Viacom vs. YouTube

In February 2007, Paramount Global (known at the time as Viacom) filed a lawsuit against YouTube for $1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars) due to copyright infringement on their shows like Rocko's Modern Life, The Daily Show, SpongeBob SquarePants, and many other programs (as well as underrated programs) owned by Viacom, and they demanded to pull their content from YouTube at the time. Paramount Global still claims these videos to this day.

Why It Disqualifies As Fair Use

1. Many YouTubers were terminated from YouTube because of this, which just goes to show how mean-spirited this was.
2. This makes many users from YouTube transition to other average or mediocre video sharing sites such as Dailymotion or Vimeo, as Dailymotion is more commonly used to upload cartoon episodes as they're less likely to be taken down.
3. They even claimed content they didn't even own for absolutely no weird reason at all. For example, they claimed Sesame Street clips from the Noggin airings because it had the Noggin screen-bug. Heck, they even claimed both a Mass Effect playthrough and a Mass Effect video from BioWare's official YouTube channel. Another example is the YouTube pilot of Breadwinners, which was taken down despite them not owning the rights to it. Another example is that the Nickelodeon airings from "wayside64" of the show, Wayside was taken down around 2008, 2009, 2010, or etc. It's only because it's claimed that the content belongs to Viacom International Inc. In fact, they lost rights to the show in 2010.
   • Hell, they even manage to block most of The Backyardigans episodes from Treehouse Direct in the USA (a.k.a Corus' YouTube channel for Nelvana shows, a.k.a the company that helped co-produced the show!)
4. Reviewers such as Nostalgia Critic and The Mysterious Mr. Enter had to find another video sharing site as their reviews were claimed by Viacom.
5. Fandubs of certain Nickelodeon shows were even claimed by Viacom.
   • Viacom/ViacomCBS has also claimed parodies and YTPs featuring their shows despite it being fair use.
6. Even if it's a short clip, Viacom will still claim it.
7. Because of this controversy, certain YouTube channels often record Viacom-owned clips by pointing a camera at the TV, speeding up the video and/or pitching it up, or putting a border and/or making it small instead of it being uploaded to a video program (via a capture card) to avoid anymore copyright strikes.
8. During the case, Viacom actually attempted to cheat by disguising their videos as normal ones by making it look cruddy and low-quality as evidence to win the case.
9. Overall, this event is what caused YouTube to slowly plunge into a downfall as it enforced YouTube to make a copyright system which caused many people to have their accounts unrightfully banned as well as causing YouTube to side with corporations.

Redeeming Qualities

1. At least, they didn't block all TV shows from Nickelodeon or any other channels from Viacom, such as:
   1. Catscratch
   2. Just for Kicks
   3. KaBlam!
   4. Romeo!
   5. Several episodes of Mr. Meaty'
   6. Caitlin's Way
   7. The Brothers Garcia
   8. Taina
   9. Nickelodeon game-shows
   10. Pinwheel
   11. Columbus/America Goes Bananaz
   12. Video comic book
   13. Special Delivery
   14. Standby...Lights! Camera! Action!
   15. The Third Eye, Nickel Flicks
   16. Livewire (originally belonged for Warner-Amex)
   17. TV Funhouse
2. Besides animated short films in the pre-October 1950 UM&M/Supat/NTA library, the post-March 1962–1967 Paramount library, and the entire Terrytoons library weren't blocked or taken down either.

Videos

An anti-Viacom campaign from Capn Awesome (CapnOAwesome).

A boycott video against Viacom from Kenneth Rogers/Mr. Black/TheRealWeeklyNews.

A follow-up to the previous video.

A short sketch on Viacom vs. YouTube from the user TheVossBos.

An episode of EmpLemon's YouTube Geographic about the Viacom vs. YouTube case.

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