News  /  April 18, 2013  /  ,

YouTube wins in Viacom copyright challenge

KHIKS founding/managing partner Larry Iser was quoted by Billboard in Alex Pham’s article on Viacom’s lawsuit against YouTube for copyright violation stemming from YouTube users’ posting of Viacom content without permission.

U.S. District Court Judge Louis L. Stanton reaffirmed his 2010 decision that the burden of identifying what must be taken down falls on the copyright owner, and that as long as YouTube removes infringing content when requested to do so, there is no violation of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), the governing statute.

“The District Court relies on the plain language of the DMCA to squarely place the burden of notification of infringing materials on the copyright owner,” said Larry.  “Were it otherwise, as Viacom contended, the ‘safe harbor’ contemplated by Congress in the DMCA would turn into a copyright minefield for service providers, ultimately threatening their existence.”

Read the Full Article, including Larry’s comments in paragraphs 6 and 7.