Comments on: Viacom's Web guru plans for the future

Mika Salmi, online video pioneer and former record label executive, works to keep MTV and other Viacom properties relevant in new digital world.

[lingsun]

MTV hasn't been relevant for years.

MTV hasn't been relevant for years. They gave up showing music videos years ago. It made no sense when they bothered to celebrate their 25th anniversary. MTV could be still bringing attention to new music like they did in the early 80s but they stopped caring about music years ago. Given that they don't show music videos, it doesn't make sense that they're suing over their theft.

[CommandHerTaco]

Not only that,

How did they get the rights to all the music videos? Don't they belong to the artists and record labels?

[offonoff]

Boycott Viacom

If Viacom can't cope with the future I recommend we all stop
having anything to do with Viacom's large multinational corporate
portfolio. I for one will miss John Stewart on Comedy Central. But
then there is always Keith Olbermann.

[mn39202]

Hey, I was unintentially boycotting them anyway

I have better things to do with my time. Like watching grass grow or arguing with street people.

[howiloved]

Mac Users

While I agree that MTV hasn't been relevant for music lovers in a very long time, they've evolved into a very different content provider.

They've also tried to have a huge presence on the internet. However, I guess they made a "deal" with Microsoft and us Mac users are left in the cold. It really pisses me off that while us mac users represent a very small fraction of net users, it doesn't mean we should be discarded. After all, aren't we the artsy fartsy crowd?

[bradyme]

MTV

"MTV, I said MTV, I said MTV.. get off the air NOOOW! - Dead Kennedy's 1984"

Polished so bad, it's own media strategy has been discovered by the young generation as a waist of media space. Shooo!

[jchandler15]

Viacom vs Youtube

Why couldn't Viacom agree some sort of deal with Youtube, surely that is more beneficial to them then suing for $1 billion which by the way is a ridiculous amount.

Josh Chandler
http://www.techoriphic.com

[Blito]

If people are making profit, Viacom has rights AND

Same with the GPL, it has nothing to do with money but intellectual ownership. Open source contracts are intellectual ownership mainly allowing for free distribution.
If the owner of the original product wants to tack on a financial contract he has the right to do so, even with Creative Commons I think it's done that way. Unless they want YouTube to pay up front then I am not sure if that's good although iI am familiar with that business model.
It's the distribution model that should be unencumbered and if people like YouTube are making money they must give Viacom a cut. The open source media distribution model should be successful with media like it was with software this year.

Basically YouTube is opening a user generated profit system this year. Shouldn't Viacom get money based on the amount of clips shown or does YouTube have to pay up front?

[E34touring]

Viacom is a content company, they want big $$$

I am sure ViaCom wants a ridiculous cut that Google cannot afford to give. Thats why there has not been any settlement. Remember Google settles with several Record Labels (except Universal) just before they acquired YouTube. Google has done their homework, they will fight this.

Oh, as John C Dvorak has said, Google could really cut Viacom and his subsidiaries off the Search Engine index!. Just doing this a week will hurt Viacom like mad. Then Viacom will file another "unfair business practise" suit. What ?. Viacom has so much money why don't they build their own search engine. Oh, they tried to their own YT but not getting the traffic... wonder why ???.

[E34touring]

Salmi is a hybrid of sorts-

No offense but Salmi's background is old-school media and some niche casual gaming. Not what I call mainstream internet by any means.

What can he do ?. Short clips ?. That it ?.

GooTube hopefully grows into ad sponsored and paid membership system in future. That revenue stream is bound to catch on. I am talk short and long clip, even HD clips, especially HD clips. You think they will let Joost and Apple take the revenues ?. Nah, Google is too smart for this, they are diversifying as well...Go Google : Take Down these old-school giants one at a time. They could help Apple with distribution to AppleTV boxes since they have more infrastructure than any other company.

[AnimeFan5]

MTV dead at 25!

Here is a great read about what is really happening to MTV:
http://www.bubblegeneration.com/2007/03/i-want-my-mtv-20.cfm

[garrywdm]

MTV yesterdays hero

If Mika Salmi is so in touch and such a forward thinking guru, why didn't he come up with Youtube first? The world has passed MTV by. And why shouldn't it? It's stale and yesterdays hero

[microsoft slayer]

Viacom is a little late in the game

Reminds me of SCO Group.

[ralfthedog]

How much does Viacom get per Viewer on TV?

If they want to rake in the cash they should set up a micro pay system.

1. The viewer sends in $15 or $20 by credit card to there Viacom account.

2. The user pays $0.50 or less per show they want to watch. The show has a visible watermark identifying the account that downloaded the show in the lower left hand corner of the vid.

3. If someone starts mass distributing the shows they downloaded, Viacom knows who to go after.

I know for a fact that Viacom gets far less than fifty cents per viewer on ad based distribution.