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The Viacom vs. Google court battle is getting downright nasty. Viacom has dug up a bunch of e-mails and instant messages they claim show YouTube’s founders were purposely leaving copyrighted material online during YouTube’s early days — damning evidence against Google.

But more interesting are Google’s claims that many of those copyright-infringing videos came from Viacom itself — some of them uploaded to YouTube by Viacom employees, who were directed to put them online from places like Kinko’s, where they couldn’t be traced back to Viacom.

Already, Viacom has backed down from some of its claims, based solely on evidence that it did indeed upload its own videos to YouTube (hence, Viacom as copyright holder could not infringe on its own copyright). Now, this new accusation throws into doubt the rest of the alleged infringing works. How can Viacom prove which videos actually broke the law?

The issue boils down to this: Early on, and up to today, Viacom sees online video as a threat to its business model. But execs probably wanted to take advantage of the medium from the very beginning. By uploading videos, Viacom got two things: attention for the shows and content it was promoting and grounds for a lawsuit down the road. It got both.

Antics like this don’t surprise me at all. They just point to a crazy, disheveled slash-and-burn mentality, in which in Viacom’s collective mind it can do no wrong. It’s a mentality in which the company can willingly and unabashedly twist the law to its own advantage. And, if my personal experience is any indicator, Viacom is very likely succeeding more than anyone at this point can guess.

Nearly four years ago now I was producing a series of local spoof news videos for an online project I was getting off the ground. In one video, our crew took aim at Tom Cruise’s fight against South Park (the infamous Scientology episode). In editing the video, we used approximately 5 seconds of video from that episode, to illustrate the Cruise parody. We used no audio whatsoever.

Shortly after the video hit YouTube, it was unavailable, with a message that said it had been “removed for violating copyright.”

I was enraged. There was no proof the video violated copyright. In fact, it was a clear case of fair use. YouTube followed the letter of the law that is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act — once a complaint is received, the video is removed. I disagreed with the decision, but understood why it was removed. I first fought YouTube for labeling me a copyright infringer. Though the DMCA forces YouTube to removed the content, it does not mean a conviction has been won. Eventually, the note on the video said it had been “removed due to a copyright claim by Comedy Central/Viacom.”

My next step was to call the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

With a little help, I filed a counter claim, they failed to respond, and within days the video was returned to YouTube. As a lawyer at EFF told me, the video was clearly fair use.

So why was it removed?

Viacom’s policy was clearly to take down anything it didn’t like, banking on the fact that most users wouldn’t fight back. Since Viacom doesn’t actually need proof to get a video removed, it could, for all intents and purposes, remove any video it didn’t like — even if it in fact didn’t contain a single bit of infringing content.

Here’s the video, just in case you’re interested. It’s still on YouTube:

The question here isn’t just about user-generated content. It’s about our rights, and the dishonest tactics the movie, television and music industries have been employing to stifle innovation while padding their own pockets.

It’s about time this is all coming to light.

I get especially excited about web browsers (I know, I know. I’m a browser geek). I was using the IE8 beta the day it was released, and I installed Google Chrome the day it came out (Chrome is now my default — I love it).

Like a lot of informed geeks, though, I skipped Microsoft’s Vista OS entirely. I currently work in an XP shop, and at home I run XP on my desktop and netbook. I have a laptop running Windows7, and I’m impressed. More on that later. Suffice to say I’m more of a browser geek than an OS geek.

Despite the fact that I abandoned IE8, I was excited to hear about the IE9 preview. There’s some good stuff in there — especially HTML 5 support. I figured I’d give it a test drive and see if it could give Chrome a run for its money. Guess what? No dice. IE9 doesn’t work on XP. Know what? I couldn’t be happier.

Web designers hate IE. Specifically, they hate IE6. And IE6 — despite being nearly three versions old — is still everywhere. That means if a web developer wants a site to work, he’s got to, in effect, hack it up to work with IE6.

There are really two reasons people don’t update past IE6. On the corporate side, companies have made proprietary software that won’t run in IE7 or 8, and they won’t update the software, effectively holding the end-user (or entire IT departments) hostage.

On the home computing side, the only people who still have IE6 are those who don’t know any better. They think the “e” on their desktop stands for “Internet;” they just click on it and get their Yahoo home page.

The fortunate thing is that most of those machines are aging out — including three I use daily. There are a lot of folks out there who need to upgrade.

