In July 2008, the case generated controversy when District Judge Louis Stanton ruled that YouTube was required to hand over data detailing the viewing habits of every user who had ever watched videos on the site.^[32] Judge Stanton rejected Viacom's request for YouTube to hand over the source code of its search engine system, saying that the code was a trade secret.^[33] Google and Viacom later agreed to allow Google to anonymize all the data before handing it over to Viacom.^[34]

On June 23, 2010, Judge Stanton ruled in Google's favor in a motion for summary judgment, holding that Google was protected by provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, notwithstanding evidence of intentional copyright infringement. Viacom announced its intention to appeal the ruling.^[35]

On April 5, 2012, the ruling was overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.^[36] Writing for a two-judge panel (because Judge Roger Miner had died while the trial was pending) of the Second Circuit, Judge José A. Cabranes concluded that "a reasonable jury could find that YouTube had actual knowledge or awareness of specific infringing activity on its website". Eric Goldman, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, expressed concern that the ruling would negatively affect startups, by making them "more hair-trigger on taking down news or content, for fear that failure to do so will be held against them by content providers".^[37]

Viacom, which is asking for $1 billion in damages, alleges that YouTube does little or nothing to prevent users from posting copyrighted videos on its site, largely because such popular videos -- including clips from Comedy Central's "South Park" and "The Colbert Report" and Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants" -- help drive viewers to the ads that appear on YouTube.

The suit, filed in federal court in New York, claims that 160,000 unlicensed Viacom clips have been viewed on YouTube more than 1.5 billion times. It also asks the court to issue an injunction preventing YouTube from posting additional material.

Google said yesterday that YouTube is operating within the law.

Digital copyright is a thorny and growing issue that stretches across the media and entertainment landscape. Traditional television and film companies have attempted to strike licensing deals with YouTube and its rivals for compensation when its clips are shown on the Web -- meeting with varying levels of success.

Companies such as Viacom realize there are promotional and audience-building advantages associated with exposure on sites like YouTube; links to the site are easily e-mailed and posted around the Internet. At the same time, however, without a revenue-share deal in place, the firms are not compensated for such use. When a video clip from "The Daily Show," for instance, has been viewed thousands of times on YouTube, that becomes an economic issue to Viacom.

"Defendants know and intend that a substantial amount of the content on the YouTube site consists of unlicensed infringing copies of copyrighted works and have done little or nothing to prevent this massive infringement," Viacom's complaint says. "To the contrary, the availability on the YouTube site of a vast library of the copyrighted works of plaintiffs and others is the cornerstone of defendants' business plan."

In addition to its cable television networks, Viacom owns Paramount Pictures, and it alleges that YouTube hosted copyrighted versions of Paramount's "An Inconvenient Truth."

In a statement, Google said, "We are confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and believe the courts will agree."

The fight between the companies began last fall, when Viacom began pressuring YouTube to pull down copyrighted material. In October, YouTube said it was purging Comedy Central clips from its site. Last month, Viacom demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 clips of Viacom shows.

YouTube, which allows anyone to post video to the Web for viewing by a global audience, includes both amateur videos and clips produced by professionals, such as Viacom. The Web site was purchased by Google in October for $1.65 billion.

Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington-based group advocating freer access to digital content, said Viacom's suit is a slap against its customers who want to watch Viacom content where they like.

"There should be a way for Viacom to monetize its content and compensate its artists, but this is not the way to do it," Sohn said.

Last month, Viacom agreed to license much of its content to Joost, a nascent YouTube rival.

Another thing it is: home to a top-flight legal team, which is essential in bringing all this entertainment to your televisions and movie screens and smartphones all over the world. This is the group that (among many other things) manages talent contracts, protects the company’s intellectual property, and makes sure employees and brands and properties comply with a tangle of laws across more than 160 countries. This team is so good at doing all of these things that Corporate Counsel recently selected the department as one of only four on its best legal departments of 2016 list.

“It’s a great booster to us to be recognized this way,” says General Counsel Michael Fricklas. “We have a team that’s really passionate about seeing the company be successful.”

In order to best serve a globe-spanning multimedia company seated at the stormy heart of a rapidly changing industry, the department is constantly evolving.  Last year, the Paramount and VMN business and legal affairs team reorganized to make sure legal expertise moved out of silos and across entire business units, giving lawyers broader exposure and ensuring that experience could be more broadly applied across the studio and television channels. Department-wide task forces focus on wide-ranging topics, including managing outside counsel, diversity, litigation, automation, “the art and craft of the deal” and competition law. They have automated many workflows, including bill-paying and the tracking of deals and deal terms, and launched an online departmental portal to streamline daily collaboration that has become a model for other portals around the organization. The team brainstorms further efficiencies in regular meetings.