Because if you’re trying to handicap the way the copyright lawsuit pans out, today’s document dump won’t do much to help you. There are revelations here, but they’re of the minor and historical variety, and I’ll get to some of them later.

No smoking gun, though. Just a lot of chest-beating and desk-thumping as both sides talk past each other.

Still, it does make for fun reading if you’re of a certain troubled mindset. If you’re not, here’s a summary:

Viacom’s case: YouTube was full of content that wasn’t supposed to be there, and both YouTube and Google knew it.

Of course they knew it! Anyone who visited the site in 2005 and 2006 knew it. The problem was what to do about it.

And that’s the most interesting part of the emails and IM exchanges Viacom has dug up: They let you watch YouTube’s co-founders, and later, Google executives, argue over the best way to keep the site growing like a weed while fending off the lawyers.

Actually, they knew the lawyers would show up eventually. “Ok man, save your meal money for some lawsuits! ;) no really, I guess we’ll just see what happens,” co-founder Chad Hurley tells partners Steve Chen and Jawed Karim via email in July 2005, as the three men decide to leave some copyrighted stuff on the site.

As as YouTube boomed, Google (GOOG) was trying to figure out how its lackluster Google Video site could compete. The big debate, according to former executive David Eun: “Whether we should relax enforcement of our copyright policies in an effort to stimulate traffic growth, despite the inevitable damage it would cause to relationships with content owners.”

Google’s eventual answer, of course, was to buy YouTube. But it went in with open eyes. A due diligence report estimated that just 10 percent of the “premium” stuff on the site was authorized.

Google’s case: Viacom–which talked about buying YouTube–was perfectly happy to use our site to market its movies and TV shows. Until it wasn’t.

Of course it was! In 2005 and 2006, all of the entertainment companies were desperately trying to get their clips in front of the site’s huge audience. Even more so at Viacom (VIA), whose youthful audience was spending lots of time on YouTube.

And the fact that Viacom executives, who had lost MySpace to Rupert Murdoch (remember when MySpace was a world-beater?), were thinking about buying YouTube–in part so Murdoch wouldn’t get it–shouldn’t be surprising, either.

Google makes a lot of the fact that Viacom “secretly” uploaded videos to YouTube, either via its employees or from marketing shops it hired. But I don’t get the impression that the “secret” uploads were supposed to dupe YouTube. I get the impression they were trying to dupe YouTube users into thinking the videos were edgy and cool.

“The goal is to make it look “hijacked,” an executive at Viacom’s Spike network told the producers of a mixed martial arts show, describing a video he gave them so that they could seed it on YouTube. The idea was to make the clip “look as though it was leaked out by production.”

Viacom’s embrace of YouTube does bolster Google’s case in one way. Google shows, fairly effectively, that Viacom’s lawyers have had a hard time figuring out which YouTube clips the company authorized. If Viacom can’t figure out what’s supposed to be on the site, Google argues, how do you expect YouTube employees to know?

So. Strip out all of the depositions, documents and emails, and we’re back to where we started. This case will hinge on the way the court decides to interpret federal copyright law.

Viacom argues that YouTube is a video version of Napster or Grokster–designed to profit from intellectual property it knows is stolen. And Google argues that it’s doing exactly what the Digital Millennium Copyright Act tells it do–asking its users to behave, hoping they do, and taking down offending clips when their owners ask them to.

So pay attention to that ruling–it’s going to be really important. But unless you’re paid to keep an eye on digital media, you can ignore most of today’s paperwork.

[Image credit: Michele Hubacek]

It’s hard to remember this conflict sometimes because it started all the way back in the spring of 2007, after Google offered $500 million to appease Sumner Redstone and company, then thought better of it. Viacom countered with a billion-dollar lawsuit claim, which has been dragging its way ever so slowly through the legal system since then.

The latest reminder: A report from CNET pointing out that Google (GOOG) has deposed Viacom (VIA) employees Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but that “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have yet to hand over documents the search giant’s lawyers have requested.

“The missed deadline isn’t amusing to Google,” Greg Sandoval relays.

This is theoretically important because both sides are trying to prove that their opponents’ employees knowingly uploaded copyrighted clips to the site.

If Viacom can prove that Chad Hurley and company were doing it, it bolsters its claim that YouTube knew it was violating copyright law and didn’t do anything about it. If Google can prove that “The Daily Show” or “South Park” dudes were doing it, it can argue that it’s impossible to tell when it was okay to run Viacom clips and when it was verboten.

Alas, in a slow-motion case like this, it’s impossible to imbue any particular move with particular weight. For instance: Google’s interest in deposing Stewart et al dates all the way back to August 2007. So the fact that the company’s lawyers have talked to him recently means that…it has talked to him recently.

Still, it does give us a chance to play the classic “South Park” YouTube tribute clip–legally, I should add.

