videos on their site, like it is with a TV broadcasting company. THIS is the problem at hand. Like I had said previously, if YouTube made no profit off of this I would be a little more on their side, but they do, so I feel no remorse for what they have brought on themselves.

So I guess if you support piracy that's your thing, but I know I don't support rampant piracy as it destroys the economy, and that's a bad thing (tm). I know I'd be pretty pissed if someone just took something I spent years on for free.

If I think a company is charging too much for what they offer, I either find and support a cheaper alternative, or just go without. As much as we don't like to admit it, most of us are at our base greedy, and we need somekind of order to function in an orderly fashion (else we be cast into anarchy). And our value system is what provides this order, so if no one supports anyone then how will anyone accumulate any money to get the things they need. Even in a barter system there is an underlying exchange rate that can be though of as what cash represents.

So I say YouTube is getting what they had coming, by not having strict enough rules on copyright protected material, and not making themselves completely unliable (though even then the fault would fall to the users). So in the end piracy is still against the law, whether it's right or not may be fun to debate, but at the end of the day you can still get sued or arrested for it.

While I won't defend Viacom as a company (as I personally am not a big fan of large corporations either, as they should not have the same power and privledges as individuals), I will defend their right under the law to protect their copyright, as if they don't it diminishes the worth of all copyrights. I think copyrights are a good thing to keep people from just outright stealing your work and claiming it as their own.

Obviously this case is not quite on the level I was alluding to earlier, but I still think Viacom is right in this case to defend their copyright.

Viacom LIKES anal.

The way I see it, how many of these type of videos get uploaded? As long as Youtube takes them down when told, I don't see any reason that they should get sued. Cartoon Network hasn't said anything about there being Freakazoid episodes up there. I'm sure they know about them.

Indirectly. But it's not the same thing as some guy putting the entire series of Freakazoid, clearly recorded off of Cartoon Network due to the CN watermark in the corner, onto a couple DVDs and selling a boatload in eBay.

Well it's also not much different than file sharing, since though you can't physically download the file, most people are connected to the net pretty much the whole time their computer is on. Just saying that internet radio stations and such pay the companies they get the music from, from the income they get from ads. YouTube to the best of my knowledge does not. Really they should have preventative measures to keep copyrighted material off the site, not things that do so afterward.

So this is really the problem, either YouTube should prescreen videos (I'm sure they have the money to pay the staff to do so), or pay a small amount of their ad revenue to the various companies that they have their material on the site. If they don't they are allowing copyright infringement without compensation. It is YouTube's responsibility to make sure there are not infringing videos on their site, it's not really the other companies responsibility to scour it. Just like if you were to start hosting episodes on your site, you could be sued.

Youtube doesn't get their pirated videos directly from the people who originally produced it.

I wonder how many reported videos they must have to go through each day. Well, obviously they just got 100,000 or so.

@Draygone
Just because one company (Cartoon Network) chooses not to sue doesn't mean that other companies don't have the right to sue. That's the point of intellectual property: owners get to their own strategy with respect to their own property.

@thetruecoolness
I think because the Digital Millinieum Copyright act, to legally comply, Youtube has to pull content when notiifed. I don't think they need to burden beyond legal requirements anymore than an ISP has to be responsible for giving access to someone who pirates. It is not practical and that is why they are allowed to let post until informed to pull.

Oh, no, I wasn't commenting on how Cartoon Network wasn't suing. I was commenting on how they weren't doing anything at all. And if they did do something, really, just telling Youtube to take those videos off would've been good enough, in my opinion.

@Draygone
Maybe we are in agreement, but what I'm saying is that different owners have different property and different violaters infringe on the property in different ways, so cartoon network doing nothing about any type of violation
is THEIR WAY ONLY of dealing and Viacom has their way. Even if it is less respectable, preferable, or popular, it seems to still be legally reasonable for Viacomto choose to sue, even if they stand to have the case dismissed before trial or lose the case at trial.