Legal News

What Does the Google Book Scan Settlement Mean for Viacom?

By Dan Slater

We’ll say at the outset that the answer, at least according to Google’s Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, is zippo. “I would not read anything into the structure,” Drummond told the WSJ.

Here’s what happened: Yesterday, in what some say is the biggest book deal in U.S. history, Google struck a $125 million settlement with the publishing industry that will allow Google to make millions of digital books available online. The settlement, which follows two years of negotiations and requires approval by a federal court, calls for Google to pay the $125 million to settle claims from authors and publishers for its earlier digital-scanning, cover legal fees and establish a Book Rights Registry to oversee the agreement, which calls for payments to authors and publishers for use of their books online. As the NYT points out, the settlement leaves unanswered the issue of whether Google’s unauthorized scanning constitute fair use for copyright purposes.

Now back to Viacom, which is suing Google for $1 billion, alleging that Google-owned YouTube has been illegally hosting its proprietary content. (We wrote about the spat, which awaits trial in the Southern District of New York, back in July when the judge in the case caused a firestorm by ruling that Google must hand over info about which users watched which videos on YouTube.) Does the Google settlement mean a similar settlement could be in the offing with Viacom?

As noted above, the answer seems to be no. The Journal writes:

The deal signals that Google, which has long argued it can index content for its search engine without the cooperation of media companies, is taking a more conciliatory stance. But Google cautions against applying the same model to similar disputes, including Viacom Inc.’s $1 billion copyright-infringement suit against Google’s online-video service YouTube.

For Viacom’s part, its GC, Mike Fricklas told the NYT: “The publisher agreement is, at last, acceptance of what’s obvious to everyone but Google. Copying and distributing copyrighted works requires permission from the copyright owner.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on October 29, 2008 (boomark / email).