Digital Home Thoughts: Google is a Safe Harbor

"You can read all of U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton’s decision at the bottom of the post, where I’ve embedded the ruling. Short version: Stanton buys Google’s longstanding argument–that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects YouTube from Viacom’s claims. And he seems to agree with Google (GOOG) on almost every point. There’s very little in his ruling that Viacom (VIA) will be happy about."

YouTube is a busy place. Every day, thousands upon thousands of people upload all manner of videos. Some videos are exciting and interesting, some are boring, and some invariably violate one copyright or another. However, it seems as if Google cannot be held responsible for the violations as long as they follow DMCA takedown requests. I have always seen YouTube as a promotional tool. Sure, it can be used as a distribution tool as well, but fan videos often include songs or clips that get me interested in new artists or shows. It is a great discovery tool that has led me to new material that I otherwise would not have come across. I freely admit that some videos that are uploaded serve no other purpose than to violate copyright, but I believe that the promotional value might just be worth the cost of the occasional freeloader.