Mark Lemley has written a smart editorial outlining ongoing litigation between YouTube and Viacom over the applicability of the DMCA to online service providers like YouTube which attract infringing content. Viacom is maintaining that YouTube and its ilk are simply not doing enough to police infringment. YouTube has argued (and the District Court has agreed) that they are meeting their obligations under the DMCA. The long and short of this is that Viacom wants YouTube to go beyond the mandate of the DMCA and actively police its domain for unauthorized content in the hopes of catching them asleep at the wheel and liable for enormous damages for infringing content uploaded by internet users. Lemley wisely notes that YouTube (which is owned by Google) can easily afford the level of oversight Viacom is seeking, but the imposition of expensive policing procedures will have a massive chilling effect on startups and fledgling service providers.