Viacom vs. YouTube and Google

Yesterday it was announced that Viacom was suing Google and YouTube for $1 Billion dollars. Talk about going Dr. Evil on someone! ($1 to the first person that can tell me what movie I’m referring to.) Ok so I understand Viacom’s position with trying to protect the content that belongs to them, but they’re forgetting that YouTube is basically providing FREE advertising for the content.  Viacom alleges that there has been ~160,000 unauthorized clips posted on YouTube that have been viewed more than 1.5 billion times. 

It’s obvious that Viacom is upset that they’re not getting any share of the advertising revenue that YouTube is generating and they want their cut.  I feel in the back of their minds, Viacom Execs know the benefit of having their content on YouTube; The increased viewership of OLD Viacom content on YouTube leads to converted new viewers of NEW and content on the networks and thereby, in the long run, increases the revenue of Viacom.

Viacom should just suck it up and take the free advertising and increased viewership and revenues or come up with some way to scramble the content so that it can’t be pirated or change their business models, come up with a better YouTube, and get with the times.

Posted by Rick Garcia in Social Media, Legal Issues