viacom

NBC Universal, Viacom CEOs to speak against piracy

Jeff Zucker, the outspoken chief of NBC Universal and Philippe Dauman, Viacom's CEO, are scheduled to speak out against piracy and counterfeiting next week in Washington D.C.

Starting Tuesday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is holding its annual two-day summit on piracy and among the subjects expected to be discussed is the government's plan to defend intellectual property overseas, according to a statement.

Media companies have for a long time lobbied Washington to do more to combat online file sharing and other copyright violations. Most experts agree that despite the government's efforts thus far, piracy … Read more

Viacom's Flux has its first major tenant: ThinkMTV

MTV has just launched a new social-networking community for youth activism, ThinkMTV, which is designed to network members both online and offline around causes ranging from climate change to HIV/AIDS. While as a standalone network it's not particularly momentous or innovative (although few names come to mind in the "social networking with a social conscience" space that specifically target the MTV demographic), ThinkMTV is worth noting because it's the first major operation to be unveiled as part of MTV parent company Viacom's new Flux social networking initiative.

MTV representatives told CNET News.com in … Read more

Is MTV working on a branded social network?

Do we really need another social networking site? Apparently so, and we're not talking about start-ups here.

What we're hearing--and this is industry cocktail-party gossip, albeit a very believable variety thereof--is that MTV Networks is working on its own social network and we'll be hearing more about it pretty soon. We don't have a name, or a target demographic (Teens? College kids? Young adults?) or any semblance of screenshots. This is so hush-hush, in fact, that we aren't even sure whether it's an MTV Networks (as in MTV, VH1, MTV2, Spike TV and the … Read more

Britney's bungled performance drives big traffic to MTV

Rising up out of the chaos and career collapse that was Britney Spears' performance on Sunday are MTV's traffic numbers.

The cable channel's Video Music Awards were bad for Britney but a boon for Viacom, MTV's parent company. Users flocked to MTV.com to watch Spears' on-stage misadventures.

On Sunday, MTV.com saw 2.6 million visitors log on, a tally that smashed the site's previous record for daily Web site traffic. The site also delivered 7 million video streams on Monday as of 3:30 p.m. ET, which topped its previous best day of … Read more

This time Viacom is accused of violating copyright

Viacom includes video footage from an indy filmmaker on one of its TV shows and calls that Fair use. The filmmaker then posts to YouTube a copy of the TV show in which his work appears and Viacom calls that a copyright violation.

Viacom bashers are sure to paint this as the height of hypocrisy, but a review of the situation could be important to Web videographers.

The entertainment conglomerate, which filed a $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube earlier this year for allegedly encouraging copyright violations, says it used only heavily edited snippets of Knight's work as part of … Read more

Report: MTV, RealNetworks join forces against Apple

Viacom's MTV has plans to align its digital music strategy with RealNetworks, a move that likely marks the end of a similar partnership between MTV and Microsoft, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.

A year ago, analysts loved the idea that Microsoft appeared to be challenging Apple's powerhouse music store, iTunes, by joining forces with a music-industry icon in MTV.

But MTV's Urge music service fell flat.

One reason may have been that shortly after Urge launched, Microsoft directed much of its attention toward the Zune music player and a digital download store that … Read more

Paramount, DreamWorks commit to HD DVD

Just when it looked like Blu-ray was getting the best of HD DVD, the latter scores a combination like Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation.

Both companies announced on Monday that they had agreed to release exclusively on the HD DVD format, which is battling with rival Blu-ray to become the high-definition successor to the DVD disc.

The move by Paramount represents a setback for Blu-ray. The studio has supported both formats and the tally of studios exclusively committed to each format stands at 3-2 in favor of Blu-ray.

Sony, Disney and Fox support Blu-ray, but the momentum may be swinging … Read more

YouTube wants to depose Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart

Let's see how funny Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are on the witness stand.

The two comedians are apparently being dragged into the copyright fight between their employer and Google. Entertainment conglomerate Viacom, the company behind Stewart's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google earlier in the year, alleging that Google and YouTube encourage users to pirate copyright material.

The two companies entered the names of people they each wish to depose in court, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last … Read more

Google's Eric Schmidt: Viacom's lawsuit is 'just a mistake'

On stage at D5, on what will later be known as Google Day, Walt Mossberg asked Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the the $1 billion Viacom lawsuit against YouTube. "It was probably just a mistake," he said.

Some mistake.

Schmidt began his upcoming legal defense on the stage: "It's really about the DMCA. It's pretty clear that there's a safe haven for sites like ours."

Walt asked if Schmidt believed in intellectual property. He does, but said that the law says that in this case responsibility for enforcing copyright should be shared, and … Read more

YouTube founders: Video ads coming

At the D5 conference, YouTube founders (and now Google employees) Chad Hurley and Steve Chen were just interviewed by Walt Mossberg. In a wide-ranging interview, Hurley and Chen discussed today's EMI deal, copyright issues, and advertising. Some highlights:

The EMI deal Regarding the deal with EMI, Hurley said it will open up opportunities for YouTube users, although in a somewhat backward fashion: "It's about creating new marketing opportunities," he said. Music rights holders will be able to "identify when their music is being used, and earn revenues against that." Presumably the revenues will be from advertising, since this will "give users a free and legal way to use" this media.

In practice, it will work with YouTube's audio swap tool, which Hurley said is being expanded and improved.

Copyrights

Walt tried to nail the founders on their apparent laissez-faire attitude regarding copyrighted material. Hurley said, "In early 2006, we were the first to release content management tools, a way for people to identify their content with metadata." Also, he says, "We've done a good job of educating people on copyright law."

Walt: "Wait. Wait. Wait."

Hurley relents a bit: "We see this as a search algorithm [issue]. We're running trial with audio and visual fingerprinting." In the Fall, he said, "everyone will have access to these advanced tools." … Read more