In the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, lawyers for Viacom, Inc., argued that the company’s lawsuit against media-content provider, YouTube, Inc., which was dismissed by the District Court in June, 2010, should be reconsidered, and allowed to continue on to trial. The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Paul Smith, legal counsel for Viacom, stated that copyrighted materials could be vastly “exploited” on the Internet if the decision were allowed to remain. Under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), service providers who publish copyrighted materials must, within a reasonable time, remove material if it infringes on the ownership interests of a copyright holder.
YouTube’s attorney’s responded by arguing to the court that the copyright holder is the one who is in the better position to monitor whether specific materials infringe on an ownership interest. According to court documents “[t]he statute makes copyright owners, not service providers, responsible for policing their copyrights by identifying, and, if they choose, requesting the removal of infringing material…[t]hat was the only sensible approach: copyright holders are the ones in a position to know what material they own, what they have licensed, and where they want their works to appear online.” [source 1=”The” 2=”Wall” 3=”Street” 4=”Journal” language=”:”][/source].