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My Video (Part I) on Quiet Title Actions brought in NYC

YouTube Copyright Infringement Issues

First: Full Disclosure

Before talking about copyrights, Google, YouTube, Viacom, infringement, residuals and other interesting topics, I want to let you know about my own personal lawsuit against Google.

I ran for New York Attorney General last year and lost, partly because Google's promise of 1-cent per click for the lowest bid in its AdWords auctions among advertisers such as myself for keywords was suddenly changed by Google to require me to bid about 50 cents per click (instead of the promised 1-cent per click). My efforts in building a list of 1,000,000 New York voters at 1 cent each (or $10,000 for a list of 1,000,000 voters) was changed overnight to $.50 per name (or click), upping the total cost of the desired 1,000,000 names and email addresses to $500,000, way beyond the ability of my candidacy. Needless to say, I lost, thanks in part to Google. I'm not saying that I had to win if I had created my list of 1,000,000 names of New York voters at a cost of slightly more than $10,000, but I would have had a chance.

Anyway, I brought suit against Google last June (2006) in the federal district court in Manhattan, and Google then made a motion to dismiss the case because I had not sued Google in Google's home county (Santa Clara County, California), something which Google requires everyone to do (even if you are an AdWords advertiser located in Ireland or China, I suppose). To prevent my case from being dismissed entirely (which would have required that I go to California and restart a new case, and make a new motion for a preliminary injunction), I asked the federal judge in New York to transfer the case to California rather than dismiss it for "improper venue". The federal judge (Hon. Robert Patterson) so ordered what I requested, and my case against Google for monopolizing the "keyword targeted Internet advertising market" in the United States was transferred to California, and after some heated litigation was ultimately transferred to the Northern District of California's Division in San Jose (Santa Clara County), California, where I recently (on March 9th, 2007) personally argued my own cause in the 5th floor courtoom in the San Jose Division federal district court. It appears (but nothing is ever certain in litigation) that the judge is going to permit me to amend my complaint against Google, which already contains allegations of monopolization, conspiracy to restrain trade, fraud and misrepresentation, breach of an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. I'll keep you informed on developments at Website on Attorney Carl Person's Lawsuit against Google.

Second: Copyright Lawsuits

I have had a score of copyright infringement lawsuits over the past years. One of such lawsuits hit the front page of the New York Time and various other publications. This was my case (which I took over from attorney Richard Bennett) to recover an interest in the copyright for the song popularized by the Fifties' singing group "Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers" named "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?", as to which a movie was made subsequently. The news event was pure pandemonium with some of the biggest names in the news business covering the story. I even had to exclude People Magazine from my client's apartment because of lack of space when celebrating the jury verdict which went in our favor. I made it up to them the next day by setting up an exclusive interview in The Bronx with Frankie Lymon's brother, who showed them where history had been made by Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers.

Most of my copyright-infringement cases involved alleged theft of screenplays, but I have had other types of copyright cases as well, defending (successfully) a noted agent from copyright infringement charges and defending persons charged with copyright infringement when selling various types of products or when letting customers view highly-promoted boxing matches.

Third: I'm in the Business of Developing Websites, Creating Website Traffic, and Converting Website Traffic into Money

Google and I have wound up in the same business, which is the creation (or purchase and creation) of websites, building of website traffic, and then converting the website traffic into money. The only problem with my efforts at competing against Google is that it has a system for doing this which makes billions of dollars for Google but won't allow anyone else to make money from their website traffic unless Google buys you (such as Google's purchase of YouTube during October 2006 for $1.65 billion) or enters into an agreement with a Google victim (of Google copyright infringement activities) such as MySpace, as to which in October, 2006 Google made a deal to pay MySpace and its owner, Murdoch Ruppert's Fox Interactive Media $.9 billion (i.e., $900 million) to settle the copyright infringement claims, presumably. I say presumably because I have not seen the agreement, but it would not make sense to pay $900,000,000 to anyone without obtaining a release from all known or asserted liabilities.

What did Google obtain in addition to settling past copyright infringement liabilities as to copyrighted materials published on MySpace.com? It obtained the right for 3.5 years to run Google advertising on MySpace.com which would produce the revenue (and then some, presumably) to provide MySpace with the $900,000,000, and leave a $ billion or so left over for Google to take, without any copyright liability.

What Google is doing to copyright owners and others dependent on copyright owners (such as performers entitled to residuals) is convert the value of copyrights into advertising revenues paid by advertisers to reach persons unlawfully using the copyrighted shows that were illegally uploaded and maintained on MySpace, in what amounts to a sleight of hand reminiscent of how movie producers prevent most movies from becoming "profitable", through accounting procedures that don't count all the revenues. The result in both cases is that people who are entitled to share in the revenues produced by the copyrighted works are not receiving what they are entitled to, and guess who is receiving most of these lost copyright revenues? You guessed it, GOOGLE or its wholly owned subsidiary (such as YouTube).

The Remedy

The remedy is simple. Sue for recovery of the appropriate losses, whether the losses be suffered by the copyright owner or the talent and others dependent on the copyright owner to obtain copyright income to make payment of residuals. There are a variety of legal doctrines available to reach the desired result. Of course, as I said when starting out, litigation cannot guarantee results. What it does is give a good case an opportunity to win.

Liability of Media Companies Settling with Google

The settlement by a media company of its claims against Google raises more issues than are settled because of the probable failure of the media company to allocate the settlement to the copyrights involved and the obvious failure to pay residuals or other promised payments made by the producer or copyright owner to artists, writers and others associated with the production of the copyrighted work.

As someone dependent on residuals or payment from the gross revenues received by a producer or copyright owner, you will probably gain some valuable insight into your situation by giving me a call.

FREE Evaluation of Your Situation

I am willing to talk with anyone about their interests and concerns about any copyright matter, and I never charge for these consultations. I use the consultation to give my best advice to the prospective client, and to decide for myself whether I even want to get involved. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't, for a variety of reasons. The prospective client benefits from the analysis and discussion, I truly hope, and sometimes I get a new case.

If you want to talk or meet with me, please give me a call, at my office telephone 212-307-4444 or my cell telephone 917-453-9376. You might be interested in the legal theories for liability, and against whom.

One last point, please don't let the passage of time destroy the value of any meritorious claims you may have.