Inducement: Viacom v. YouTube/Google (on behalf of Emiko Nishizawa)

In Viacom v. YouTube/Google, Viacom alleges that users of YouTube infringe directly copyrights by uploading Viacom’s materials on YouTube and that YouTube intends, encourages and induces users to do this. I think Grokster case would not be appropriate to be applied to this Viacom’s claim. I think if YouTube can be said to be more similar to Grokster than Sony, Grokster case may be applied to this case and that Viacom can win on this inducement infringement claim.

In Grokster, the facts of percentage of infringing works in its system (over 90%) and representations of Napster made the Supreme Court to consider that Grokster had only purpose to conduct copyright infringement instead of applying Sony case.

YouTube contains huge numbers of user created contents, which do not cause any copyright infringement. I think doubtless that the amount of infringing contents in YouTube system is less than 90% and issue of representation is irrelevant to this case. Thus, YouTube may be more like Sony than Grokster and as to inducement infringement, Grokster case would not be applied.
Emiko Nishizawa