Remember earlier this month when we told you that Google admitted that it was facing its first copyright lawsuit over content distributed via Google Video? Yeah, well either they're facing lawsuit number two, or we've got an update on that story. Flach Film, a French film company, has filed a lawsuit accusing Google Video of copyright infringement. It's not clear if Flach Film is the unnamed company Google execs had been talking about in early November, or if this is a new lawsuit.
Flach Film is the distributed of Le monde selon Bush, or The World According to Bush, and is responsible for theatrical and DVD distribution of the film. Yet during a brief period when the video was uploaded to Google Video, it was streamed more than 43 thousand times.
Google removed the film once it learned of the problem, but Flach Film is seeking compensation from Google for lost business.
It should be interesting to see how this suit progresses, as it could be the first of many facing Google and YouTube over copyrighted material made available on their site. On the one hand, the online video companies don't look over users' shoulders every time a video is uploaded. There's no way human beings could possibly keep track of every video. So as long as Google removes video files when they are reported, aren't they doing everything they can?
On the other hand, content producers do have a right to control the way their material is distributed. I'd say it's unlikely that they lost out on 43 thousand potential customers. It's unlikely that all of those viewers would have paid to watch the movie. But there may very well have been some people who decided to watch the video for free online in stead of going to the theater.
