Thursday, March 15, 2007

Viacom v. YouTube! Viacom v. YouTube!

There's this excited uproar in all my classes (vast majority being IP courses) about Viacom suing YouTube. In Copyright, my prof read from Viacom's complaint, and I confess I was squirming and sputtering in my seat with responses. I'm writing my paper on the inducement theory after Grokster, as I mentioned, and this is awesomely exciting because I know what they're talking about. (Imagine that.) And to see how the DMCA performs! So exciting. My prof represents Metallica, which is all the information you need to know her position.

"How many of you think Viacom should win this suit?" She asked our class of about 35 kids.

Not one person raised their hand.

I concede it wasn't an entirely reliable survey. Copyright is a three hour class, on Thursday night, and it was almost 9 PM. While a lot of us agreed that the DMCA safe harbor should protect YouTube, I think the rest just love their YouTube. Outcome-determinative.

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