Where Microsoft really screwed up in the last three or four years was in introducing Vista while selling XP the whole time. I mean, given the choice, people would obviously take what they were used to, rather than an OS that was roundly panned.

Web developers the world round should rejoice. The Windows XP era is coming to a close, and that means an end to the IE6 era.

But there’s something else going on here that the tech community should note: Microsoft is quietly making moves to end the “Microsoft is a big doofus” era.

You know what I’m talking about: The era in which Microsoft released Vista. And the Zune. And let Windows Mobile turn into a clunking mess. The company’s products were an inexhaustible joke.

But this is a new Microsoft era.

We’ve already got Windows7, which even Walt Mossberg says rivals OSX in terms of functionality and beauty. The Zune HD is hailed by critics as a gorgeous piece of hardware, though it’s still in catch-up mode and not quite ready to overtake the iPod Touch. And we’ll soon see Windows Phone 7, which looks gorgeous, powerful and intuitive — perhaps the mobile operating system with the most credible chance of leapfrogging the iPhone juggernaut.?Consider even that Microsoft Bing’s share of the search market has steadily increased since launch, and will likely continue as it takes full control of Yahoo search.

Microsoft, once (and still) the Goliath of the tech industry is quietly sneaking up on the tech world. It’s poised to regain what it’s been lacking so horribly for the past few years: mindshare. Google and Apple have led innovation while Microsoft bumbled around. And now, while Google and Apple are at each other’s throats, Microsoft has a real chance — as long as it does everything right.

In a matter of a couple of weeks, Conan O’Brien has managed to cause a huge stir, just by signing up for a Twitter account. He’s already up to 670,000 followers, and doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

I can understand why he’s got so many followers; the guy’s already got fans, and they’re dying to know where he’s going to end up. The question is, does Conan actually use Twitter? I’m gonna go ahead and say no. Why? Because he only follows one person. Just one. I find it doubtful that Conan takes a look at his Twitter feed just to see updates from Sarah Killen (no offense, Sarah).

Perhaps he logs in and takes a look at trending topics. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that he searches for Conan references. But he’s certainly not using Twitter to discuss anything. He’s not engaged in it; he’s just posting little nuggets when he feels like it.

That’s fine, if you’re Conan O’Brien. Or Oprah. Or even Kevin Rose. But what about the rest of us?

Do you feel like you’re tweeting into a void? Do you post questions that don’t get answers? Do you respond to people and never hear back?

That’s okay. Me too.

I’m by no means a Twitter rock star. I have a couple hundred followers, and generally I follow back. That’s just my MO. I’m always hopeful that if you’re following me, we’ll share some common interests, so I’ll give you a shot. Sometimes I look at your timeline first. If it’s filled with porn or inane comments about your lunch, I’m probably going to take a pass. I try to be “social.” I’ll respond when I’m inclined. Unless I get super busy I skim my entire timeline every day. But what I’ve noticed is there are literally a handful of people who will actually “converse” with me. Some of them I know in real life; some only through Twitter. And here’s the thing: The more followers/followees a person has, the less likely they are to respond to you.

Duh, right? Of course, they just might not see your response. They’re popular! They follow a lot of people! They probably have so many responses they couldn’t possibly get to yours too!

Nah. Look, it’s easy enough to get all your @s. And if you aren’t responding, what are you doing?

Fake following. It’s impossible to follow 10,000 people on Twitter. Impossible. It’s not only impossible, but impractical. If you were to try it wouldn’t be fun.

The biggest perpetrators of fake following are “social media experts” and salespeople (sometimes — often — they’re the same). They’re the ones telling you how to get 10,000 followers in two weeks. They’re the ones telling you to hire them to boost your social media presence, because hey!, they’ve got a LOT of followers!

What they count on is that you won’t see how many people they’re following. And that number is usually astronomical, because they’re the types who randomly follow 100 or 1000 people at a time and just see how many followbacks they get.  And then they mistake their follower numbers as “authority” or “influence,” which means they can spam you to death with their blog posts — or just use your status as a follower to prove their own popularity.

Here’s my advice: Be careful out there. Don’t ruin your own Twitter experience by getting caught up in the numbers game. It’s not really about how many people are following you, but about how many people care about what you have to say. It’s not about how many people you follow, but how many people say things that interest you. Keep it legit, and everything will fall into place.

Some great articles on this point:
Hypocritical Mass: The Big Lie About Twitter
Twitter Zombies
Words of, uh wisdom: How to score more Twitter followers

And to keep up with me, subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter. Lol.

