So you’re probably wondering why so many companies stayed away from purchasing YouTube. Was it because they didn’t have $1.65 billion dollars? Was it because Mark Cuban said anyone who bought them was an idiot? Or was it because anyone who bought the video sharing site was walking into a legal mine field? Well it’s probably all of the above.
It looks like Google will be making a serious dip into that $200 million of petty cash they set aside to deal with YouTube’s obvious copyright issues.
Today, Viacom sued YouTube and its parent, Google, for “massive intentional copyright infringement” involving more than 160,000 video clips from its properties like MTV and Comedy Central. And if Google wants to make Viacom happy and go away, they’ll have to cough up $1 billion.
We all saw this coming and I liken this relationship to the reason why Wal-Mart doesn’t purchase an independent heroin distributor. Sure the heroin distributor has lots of loyal customers and they’ve never been harassed by the authorities, but once a company like Wal-Mart starts selling heroin now the illegality of it is far more visible and there’s someone with lots of money you can sue.
Google’s response to Viacom’s action was we won’t let this suit become a distraction to our business. Good luck Google. You need to remember that Viacom owns MTV. And MTV made the show “The Grind†and “MTV Beach House†which was nothing but distractions.
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