And we’re off! Court filings in the YouTube-Viacom suit were just unsealed and both sides are distributing them now.

This post will be a work in progress as I ingest the paperwork. I’ll link to places where you can sort through the files for yourself, and I’ll be posting what I can on this site as well. Most important, I’ll try to interpret the documents and pull out the most interesting stuff.

As we start, a reminder of what we’re looking at: Both sides are releasing their legal arguments and supporting evidence in the three-year-old case. In short, Viacom (VIA) says that Google’s (GOOG) video site infringed on its copyright and wants a billion dollars in damages; YouTube says the site is protected by federal law.

Slightly longer version: Viacom is arguing that YouTube is a giant version of Napster and Grokster, the music file-sharing sites knocked down in earlier court rulings. That makes it important for the cable network to show that YouTube executives knew users were uploading licensed work and that the executives were encouraging it.

YouTube, meanwhile, is arguing that the company has always tried to discourage users from uploading licensed stuff and has gone to great lengths to take down stuff that copyright owners don’t want there. The video service also argues that Viacom has uploaded plenty of its stuff to YouTube on its own and continues to do so. Key part of Google’s defense, in plain English:

Given Viacom’s own actions, there is no way YouTube could ever have known which Viacom content was and was not authorized to be on the site. But Viacom thinks YouTube should somehow have figured it out. The legal rule that Viacom seeks would require YouTube–and every Web platform–to investigate and police all content users upload, and would subject those web sites to crushing liability if they get it wrong.

It’s important to remember that all of this is already old news to the U.S. District Court judge who will rule in the case. While this may seem like a reality show, the public doesn’t get a vote on this one.

Now let’s get to the filings. Here is Viacom’s request for summary judgment, followed by its “statement of undisputed facts”–essentially supporting evidence. Viacom is also posting most of the documents and depositions here, though some items have been redacted.

Viacom Summary Judgment Motion –

Viacom Statement of Undisputed Facts –

And here’s a link to YouTube’s statement. The company’s legal memorandum follows:

20100318_google_viacom_youtube_memorandum

Below is a statement from YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, which amounts to a legal version of a press release. Note the many references he makes to his desire to keep the site free of copyrighted stuff–at least initially.

C Hurley Declaration –

But what do Oprah’s plans mean for the TV business? Not that much, argues JP Morgan (JPM) analyst Michael Meltz. Short version of his note published this morning: It’s not bad for OWN, the cable network Oprah co-owns with Discovery (DISCA). But it’s also not terrible for CBS (CBS) and Disney’s (DIS) ABC, the two broadcasters currently in the “Oprah” business.

That’s because while the move makes for unpleasant “optics”–bizspeak for “looks bad”–for broadcast, it turns out that Oprah didn’t make that much money for the business. (But plenty for herself, obviously.)

Medium-sized version of Meltz’s argument:

• The show made $50 million a year for CBS, which syndicated the program. CBS would rather have that money than not, but losing it will amount to a “rounding error” in 2012.
• The show was a big ratings hit for local TV stations, but they paid a lot for it–upward of $200,000 a week in big markets. That made it a loss-leader for most broadcasters, Meltz says.
• And yes, the show provided a big lead-in audience to local TV news broadcasts, particularly in top ABC markets. But given that it’s not going to end up on a rival broadcast channel, “it is conceivable that station audience/ad share won’t change much for the day-part.”

Okay. Back to the crying and teeth-gnashing.

The Pali Capital researcher has rethought his prediction for Viacom’s 2010 U.S. ad sales and now says they’ll drop by three percent. He previously estimated an increase of two percent.

His logic is straightforward: The cable network conglomerate (MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, etc.) has had a hard time hanging onto viewers, and advertisers are following suit. Greenfield:

The risk to our estimates has increased substantially… particularly with Viacom’s ratings remaining mostly down year-over-year during Q3 qtr-to-date… If Viacom is able to turn its ratings positive over the next couple of quarters and the economic rebound begins to meaningfully impact cable network industry ad spending, Viacom could conceivably grow ad revs in calendar 2010 (as we had been forecasting), however, that feels aggressive.

You can find Mistry at Charlie’s Cafe, where’s she’s back to work running Google’s (GOOG) much celebrated cafeteria. Earlier this year, though, she was a contestant on Bravo’s “Top Chef,” which kicked off its sixth season this week on the cable network, owned by GE’s (GE) NBC Universal.

No idea how Mistry did, and reality show contestants generally sign ultrapunitive contracts that prevent them from spilling the beans about the results of the show. And her Twitter account has yielded zilch so far. But doesn’t hurt to ask.

I checked in with a rep from Bon Appetit Management Co., which operates the cafe for Google, and got confirmation that Mistry is back on the job and “recovering” from the taping.

Oh. And if you do see her, be careful about bringing up oysters clams. She had a bad experience with them on Wednesday’s show, as you can sort of see from his promo clip (I’d show you the whole thing, but NBC hasn’t put up the clips on its sites or on Hulu, presumably because it doesn’t want to upset cable providers. But that’s another story…).

In Futurama, our characters are thoroughly inundated by advertising, especially subliminal advertising that comes out of your pillow into your dreams.

– Futurama creator Matt Groening, February 1999

How do you persuade TV viewers to watch advertisements when the DVR has accustomed them to skip through them? That’s the dilemma facing television and cable networks today, one that’s so far defied a solution. But perhaps not for much longer.

The Times Online reports that the evil geniuses at Keystream have developed a new overlay advertising system that scans video content for open spaces–an unadorned wall, for instance–and slaps an ad on it, embedding it directly into the programming.

“There’s a lot of potential,” said Simon Fell, head of future technology at ITV, a company that’s testing Keystream’s technology on its ITV Local site. “If there’s a scene in a program where there’s time, then it could give us a chance to get an ad away. But obviously on television you won’t be seeing one of these appearing at a crunch point in a drama.”

Really? In this age of product placement? Ever see the list of brands plugged in the “Sex and The City” movie?

If ITV’s tests prove successful it’s only a matter of time before we begin seeing Garmin GPS ads etched into the beaches of “Lost” or Levitra logos popping up willy-nilly on “Desperate Housewives.”

In Futurama, our characters are thoroughly inundated by advertising, especially subliminal advertising that comes out of your pillow into your dreams.

– Futurama creator Matt Groening, February 1999

How do you persuade TV viewers to watch advertisements when the DVR has accustomed them to skip through them? That’s the dilemma facing television and cable networks today, one that’s so far defied a solution. But perhaps not for much longer.

The Times Online reports that the evil geniuses at Keystream have developed a new overlay advertising system that scans video content for open spaces–an unadorned wall, for instance–and slaps an ad on it, embedding it directly into the programming.

“There’s a lot of potential,” said Simon Fell, head of future technology at ITV, a company that’s testing Keystream’s technology on its ITV Local site. “If there’s a scene in a program where there’s time, then it could give us a chance to get an ad away. But obviously on television you won’t be seeing one of these appearing at a crunch point in a drama.”

Really? In this age of product placement? Ever see the list of brands plugged in the “Sex and The City” movie?

If ITV’s tests prove successful it’s only a matter of time before we begin seeing Garmin GPS ads etched into the beaches of “Lost” or Levitra logos popping up willy-nilly on “Desperate Housewives.”