Oh, the irony: YouTube, the victim?
Here's what, in the journalism world, we call a "man bites dog story": YouTube, fresh from its $1.65 billion sale to Google and the subject of unending complaints that its video-sharing site enables rampant piracy, is now claiming it's the victim of copyright infringement.
Huh, you say? That's exactly what TechCrunch, the target of YouTube's ire, is asking. Michael Arrington disclosed today that he'd received a 'cease and desist' letter from lawyers at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati - arguably Silicon Valley's most powerful law firm and the former home of Google general counsel David Drummond. This legal slap comes on the eve of a big TechCrunch show in New York; talk about party pooping. The letter - roughly translated as 'if you don't stop doing this we're going to haul your ass into court' - is full of legalese that makes The Browser's head spin. Luckily, Arrington sets us straight: "The offense we committed was creating a small tool that lets people download YouTube videos to their hard drives" - say, your iPod. Arrington's sophisticated response: "Well, crap." He says he didn't do anything wrong, but adds that he'll probably remove the offending tool anyway. The Browser's two cents? Now that it's under the Google umbrella, YouTube's adopting a tried-and-true strategy in corporate America: Offense is usually the best defense. This is an excellent blog entry. I like the prospect of Browser's head spinning
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