First they tried to come to some kind of agreement. Then Viacom sent out a pile of cease-and-desist letters to YouTube warning them to remove Viacom's copyrighted content from YouTube's servers. YouTube complied, but apparently not to Viacom's liking. Now, Viacom has decided to sue YouTube for a whopping $1 billion over what it claims are 160,000 copyrighted clips that were uploaded to the video sharing service.
This lawsuit may have something to do with the deal Viacom recently cut to distribute its content via Joost. Either that or somebody peed in Sumner Redstone's Geritol the other morning. At any rate, it's a doozy.
First of all, join me in saying that sum out loud in a Dr. Evil voice: one billion dollars.
Next, let us bask in the ridiculousness of these numbers. (Or, better, read this analysis from the NewTeeVee site). Viacom is looking to get $6,250 per clip, which is actually pretty cheap considering that the maximum penalty for copyright violation according to US law is $150,000. I guess Viacom didn't want to look greedy or anything.
All this fighting, by the way, over a company that may have had something like $15M in revenues last year.
Presumably, this will eventually be settled out of court, a number of lawyers will get richer, and the online video landscape will be no better off.
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