YouTube pwned by Viacom

Author: Wil Harris
Published: 5th February 2007
Comments (10) Stumble
YouTube gets owned by Viacom. Damn.

YouTube gets owned by Viacom. Damn.

YouTube will be removing more than 100,000 videos from its site after failing to strike a deal with Viacom to keep the content on there.

Viacom owns a whole bunch of media properties, including Comedy Central, MTV, Paramount, Dreamworks and Spike TV. With such a wide range of properties, its not surprising that a lot of clips are being uploaded to YouTube by fans of, amongst other things, South Park.

Now owned by Google, YouTube has been trying to negotiate a deal with Viacom, as well as other media companies, whereby the copyrighted content can stay on the site in exchange for a share of revenue that YouTube generates. However, given that YouTube isn't really generating much revenue at the moment, upfront deals are getting a little tricky.

YouTube has also failed to implement any kind of algorithm for detecting copyrighted content upon upload, which it said it would do by Christmas last year.

Viacom said that "It has become clear that YouTube is unwilling to come to a fair market agreement that would make Viacom content available to YouTube users," whilst Google said that "It's unfortunate that Viacom will no longer be able to benefit from YouTube's passionate audience, which has helped to promote many of Viacom's shows," and huffed a little bit.

So what is the future for YouTube? There is a lot of speculation - will it strike the deals it needs to maintain its content, or is the legal spectacle going to get more interesting? Let us know your thoughts over in the forums.
Quote bubsterboo 5th February 2007, 11:29
TBH illegal content on youtube is what made it great.
And i thought they already removed all the south park epps and such a long time ago.

But yeah, i don't like youtube much anymore... It has been ruined.
Quote Leitchy 5th February 2007, 11:55
Nobody tell them that Dailymotion has better :o
Quote quack 5th February 2007, 12:05
It's a shame South Park episodes/clips keep being removed, since Matt and Trey have said they don't mind. All they want is for people to watch their product, and don't really care where it comes from.
Quote mmorgue 5th February 2007, 12:28
Bah - things like that are bound to have relatively short lifespans due to the amount of publicity and easy access.

I'll stick to my newsgroups. So far I have yet to find something as reliable and varied and most importanly, *safe* !
Quote Cthippo 5th February 2007, 13:07
Sooner or later this is going to boil over (I hope). People want to be able to share content for free and history has shown that they are going to do so. when one gets shut down or ruined, another pops up to take it's place. I would say this shows that there is a definate demand and I think eventually the users will get peeved and demand the law be changed to allow them to do what they want to do and will continue to do anyway.
Quote mikeuk2004 5th February 2007, 13:09
I just dont get why Goole bought you tube. Maybe they saw an oportunity to make money but its not working that way.

I think the You Tube owners got away with making alot of money at the right time. Now its google stuck with the problem of ilegal content and court cases.
Quote dire_wolf 5th February 2007, 13:39
Tbh, the whole reason youtube became so big is the easy access to copyright material, i know only a very select few (sad) people that go on there the watch peoples blogs etc.

I also know that I would have not bought a LOT of DVDs and CDs if i hadn't first seen the media on youtube
Quote DXR_13KE 5th February 2007, 14:33
our loss is Viacom's loss.
Quote randosome 5th February 2007, 16:42
Quote:
YouTube has also failed to implement any kind of algorithm for detecting copyrighted content upon upload, which it said it would do by Christmas last year.
what on earth is the point, you see this all the time, even on this forum - take the word filter

people will always just bypass the system, automated systems don't work very well (cough spam) so TBH an automated you tube pulling system is just going to be a waste of time, i think people are already starting to get round this by using Chinese/Japanese wording in the titles and such
Quote BurningFeetMan 6th February 2007, 00:21
Eh? Who cares about copy righted stuff being posted and taken down etc. As long as people continue to blow stuff up & film it whilst almost killing them selves in the process, youtube will always hold a special place in my heart.
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