I have avoided the Google and Youtube mess up till now. Today Viacom sued Google for $1 Billion. Now that is a huge number. At first glance one would just think that Viacom is trying to scare Google and others, but are they?
I believe they are serious. The billion may be high but don’t think that it is pie in the sky by any means. Viacom ownes such tv stations as MTV, VH1 and MTV. They own a bunch more as well. There stations are on cable that people pay money to watch. They also sell their shows often on DVD which makes them more money. They will also sell old episodes to other stations for reruns.
If these episodes and music videos are on Youtube than sales very likely will drop. Why would people pay extra for HBO and buy the season of the Soprano’s on DVD at Wal Mart? They won’t.
It is just like your local video store. They are losing money because of illegal downloads. Viacom knows that Youtube / Google is hurting them.
So $1 Billion is a lot of zeros but is it when you are counting many tv stations? Google needs to get smart and get rid of ALL copyrighted material on their site.
