England's most prestigious soccer organization Football Association Premier League filed suit against YouTube in New York for violating copyright law. Now NBC Universal also sides against YouTube.
This is the second time that YouTube is accused of violating copyright law. The first was Viacom that accused YouTube in support of journalist Bob Tur whose video that he shot during the 1992 Los Angeles riots was posted in YouTube without his permission.
The number of accusations against YouTube rises, but YouTube still has not yet decided what to do with the users posted copyrighted video. The users are supposed to be carefully reading the terms and conditions of the site, that clearly mention not to post copyrighted materials. But users sometimes ignore these terms, putting the site under risk of lawsuits.
"These suits simply misunderstand the (DMCA), which balances the rights of copyright holders against the need to protect Internet communications," Kent Walker, Google's general counsel, said in an e-mail Sunday. "As a result, they threaten the way people legitimately exchange information."
YouTube is one of the largest video-sharing sites that Google acquired last October for $1.65 billion. It has 50 million users worldwide that post video materials.
YouTube was in good relationships with most media companies and even with CBS and NBC Universal. Their video materials were permitted to be posted in YouTube for the younger audience who are more friendly with internet.
"Most content owners understand that we respect copyrights," Walker said. "We work every day to help them manage their content, and we are developing state-of-the-art tools to let them do that even better."
Despite of that relationships NBC Universal joined Viacom in the case of journalist Tur, saying that YouTube has blocked pornography and hate speeches, but has forgotten about clips owned by television networks.
"YouTube cannot qualify for safe harbor because it is not the type of Internet service provider contemplated by Congress," attorneys with Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp wrote on behalf of clients Viacom and NBC Universal.
NBC Universal's next step is a large video site that is planning to open this summer and to have contracts with media companies, film studios. This site is supposed to be a concurrent for YouTube.
By Ruzan Harutyunyan for HULIQ
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