As to Viacom, bringing the case to the court could be a strategy to enhance its bargaining position in negotiation with Google. Personally, I hope that the case could end-up win-win.
At one end of the spectrum of incentive, copyright protection is essential to content creators (ex: films, articles…etc.); At the other end, more room to new technology of content medium within the copyright law is vital (ex: “VHS” in Sony; “website” in Viacom). How to balance the interests between these two ends is very important to the development of technology and economy. Base on the perspective, either end goes too far is not a good result we would like to see. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) is a good example of the balance at 1998.
New technologies continuously influence our lifestyle, bringing the significant and irreversible changes to human’s lifestyle. I believe that Viacom definitely understands this point. It just wants to use the power of the court to push Google to share the profit and find a balance within the copyright law.
In the age of post Sony, content industries are not stifled, instead cooperated with new technological innovations (VHS; VCD; DVD) to make more profits. I believe and hope that the same outcome would arise in this case. The new filtering technology offered by Google may be the first step of the cooperation, though Viacom is not satisfied. But one thing having critical impact to the fair use right of individual consumers is whether the new filtering technology would block everything including fair use content (ex: reasonable excerpts; parody). That would adversely undermines the free speech right and knowledge dissemination, which we would definitely not like to see.
At one end of the spectrum of incentive, copyright protection is essential to content creators (ex: films, articles…etc.); At the other end, more room to new technology of content medium within the copyright law is vital (ex: “VHS” in Sony; “website” in Viacom). How to balance the interests between these two ends is very important to the development of technology and economy. Base on the perspective, either end goes too far is not a good result we would like to see. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) is a good example of the balance at 1998.
New technologies continuously influence our lifestyle, bringing the significant and irreversible changes to human’s lifestyle. I believe that Viacom definitely understands this point. It just wants to use the power of the court to push Google to share the profit and find a balance within the copyright law.
In the age of post Sony, content industries are not stifled, instead cooperated with new technological innovations (VHS; VCD; DVD) to make more profits. I believe and hope that the same outcome would arise in this case. The new filtering technology offered by Google may be the first step of the cooperation, though Viacom is not satisfied. But one thing having critical impact to the fair use right of individual consumers is whether the new filtering technology would block everything including fair use content (ex: reasonable excerpts; parody). That would adversely undermines the free speech right and knowledge dissemination, which we would definitely not like to see.
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