YouTube Founders Encouraged Infringement: Viacom

By Brendan Pierson

Law360, New York (March 18, 2010, 6:43 PM ET) -- YouTube Inc.'s founders knew of and encouraged widespread copyright infringement on their site, and Viacom Corp. tried to buy YouTube in 2006, according to summary judgment briefs unsealed Thursday in the three-year-old copyright lawsuit between the two companies.

Viacom's brief centers on internal YouTube e-mails, mostly between YouTube co-founders Steve Chen and Jawed Karim.

In one early e-mail, Chen said YouTube should “concentrate all of our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil,” and suggested emulating known...
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