A Los Angeles federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction against BlueBeat, a California-based site that had briefly sold the band’s music, arguing it used “psycho-acoustic simulation”–basically, making a note-for-note recording of the band’s recordings–to make the songs its own.

The same judge had already issued a temporary restraining order on behalf of music label EMI Music Group against the site earlier in the month and had scheduled a hearing for Friday, Nov. 20. But this ruling cancels out the hearing and by any reasonable standard should end the case.

Then again, this whole story has been a head-scratcher from the start, so who knows? Maybe the BlueBeat guys will try an even more preposterous argument down the road.

Part of me thinks that the whole thing may be some sort of Negativeland/U2 hack/stunt/performance art piece. Or maybe there were a lot of mood-altering substances involved. Or maybe it’s part of a conspiracy to create work for copyright lawyers.

Whatever. I’ve embedded the court ruling below, if you insist on reading it. But here’s a clip of Richard Pryor reading the alphabet on “Sesame Street,” which is just as edifying and much more entertaining.

bluebeat beatles suit –

• Orphan works–books whose copyright holders are unknown–will be overseen by an independent trustee who will administer their licensing, not by Google.
• Books published outside the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia will be excluded from the settlement.

Those are substantive alterations, but they clearly haven’t placated critics who accuse Google (GOOG) of attempting an “end-run around copyright law as we know it.”

The Open Book Alliance–a coalition whose members include the Internet Archive, Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO)–has blasted the revision twice already, decrying it as “a sleight of hand” intended to distract people from Google’s continued efforts to establish a monopoly over digital content access and distribution.

“The proposed changes fail to address this deal’s fundamental flaws,” Open Book Alliance Co-Chair Gary Reback said in a vitriolic statement. “Despite Google’s effort to spin this deal, it does nothing to promote competition nor does it reform Google’s exclusive access and monopoly hold on this digital database of books. Their proposed ‘unclaimed works fiduciary’ will have zero authority to promote competition or expand access. It is a cynical diversion away from the parties’ continued reliance on the discredited argument that competitors can obtain access through the very means Google did–getting sued for copyright infringement and abusing the class action process. This deal remains rife with anti-trust, class action and copyright violations.”

London-based EMI on Tuesday filed suit against Bluebeat.com, accusing the online retailer of violating copyright law by offering the British band’s entire catalog without permission.

Also named as defendants in the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, were Bluebeat’s parent company, Santa Cruz, Calif.,-based Media Rights Technology Inc., and Media Rights Chief Executive Hank Risan.

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“The settlement would alter the landscape of copyright law, for millions and millions of rights holders of out-of-print books,” Peters said. “It would flip copyright on its head by allowing Google to engage in extensive new uses without the consent of the copyright owner–in my view, making a mockery of Article One of the Constitution, that anticipates that authors shall be granted exclusive rights.”

The settlement, as Peters sees it, will allow Google (GOOG) to profit from the work of others without prior consent. “It could affect the exclusive rights of millions of copyright owners, in the United States and abroad, with respect to their abilities to control new products and new markets, for years and years to come,” she said. “In essence, the proposed settlement would give Google a license to infringe first and ask questions later, under the imprimatur of the court.”

One of the more blistering attacks on the deal to date, especially given its source: The nation’s top copyright official. But Google nevertheless dismissed it as unfounded: “We think the settlement is legal, and we think it is structured well within the guidelines of what you can do in a class action settlement,” David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, said during the hearing. “It certainly is not usurping Congress’s authority to do whatever it wants.”

A typically arrogant response from Google, though the company does appear to be conceding a bit of ground in the face of widening opposition to the deal. Responding to Peters’s criticism and claims that the deal will essentially grant Google a de facto monopoly over out-of-print books, Drummond said the company plans to make those works available to any book retailer.

“For the out-of-print books being made available through the Google Books settlement, we will let any book retailer sell access to those books,” Drummond told the committee. “Google will host the digital books online, and retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore will be able to sell access to users on any internet-connected device they choose.”

Sadly for Google, that conciliatory gesture did not go over well with critics of the deal. “The Internet has never been about intermediation,” Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, said of the company’s offer. “We are happy to work with rights holders without anyone else’s help.”

The Internet Archive’s Peter Brantley was even more disdainful. “I fail to see what’s really new here,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s like Macy’s telling Sears, ‘You can sell Macy’s clothing.’ There’s no fundamental change of the conditions under which Macy’s acquires those clothes. Google remains in control.”

That’s the argument that Brewster Kahle, co-founder of the Internet Archive, made in an op-ed in the Washington Post, in which he writes that the settlement “provides a new and unsettling form of media consolidation.”

Google’s book-scanning project drew outcry and a class-action lawsuit from the Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers, who said the Internet company was violating copyright laws by scanning copyrighted works. A settlement agreement was reached in October of 2008 which would allow publishers and authors to share Google’s profits from the sale of digital versions of copyrighted works. The deadline for plaintiffs to object to or opt out of the settlement was recently extended to Sept. 4, 2009.

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