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Viacom appeals against decision in YouTube case

Indiantelevision.com Team

(13 August 2010 5:40 pm)

MUMBAI: US media conglomerate Viacom has filed an appeal with the US Second Court of Appeals in New York, asking federal judges to reconsider the decision in June that went in favour of online video sharing site YouTube and its parent Google.

In a statement Viacom says, "We believe that this ruling by the lower court is fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). We intend to seek to have these issues before the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as soon as possible."

Viacom first sued YouTube three years ago, claiming it had sought to exploit Viacom's copyrighted works for profit. In the suit, Viacom had asked for $1 billion in damages.

In June US District Judge Louis Stanton said that a jury could find that YouTube and Google not only were generally aware of, but welcomed, copyright-infringing material being placed on their website because it was attractive to users.

But Stanton said that YouTube's general awareness of copyright infringement was not the same as knowledge of specific and identifiable infringements of individual items.

When YouTube received specific notice that a particular item infringed a copyright, they swiftly removed it.