Viacom who owns brands like BET, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Spike TV and several others, has demanded that YouTube remove 100,000 videos. That’s over 1.2 billion streams that are to be removed immediately. According to several sources, Viacom had been negotiating with YouTube for several months. Apparently there were disagreements or the deal wasn’t going anywhere for Viacom to make such a demand.
In a statement from Viacom, they say:
“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. YouTube and Google retain all of the revenue generated from this practice, without extending fair compensation to the people who have expended all of the effort and cost to create it. The recent addition of YouTube-served content to Google Video Search simply compounds this issue. …. Our hope is that YouTube and Google will support a fair and authorized distribution model that allows consumers to continue to enjoy our very popular content now and in the future.â€
Just last week, Google announced that YouTube video results would appear in the Google Video search index. It’s interesting that Viacom points that out in their statement above as compounding their issues with YouTube. Now it’s not just about YouTube anymore, with Google holding the reigns. Eventually the lawsuits will start flowing in, and Google will have to make an executive decision over what to do with copyrighted material that consistently makes its’ way into the video results.
So, say good-bye to the loads of Daily Show clips, The Colbert Show, and other popular shows that are floating around YouTube, like the Bill Gates episode with over 467,000 views. They’re still up as of now, but you can bet they won’t be there for long (Another source for these shows is www.colbertondemand.com 
).
Source: paidContent.org
Like someone was saying on Digg
Take them down today, and they’ll be back up tomorrow.
I’ve never really understood the big deal about this. I get that the networks are pissed that someone else is making advertising revenue off of their content, but with the exception of ComedyCentral.com, its not like the networks are making the content available themselves for people to see.
Like NBC gets Saturday Night Live clips taken down from YouTube almost immediately all the time, and I ask, is there another way for me to see this clip? Besides me waiting ten years for NBC to put out a ‘best of’ dvd set?
There needs to be some changes to the copyright laws in this country, for movies too. If ask me, if a network and or studio is not actually selling the content, making the tv show / movie available to be obtained by the public, then it shouldn’t be illegal to steal it. It should be ok to download it / watch it online, because there is no other way to see it, and they are not really losing money because of it, because they’re not selling it or making it available themselves, so even the advertising revenue is money they weren’t going to make for themselves anyway.
And the biggest thing the networks just can’t get through their heads is, seeing so many great and funny clips from a show does not make me actually watch the show on tv less, it makes me watch it more.
Thanks for the plug of Colbert On Demand! We’ll continue to post as much video of The Colbert Report as possible, and if we can, we’ll expand again into the shows, The Daily Show and Countdown With Keith Olbermann. I guess this move, will make us busier than ever, in trying to index all of the video from these shows, that will no longer be available on YouTube
I find it funny how these massive old school media companies think lawsuits are the answers to making their money, it only further disenfranchises the audience. They must learn to evolve with the industry or they’ll be left behind (dinosaurs will die). Ad revenue sharing is something I expected YouTube to do, if they crossed the chasm, as it’s the best way to ward off lawsuits and allow the industry of television to further grow with the Internet. Furthermore sharing revenue with it’s users was also a great move that I knew they couldn’t deny at this stage in the game, as they were already striking deals with major media companies. The moves YouTube are making, are exactly in line with what they should be doing, it allows them to maintain videos that are so popular on their site, while doing it all in a legal and fair way to both media companies and it’s users.
Unfortunately media companies like Viacom simply doesn’t realize that there is a vastly untapped Internet video market, that they will not have the same ability to monopolize and control it much in the way they can with television, thankfully as the Internet is playing a huge role in the democratization of information and media. It’s in their best interest to comply with a deal with YouTube, as they’ll be unable to adequately compete on the Internet video market, and will further cause them to lose profits by not tapping into the Internet video market, which will over the next 5 years will become massive, as it already has taken off incredible fast.
This is really stupid in my opinion. I would think that these companies would be trying to work with Google/YouTube rather than threaten them. There is no question in my mind that there are thousands and thousands of viewers that now watch the Daily Show and Colbert on Demand because of what they’ve seen on these movie networks.
@xpgeek: You’re completely right that it takes forever for these huge networks to make their shows available online, and they need to realize this is a huge problem because a lot of users look for interesting shows to watch by viewing clips online. I don’t think I’ve even seen a full episode of a TV show on YouTube in a long time, so why they’re complaining is beyond me.
Unfortunately there is still quite a few full episodes of tv shows and even some movies floating around on YouTube.
Like when Fox just sued to get the name of the guy that uploaded the entire first 2 episodes or something of 24 to YouTube. And I just want to grab the guy that did it and smack him, you damn moron, why did you upload that? Why would I want to watch it in a dozen 10 minute clips anyway when I can just bit torrent it?
All these idiots do by uploading content in its entirety like this, besides being able to brag to their friends for a few days how cool they are, is ruin it for everyone. 99% of other Youtube users are legitimately enjoying their selected short clips from shows, and then they have to go and upload the ENTIRE show to it, and make everyone that uses the site look like a complete pirate.
Its always the few that ruin it for the many.
Sorry for commenting again so soon, just something I want to add to my above comment.
When the story broke 2 weeks ago about Fox suing YouTube to get the name of the person that uploaded em, people were saying ohh YouTube better not give in, and I was saying I hope they do hand it over because the guys a jackass. YouTube is not the place for full episodes, bit torrent is, and hes not a copyright law radical geek that should be protected like the rest of us, hes a jackass that makes us all look bad.
I’m not sure whether you meant that to be funny or not, but I was laughing pretty hard after reading it.
This makes me wonder what will happen with DailyMotion since it is the primary host for all of the videos on sites like PeekVid. It also has all of the episodes of 24 for every season I think…I haven’t looked into it but I assume that DailyMotion is located in some other country which is the reason it can get around this issue?
Big media companies still don’t understand that all these videos are free publicity! Jeez…
Very true, unfortunately they don’t realize all of the publicity that they’re getting. At some point, I’m sure Viacom will regret this move.