In a classic “depends how you look at it” development, ISPs came up both winners and losers in the fall-out from Google’s victory over Viacom this week in a $1 billion lawsuit alleging copyright infringement on YouTube. The quick details: Viacom asked Google to remove infringing video content. Google agreed, taking down more than 100,000 pieces of content. Viacom sued anyway, claiming Google wasn’t doing enough and benefited from the illegal posting. This week, a federal judge ruled in Google’s favor.
Hollywood Reporter summed up the ruling:
In his decision, Judge Stanton analyzes whether [the Digital Millenium Copyright Act] applies to situations where a defendant has “general awareness” of infringing activity. The judge analyzes the history of the legislation to determine whether YouTube had an implicit responsibility to take affirmative steps to clean up its network or whether it could rely on safe harbor protection if it merely but dutifully responded to notices of active infringement.
“The DMCA is explicit,” writes Judge Stanton, saying that the law shouldn’t be construed to condition safe harbor protections on an ISP actively seeking out infringement. As such, a website like Google only needs to respond to complaints.
For ISPs, the ruling provides some level cover from similar lawsuits. At the same time, any development that could potentially encourage more high-bandwidth streaming or P2P traffic is always a mixed bag from a traffic management perspective.
Connected Planet’s take,
Dan O’Shea:
Can you imagine if ISPs applied this general philosophy to their entire businesses? Manage your network however you like until someone complains. This ruling would seem to open the door to much more posting and streaming of questionable content.
This case also highlights the wide disparity in opinions that still exists about the role ISPs should play regarding content. Are they content police, as the RIAA would like them to be, or are they just the guys maintaining the roads, with no concern for the scofflaws using it?
That’s our take on this. Let us know what you think in the comments section below: