This morning, Tech Crunch mentioned that YouTube had sent him a Cease & Desist Letter, earlier on we asked if YouTube would have taken this action had Google not bought them.
More interestingly, Tech Dirt raises an interesting point:
YouTube’s lawyers pull out the Grokster “inducement” standard, in claiming that the tool “induces” people to infringe on YouTube’s user’s copyrights. It makes sense, because that’s about the only argument they’d have against the tool, since the tool (or its developer) aren’t actually guilty of direct copyright infringement. However, that’s extremely dangerous territory for YouTube to get into, because there are plenty (Hi, Mark Cuban), who believe that YouTube itself is guilty of “inducing” copyright infringement itself. The decision by YouTube’s lawyers to stretch the definition of “inducement” could very well come back to bite them — especially if whoever sues them points out that the company’s own lawyers seem to have a very broad definition of the term themselves.
Second, YouTube keeps wanting to claim a clear separation between themselves and the actual copyright of the videos that are being uploaded for very sound legal reasons. Yet, here, they’re suddenly sending their lawyers out, not to protect their own copyright, but the copyright of the uploaded videos. That seems to be suggesting that they really do have a closer connection to the legal status of the videos than they’d like to claim to remain untouched by the legal liability.
I can speak from experience to say that in corporate legal matters, sometimes the best tool is what your opponent’s lawyers and the opposition in general submits. Earlier this year when News Corporation’s FIM’s IGN unit sued me and tried to shut my company down, I easily beat them (I repped myself at the time) by picking apart their evidence and exhibits. They said so much to dismantle their own case that I am shocked they have yet to simply drop the matter. Given everything they said, they even left themselves open to a defamation counter-suit…
Point is: YouTube and its parent Google have a lot more to lose than gain in this matter.
As we have said time and time again, before unleashing the lawyers out on someone, make sure you recognize the stakes. Generally speaking, you have very little to gain and quite a bit to lose. In my case, News Corp. had nothing to gain and maybe they figured they had nothing to lose… but with YouTube, this could surely come back to haunt them.
We’ll keep an eye on this for sure, and keep you posted on how our little legal adventure turns out as well.
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