Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, LLC and Google, Inc.

Viacom International Inc. (Viacom) (plaintiff) sued YouTube, LLC and Google, Inc. (collectively, YouTube) (defendants) for copyright infringement. After an appeal of the case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit remanded the case back to the district court to permit briefing on four issues in renewed motions for summary judgment. Two of the issues were (A) whether YouTube knew of any specific infringements and (C) whether YouTube had the “right and ability to control” infringing activity within the meaning of 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(1)(B). On remand, the district court instructed the parties to report, for each video clip in suit, what precise information was furnished to YouTube to identify the location of the infringing matter. YouTube submitted a list of 63,060 clips-in-suit with a statement that it had never received adequate notices of any of those infringements. Viacom filed a statement that it had not submitted clip-by-clip notifications of such infringements but argued that it had no burden to do so under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Viacom submitted evidence that prior to YouTube’s acquisition by Google, YouTube had decided to remove video clips of pornographic matter, deaths, and entire episodes of some copyrighted television shows, but later decided to keep all infringing clips on its site unless and until it received takedown notices for particular clips.