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Viacom Lawsuit Against YouTube Revived (VIAB, GOOG)

Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAB) sued Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) for $1 billion in 2007 over the use of Viacom-copyrighted content without permission on Google’s recently acquired YouTube. The judge threw the case out, but in a ruling by a federal…

By Paul Ausick
Published April 5, 2012, 12:10pm ET · 1 min read

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Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAB) sued Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) for $1 billion in 2007 over the use of Viacom-copyrighted content without permission on Google’s recently acquired YouTube. The judge threw the case out, but in a ruling by a federal appellate court today, Viacom’s suit was revived when the panel said that a reasonable jury could have found that YouTube did indeed infringe on copyrighted material from Viacom and others that had joined in the lawsuit.

YouTube and Google ware charged specifically with showing 79,000 videos without permission from the copyright holders and with doing nothing to stop the infringing behavior. The appeals court also said the lower court should also decide whether or not YouTube/Google developed a “willful blindness” by not removing the videos.

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Paul Ausick

Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.

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