I don’t know much about Randy Michaels, the CEO of Tribune Company, but judging by the comments on this post, he’s not very well liked. And I don’t know much about the post’s author, Robert Feder, either.

But I do know English. Sure, I abuse it from time to time, but almost always on purpose, and only for effect. And one of my pet peeves is jargon in the news business. The reporters and editors who worked for me will be more than happy to tell you about the lists of words and phrases I banned from new pages during my time as a managing editor.

I’m shocked that Feder chose to poke fun at Michaels for banned 119 words and phrases from WGN news. Why shocked? Because I can’t imagine anyone who appreciates the English language could successfully argue that “shower activity” is a better way to say “rain.” Or “youth” instead of “child.”

Feder’s argument is that Michaels has better things to do:

Sure, you’d think the chief executive officer of a company struggling to emerge from bankruptcy and desperate to salvage an $8 billion buyout-gone-bad would have better things to do than pester his underlings with crazy proclamations. But in the case of Tribune Co. CEO Randy Michaels, you’d be wrong.

I disagree. I’ve said this before: The news business is struggling because it has lost the connection with the audience. By developing its own tortured language, the business is slowly removing itself from our livingrooms.

So Michaels’ point becomes a pretty good one: Talk like real humans, and real humans will appreciate it. If your audience likes you, word will get out and your audience will grow. A bigger audience means more ad dollars. More ad dollars is good for business.

The most appalling thing to me is that Michaels is actually being attacked for this in the comment section, by people claiming he’s micromanaging, that he’s destroying the company, that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Really? Are you really defending use of “5 a.m. in the morning” on your news broadcast? Or “giving 110%”?

In my mind, the list shows Michaels is paying attention to the broadcasts on his stations. He sees problems and he wants them fixed. Would anyone argue if McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner told employees they weren’t allowed to spit in Big Macs anymore? Doubt it. Michaels is trying to keep his newscasters from spitting in your Big Mac. Your response should be simple: Thank you. It’s about time.

You may have seen my post on why blocking access to social networking sites (or even the Internet as a whole) won’t make your employees more productive. But every company attacks its fear of social media with the same two swords: IT and HR.

If there are reasons why IT can’t wholesale ban certain sites or block Internet access for employees (because, say, the company actually uses Twitter and Facebook, or Internet access is an essential part of the job), the next move is always the Human Resources department. Cuz you need a policy.

You need a policy to keep your employees from tarnishing your good name on Facebook. You need to keep them from Twittering the company’s dirty little secrets — like your habit of counting every minute they waste while you take 90-minute lunches and chat on the phone to your aunt in Idaho. You need to keep them from embarrassing the company with pictures of the boss’s drunken antics at the office mixer, or embarrassing the company by posting pictures of themselves in private but unbecoming situations.

You do need that policy, don’t you?

Drop the task force and back away from the case law.

You don’t really need a policy. In fact, a policy probably doesn’t make all that much sense.  If you’ve got an ethics policy or a code of conduct, anything an employee can do on Twitter is likely covered. Giving away trade secrets, bad-mouthing company policies or execs, engaging in illegal activity…those things should already be covered. If they aren’t, you’ve got bigger problems than Twitter.

If an employee ran down the street in a drunken stupor cursing out your CEO, would he have a job the next day? Probably not. Same rule applies to behavior on social media sites.

So how do you keep employees from bad-mouthing the company on their blogs or Facebook? Short answer? You can’t. The truth is, rules almost never stop a person from doing what they’re set on doing — especially if they’re worked up enough about an issue. Murder is illegal, but people get killed every day. You can make a policy against complaining about the company online, but all that policy allows you to do is fire the employee. And you know what? They’ve already said what they were going to say, and they’ll say a lot more when they don’t work for you anymore.

Instead of a policy prohibiting certain behaviors, consider educating your employees about why certain activities aren’t just bad for the company, but bad for them as individuals as well. Show them how hiring decisions are made and how many employers now search through Twitter and Facebook for profiles of job applicants. Make sure they know that oversharing is dangerous for their well-being — not just yours.

It’s a scary world out there. And it’s certainly scary to think a disgruntled employee could spew hate about your company to thousands of people at any given time. But as I’ve said before, hire people you trust. Treat them like adults. Give them the trust they deserve. Instead of bashing you publicly, they’re likely to start praising you. And there’s no better endorsement than one that’s sincere.