Judge Dismisses Viacom’s Lawsuit against Google for Infringing Videos Uploaded to YouTube.

Judge Louis L. Stanton of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has granted Google’s motion for summary judgment (opinion and order embedded below) and dismissed Viacom’s lawsuit that alleged that that Google was liable under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for videos uploaded to YouTube that infringed Viacom’s copyrights because Google had “actual knowledge” and was “aware of facts and circumstances from which infringing activity [was] apparent” but failed to “act[] expeditiously to stop it, “received a financial benefit directly attirubutable to the infringing activity” and “had the right and ability to control such activity” and did not engage in these infringements solely by providing “storage at the direction of the user” or any other Internet function specificied in the DMCA.”

The decision is a straightforward application of the DMCA’s “safe harbor” provision, which insulates service providers from liability for activities by their users that infringe copyrights. The judge acknowledged that Viacom was right about its central contention: Google was “not only aware of, but welcomed, copyright-infringing material being placed on their website.” (Opinion and Order at 6) Nonetheless, he also noted that Google designates an agent who, when he receives a takedown notice, “swiftly” removes infringing videos. (Id.)

The judge concluded that for Google to be liable under the DMCA Viacom would have to show more than that Google knew that infringing activity “in general” was occurring on YouTube because the DMCA does not require that degree of responsibility on service providers for the actions of its users:

To let knowledge of a generalized practice of infringement in the industry, or of a proclivity of users to post infringing materials, impose responsibility on service providers to discover which of their users’ postings infringe a copyright would contravene the structure and operation of the DMCA.

By insulating service providers from liability for infringements by their users, the Judge Stanton concluded, the DMCA makes perfect sense because it would be far too burdensome for the service provider to make individual judgments on each of its user’s activities to determine whether those activities were infringing:

The infringing works . . . may be a small fraction of millions of works posted [on the service provider’s] platform, [and the service provider] cannot by inspection whether the use has been licensed by the owner, or whether its posting is a “fair use” of the material, or even whether its copyright owner or licensee objects to its posting. The DMCA is explicit: it shall not be construed to condition “safe harbor” protection on a “service provider monitoring its service or affirmatively seeking facts indicating infringing activity . . . .”  (citations omitted)

Moreover, the fact Google took down over 100,000 videos within one business day in response to a single, mass take-down notice sent by Viacom was proof to Judge Stanton that the existing regime works perfectly well:

Indeed, the present case shows that the DMCA notification regime works efficiently: when Viacom over a period ov months accumulated some 100,000 videos and then sent one mass take-down notice on February 2, 2007, by the next business day YouTube had removed virtually all of them.

Viacom v YouTube Summary Judgment