Michael Fricklas, Viacom's general counsel, talked today about his company's $1 billion lawsuit against Google's YouTube in a surprisingly candid manner.
During a keynote interview with Tech Confidential Editor Alain Sherter at The Deal's Convergence conference, Fricklas seemed pleased with the conversation that has taken place since the media company filed its lawsuit against Google in March. "One thing our lawsuit has enabled us to do is tell people what the issues are and why they should support our position. Until then, you had Harvard law professors who love the Napster model on center stage. We're seeing more balance between the IP is valuable and should be protected view and the we want your content to be free view."
Fricklas lauded companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo, DailyMotion and
Veoh as examples of online video site operators that are using auto-filtering to prevent copyrighted material from appearing on their sites in the same way YouTube has used its filters to prevent pornography from being displayed on its site. "We're not asking for perfection, we're asking for companies to act in a responsible way." When he went into details about section 512 of the DMCA,
Fricklas' case against YouTube was compelling.
I could be misreading the signals, but, to me, it sounded like that the more the tide turns against the theft of the company's content, the more likely a settlement between Viacom and Google becomes.
For more on Michael Fricklas' interview at the Convergence conference:
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