Viacom Bullies YouTube Into Removing 100,000 Videos

This weekend Viacom decided to throw some weight around, sending 100,000 DMCA notices to YouTube, telling them to take down any clip that came up when any of their shows were searched for. That not only means that clips from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will be harder to come by now, but that clips even coincidentally titled similarly to any Viacom property have been taken down.

With that volume of requests, Google doesn't have the manpower to check to see if all of the clips are actually copyrighted material. And it seems like Viacom just told them to remove everything that came up during certain searches, meaning they didn't verify each clip either. Yes, two gigantic companies are working together to censor online videos, with neither of them actually bothering to make sure they aren't removing thousands upon thousands of legitimate content. They're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

This is terrible, and Google needs to pony up the dough to make sure their service isn't being completely perverted by these corporate thugs. And hey, Viacom: screw you. This kind of severe, anti-consumer action is not how you win loyalty.

via Gizmodo

Very disappointing. Given the type of shows they are, I am sure that "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" would have absolutely no problem having their shows, or portions of their shows appear on youtube/ google vidoes. You can still get about 70% of TDS and TCR on comedy central website.

you disappoint me viacom.