Es gibt Dinge, die sind so absurd und lächerlich, die kann man einfach ohne weitere Worte so stehen lassen. Copyright, my ass.

Aus dem offiziellen YouTube Blog:

For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately “roughed up” the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko’s to upload clips from computers that couldn’t be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt “very strongly” that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.

Viacom’s efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.

Update 11:35 Uhr, 19. März 2010

Kleines Update, habe auf Reddit eine interessante Diskussion dazu gefunden und dachte das könnte vielleicht zu einer halbwegs vernünftigen Erklärung des Viacom Super-GAUs führen:

from Reddit.com:

They obviously can see the benefit of sharing media but legally they are restricted from doing so.
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This.
Broadcasting networks make a significant portion of their money from selling their shows to foreign broadcasting networks. These are usually sold with an exclusive distribution right for the region.
As an example, CTV has the exclusive distribution rights in Canada to many of the Fox and Comedy Central shows. If Fox or Comedy Central were to distribute the shows for free online and Canadians were able to access them, they would be in breach of contract and CTV would sue them.
This is why there is geo-IP restrictions on many of the network approved, online distribution platforms like Hulu, ABC.com, etc…
I suspect these lawsuits against YouTube are more about maintaining plausible deniability than actually winning the case.

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Don’t worry, if what the YouTube Chief Counsel says is true and there is proof, this is going to be a backfire of epic proportions. Foreign broadcasting networks are probably going to start filing suit against Viacom for breach of contract.
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Viacom could simply make the “marketing” argument that their actions increased the popularity and thus interest of the foreign audience, making the show more valuable to foreign broadcasting network.
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It would depend on the particulars of the contracts, the videos that were uploaded by employees and the ones they were made aware of and allowed to remain online.
If they are all just short clips then they might successfully make the marketing claim. If they are extremely long clips or full episodes then they wouldn’t have a very compelling argument that it was merely marketing.

Und wo wir gerade bei YouTube sind: Nutzt unbedingt die Feather Beta, wenn ihr die hässlich zugeballerte und richtig schön langsame Seite wieder lieben lernen wollt.