IF you look at Fox Network’s Prison Break, 24 and to the Americans in general, they love a good conspiracy. Google is faced with two lawsuits in as many weeks, from two different companies - both for massive copyright infringement; doesn’t this sound like a conspiracy?So who are the two companies?

Microsoft, on behalf of a group of publishers, is suing Google for scanning hardcopy material.

Viacom, the second “suer”, has an actual reason for the lawsuit. Viacom is the holding company of MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon. Viacom is suing YouTube, which Google bought last year for $1.6bn, for hosting copyright material that was broadcast on some of the Viacom media networks.

YouTube has been under fire from many other media networks for hosting copyright protected content, but Viacom is the first to sue.

The lawsuits

The stinging attack launched by Microsoft has to do with the fact that Google is scanning hardcopy documents by the truck load, some of which is not being done with the permission of the content owners.

Thomas Rubin, Microsoft chief legal advisor, says in a statement published on the Microsoft website: “In my view, Google has chosen the wrong path for the longer term, because it systematically violates copyright and deprives authors and publishers of an important avenue for monetizing their works. In doing so, it undermines critical incentives to create.”

Rubin’s speech can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/trubin/03-05-07AmericanPublishers.mspx

In the same speech he states that Microsoft has been in the process of scanning books themselves with the knowledge and permission of the content owners. Google has been accused of not creating anything and is making money off other people’s work and innovation.

In my view this lawsuit is basically a publicity stunt from Microsoft to promote the Live Book Search service, and gain more publishing support.

Viacom, on the other hand, is suing YouTube for $1bn in damages, claiming copyright breech by allowing users to share more than 150 000 unauthorised video clips of Viacom’s programs.

This is a classic case of old media (broadcasting in the traditional way) and new media (internet broadcasting)

Part of the growing pains for Google

This might not be a conspiracy yet, just Google hitting a patch of bad luck.

But there are two possibilities on why the Viacom, Microsoft cases - brought against Google so close after each other - can be seen as conspiracy.

Firstly, Viacom knew that Google will have its hands full with the Microsoft suit and what better time to launch its own attack.

Secondly, Google’s purchase of YouTube puts the latter in the money, an opportunity for Viacom to cash in. It was only a matter of time before some large media company bought YouTube, and Viacom sit back and waited.

Google would have been sued for something sooner or later - it has become a trend in American business that when companies reach a certain stage it needs to be sued - it happened to most large IT companies in history. The best thing is that most companies emerged stronger and better after the lawsuit.

Let’s just hope Google has the foundation in place to survive this attack.

What will happen if Viacom wins?

If Viacom wins the copyright infringement suit against YouTube, it will only open a whole new can of worms. A victory will spell the end of so many websites providing copied video content. Just think of the hundreds of Torrent sites that will now face hands full of lawsuits from every single studio.

On the other hand this will pave the way for sites offering more legal video downloads.

Viacom will have a hard time proving that YouTube is responsible for the content on their site - after all the content was placed there by YouTube users and not by Google. Viacom will have to prove that the content was put on the site with the knowledge and support of YouTube.

We all enjoy the idea of a good conspiracy so now and then, and one can easily see how these lawsuits can become a conspiracy against Google. All that needs to happen now is for more companies to join the fight. Microsoft might have opened Pandora’s Box on Google.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 9:25 am and is filed under Tech Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or /wp-trackback.php?p=15" rel="trackback">trackback from your own site.