It is undeniable that YouTube trends have changed over the past few years, but it is a good thing that the company’s legal standing has remained. A federal judge has ruled that the DMCA still offers protection for the streaming site from Viacom’s copyright claims, where this particular ruling would respond to Viacom’s appeal of a 2010 case, where said case stated that YouTube is not to be held responsible for copyright infringing content uploaded by its users. Viacom has since sought to revise that particular ruling, insisting that YouTube was “willfully blind” towards such activities.
While that could very well be the case, Judge Louis Stanton sees things in a different light, saying, “Knowledge of the prevalence of infringing activity, and welcoming it, does not itself forfeit the safe harbor. To forfeit that, the provider must influence or participate in the infringement.” Considering how YouTube does not do any kind of pre-screening for its content before making it available live, and because it has always adhered to removing infringing content upon request, the video sharing behemoth is not liable in this case. It is understandable that Viacom feels aggrieved, and they will definitely appeal this ruling and take it to a jury if and where possible.
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