normal functioning of any service provider, and showed neither participation in, nor coercion of,
user infringement activity.^2697 The court summed up as follows:
Thus, during the period relevant to this litigation, the record establishes that
YouTube influenced its users by exercising its right not to monitor its service for
infringements, by enforcing basic rules regarding content (such as limitations on
violent, sexual or hate material), by facilitating access to all user-stored material
regardless (and without actual or constructive knowledge) of whether it was
infringing, and by monitoring its site for some infringing material and assisting
some content owners in their efforts to do the same. There is no evidence that
YouTube induced its users to submit infringing videos, provided users with
detailed instructions about what content to upload or edited their content,
prescreened submissions for quality, steered users to infringing videos, or
otherwise interacted with infringing users to a point where it might be said to have
participated in their infringing activity.^2698Finally, the court turned to the allegations that YouTube syndicated infringing material,
noting as an initial matter that the clips delivered to Verizon Wireless were not clips-in-suit.
YouTube had entered into syndication agreements with Apple, Sony, Panasonic, TiVo and
AT&T under which YouTube provided access to material stored on its system at the direction of
users by transcoding, to a format accessible by third party mobile and similar technology, all of
the videos stored on its system. The court noted that such “syndication” served the purposes of
Section 512(c) by “providing access to material stored at the direction of users,” and entailed
neither manual selection nor delivery of videos. The plaintiffs argued that the critical feature of
these syndication deals that took them outside the safe harbor was that they were entered into sua
sponte by YouTube for its own business purposes, and not at the direction of users. The court
ruled that, on the contrary, the critical feature of the transactions was not the identity of the party
initiating them, but that they were steps by a service provider taken to make user-stored videos
more readily accessible (without manual intervention) from its system to those using
contemporary hardware. The syndication transactions were therefore protected by the Section
512(c) safe harbor.^2699
In March 18, 2014 the parties announced that they had reached a settlement of the lawsuit
on terms that were not made public, although it was reported that no money changed hands.^2700
p. Perfect 10 v. Google(^2697) Id. at 120-21.
(^2698) Id. at 121.
(^2699) Id. at 122-23.
(^2700) Jonathan Stempel, “Google, Viacom settle landmark YouTube lawsuit,” Reuters (Mar. 18, 2014), available as
of Mar. 18, 2014 at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/18/us-google-viacom-lawsuit-
idUSBREA2H11220140318.