To catch you up, way back in March 2007, movie-and-TV-giant Viacom sued YouTube (and therefore Google which owns YouTube). The crux of Viacom’s argument was that YouTube allowed copyrighted material to remain on their website in order to help the site grow. In other words, Viacom suggested YouTube intentionally left copyrighted clips up – knowing full well copyright laws were being broken – in order to promote the website.

In June 2010, a federal judge threw out the case, stating YouTube was in compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Since YouTube was (and still is) able to remove any of the infringing material in a reasonable amount of time, the site would not be held accountable for the illegal actions of its users.

So what does it all mean? First of all, uploading, pirating, or otherwise distributing copyrighted material is still illegal. That has not changed. However, the ruling reinforces a protection for distribution channels – like YouTube – while still defending content producers – like Viacom. It also means that anyone who produces copyrightable material and distributes it on channels like YouTube, who then finds that material has been tampered or inappropriately redistributed, can expect the offending material to be removed in a reasonable amount of time.

This is good news for those who use YouTube to distribute their content. They won’t be weighed down by a lengthy approval processes that would be necessary if all uploaded content had to be sifted through before being accessible. For the online world in general, this means they too can easily and quickly share content.

The only group this isn’t good for is businesses who (in this writer’s opinion) refuse to embrace modern technology or update their business model to align with the current century. Besides, in the three-plus years between filing the lawsuit and the recent decision, many changes have already been to sites like YouTube that better protect companies. Any web-savvy company is now able to set up its own channel on YouTube, upload all the content they care to upload, choose to not allow their content to be embedded on other sites, and begin to bring the ad revenue from a lucrative website like YouTube.

In hindsight, Viacom still did the right thing by addressing the issue (again, in this writer’s opinion). It’s because of these actions that improvements to the system can be made. If no one complained about copyrighted material being on YouTube, it would only breed a generation of feel-even-more-entitled web users who think it ridiculous to have to pay for anything. But by addressing the issue and embracing the possibilities, everyone wins in the end.

And that’s something to think about. Perhaps by accepting change and allowing it to improve your business, instead of holding tightly to the traditions of the past, your business can grow in ways you didn’t even imagine.