Well, I guess we can tell how well negotiations between video entertainment giant and YouTube have gone: Viacom demanded today that the dominant video sharing site take down all of its videos.
Viacom has asked that about 100,000 clips of its content be removed from the site. An outside consultant has produced a report that suggests that 1.2 billion streams (per year? per month?) on YouTube are attributable to the company’s various media properties, which include BET, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Dreamworks and more. (See table at end.)
Altogether, Viacom has more than 100 TV networks around the globe — pulling down Viacom’s videos will take a huge amount of time, and even then it might be difficult for YouTube to identify every last little scrap of the company’s content to find every file. [Update: as this WSJ report mentions, the DMCA doesn’t require YouTube to take down every bit of Viacom’s content. Viacom must identify the specific pieces of copyrighted work it wants taken down.] I wonder if now isn’t the time for a true test of the DMCA’s take-down provisions.
| Viacom Brands | |
|
Cable Networks and Digital Media |
Film and Music Publishing |
| BET | Paramount Pictures |
| Comedy Central | Paramount Home Entertainment |
| CMT: Country Music Television | Dreamworks SKG |
| Gametrailers.com | Famous Music |
| iFilm | |
| Logo | |
| MTV: music television | |
| MTV2 | |
| MTVu | |
| MTV Networks International | |
| MTV Networks Online | |
| Neopets | |
| Nickelodeon | |
| Nick at Nite | |
| Noggin | |
| The n | |
| Spike TV | |
| TV Land | |
| VH1 | |
| xfire | |
| MTV Networks Digital Suite | |
Update: Viacom apparently wants all the content taken down by this afternoon. Viacom’s General Counsel Mike Friklas says that the company just reached a point of “zero tolerance” and “is asking to be paid.” The company issued a statement saying that Google-owned YouTube’s delay in producing filtering technology contributed to the extreme step.
“It has become clear that YouTube is unwilling to come to a fair market agreement that would make Viacom content available to YouTube users,” the entertainment giant said in a statement. “Filtering tools promised repeatedly by YouTube and Google have not been put in place, and they continue to host and stream vast amounts of unauthorized video.”
Cynthia Brumfield at 11:02 AM|Comments(0)
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