Viacom bites that hand that feeds it

Viacom has sued Google for copyright infringements on YouTube.

Damages sought: $1 billion.

Check out what Free Culture friend Siva Vaidhyanathan has to say about it on WNYCs “On the Media.”

“Now, we haven’t heard a lot from Jon Stewart in the last few months as Viacom’s taken these very aggressive stance toward Google and YouTube, but I’d be willing to bet that the folks who really understand how fans build upon the work of The Daily Show, they understand that having stuff up on YouTube is priceless. Being kind to your fans by giving them content that they can use and reuse and sometimes even abuse is never a bad business strategy.”

Michael Crook issues apology

A colleague writes that if the world of copyright and intellectual property could be captured in the pages of a comic book, Michael Crook would be “the villain fighting Free Culture.”

Crook sent a fabricated DMCA takedown notice to the website 10 Zen Monkeys for posting a photo of him from a segment on Fox’s “Hannity & Colmes. He claimed that he held the copyright on the image (which he didn’t, it was held by Fox News).

The EFF & Jeff Diehl (owner of 10zenmonkeys.com) filed a lawsuit against Crook, leading to Crook’s withdrawl of the complaints.

EFF’s press release.

Apology on Blip.tv