Italian Media Company Mediaset Joins In On The Fun: Sues YouTube

from the come-on,-everyone-join-in dept

Wed, Jul 30th 2008 5:24pm — Mike Masnick

While we all wait for the outcome of Viacom's billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube, it appears that some other media companies aren't waiting around. Italian media firm MediaSet, which just so happens to be owned by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has sued YouTube and Google for $779 million (almost as much as Viacom is suing for!). MediaSet claims that the 4,643 videos on YouTube that infringe on its copyrights have cost it 315,700 viewer days. Apparently, MediaSet prefers not to take into consideration (a) that most videos on YouTube are limited to under 10 minutes, meaning that it's a poor replacement for watching on TV and (b) that people who watch on YouTube aren't necessarily people who would have watched it on TV and (c) that folks who watch something on YouTube may, in turn, be convinced to watch a show on TV that they wouldn't have watched otherwise. Why bother with little pesky details like that when you can just sue a huge company that has a lot of cash. Given that the Italian government is already trying to put Google execs in jail over some YouTube videos, this looks like a larger Italian campaign against YouTube in general.

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Filed Under: copyright, italy, liability, video, youtube
Companies: google, mediaset, youtube

6 Comments

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Dave, 30 Jul 2008 @ 6:52pm

Probably unrelated but, I can't get to the US YouTube site, it defaults to the Italian site (it.youtube.com).
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Ben, 31 Jul 2008 @ 12:55am

Mr Berlusconi wants to have a total control over Italian people.
Internet and youtube are the only free and independent sources of information currently available in Italy, this is the reason why they want to stop them. And they will do everything to achieve it.
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Mike Allen, 31 Jul 2008 @ 7:58am

you could
Cut Italy off from You tube or better yet from Europe until it returns to Democcracy. but then if you did that France The UK and others would be cut as well mmmmmmmm Go on DO IT
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John (profile), 31 Jul 2008 @ 5:12pm

Agree with post #3
YouTube should cut off access to anyone with an IP address in Italy. There, no more issue with the Italian government.
Oh, wait, millions of Italians use the site? Sorry, get rid of your politicians and maybe YouTube will give you back access.
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marino luigi, 8 Aug 2008 @ 12:53pm

Re:
hai ragione è l' unico posto dove gli italiani possono avere delle informazio corette e non distorte
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sprearson81 (profile), 10 Jun 2012 @ 9:18am

Another moan in the catalog of youtube complaints . . .
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