Google as "The Copyright Court of Last Resort"

Following up on yesterday's discussion of "right of performance", David Post has an interesting blog entry up questioning why Google took the position it did.

He quickly reviews the standard notice-and-takedown procedures, and points out that YouTube (Google) handles hundreds of thousands of these requests in the standard manner. It's not clear why Google refused this takedown request.

The unfortunate consequence of that refusal is that Google now has to be the named defendant in Garcia's suit, rather than an impartial intermediary as it is in other cases. As I noted yesterday, a significant portion of Garcia's claim has to rest on the question of fraudulent action, but Google is not the fraudulent actor here, nor can it possibly produce any evidence related to the interaction between Garcia and the filmmakers prior to the film appearing. Without being able to adjudicate those issues, Garcia's claim becomes a matter of secondary legal theory.

For Google to exercise what Post calls "decision-making discretion" about a case where it is not in possession of key facts is to set itself up as a court for copyright matters. That can only end badly.