In an article in the Washington Post, Viacom tries to explain why they are litigating YouTube and Google for several copyright infringements. This litigation is based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA protects service providers by not holding them responsible for the content that users upload. Viacom explains this exclusion does not apply to YouTube because YouTube has knowledge of the copyrighted material and gains profit from the distribution.
I admit that I search for copyrighted material on YouTube. I do this mainly because of the convenience. If something big happens on television and I miss it, YouTube is the first place I go to rather than searching for it on a news' or network's website. Mainly because I feel their websites are cluttered with other things that I am not interested in. I am reminded of the famous headbutt by France's Zinedine Zidane during the World Cup in 2006. There were several versions of the event displayed on the home page, ready for my viewing. This was what everyone wanted to see and YouTube was the medium that supplied it in an easy and efficient way. It was on the homepage because the users were searching for it, linking to it and so on. However, I understand the concern of broadcasting such media and not compensating the correct people. I believe that YouTube is a wonderful service. I want these videos to appear on YouTube. But YouTube can search their archives for pornographic and hateful material so it would be logical to assume YouTube can also search for copyrighted material. But I believe this task would be more time consuming because YouTube would have to be on top of what is "in" in viral video and what people are searching for. I don't believe it would be a logical task to get rid of all copyrighted material. Perhaps a hit quota can be enforced for material to be viewed by YouTube for copyright infringement. I am not an expert on the language in the DMCA so I really can't say whether I completely agree with it. However, I believe it is important to protect copyrighted material and also the service providers involved. But there will always be a gray area and I can reasonable assume that Viacom's legal battle will not be a quick victory if at all. One thing giants like Viacom should take away from YouTube is that there is a very big market out on the internet for instant gratification viral video. Websites should archive their videos in an easy to search database. YouTube itself has flaws in its search. These corporations should learn and evolve. They would be stupid not to because whether or not they decide to be a part of this market, consumers are going to get what they want one way or another.
