YouTube lawsuit may help rivals

Viacom's billion-dollar legal gambit against Google could lead to more media industry lawsuits and give a boost to rival online video services in the emerging marketplace.

Media executives and analysts are awaiting the outcome of the lawsuit against Google and its video-sharing site YouTube, which Viacom said is intended to defend the notion of intellectual property and the concept of the Internet media marketplace.

Viacom, owner of MTV Networks and Comedy Central, demanded in February that YouTube pull more than 100,000 video clips uploaded by users on to the online video-sharing service. Google and Viacom had tried and failed to negotiate a deal to allow some of Viacom's content on to YouTube and split the advertising revenues.

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Viacom vs. YouTube

Reuters
Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. said on Tuesday it filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google Inc. and its Internet video sharing site YouTube over unauthorized use of its copyrighted entertainment.The suit accuses Web search leader Google and YouTube of "massive intentional copyright infringement" of Viacom's entertainment assets and seeks an injunction against further violations.Viacom contends that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of its programming have been uploaded onto YouTube's site and viewed more than 1.5 billion times.

Techcrunch
They said that Google’s acquisition of YouTube would be the act that saved it from the fate of Napster - lawsuit oblivion.And they may have been wrong, if today’s $1 billion lawsuit is a sign of things to come. Viacom, the plaintiff, has been on a warpath against YouTube lately. Unlike Fox’s behind the scenes chats with the Wall Street Journal to get the message across that they were displeased with the Google/YouTube, Viacom has chosen the frontal assault: Massive takedown notices and now the simple request for $1 billion in damages.

Google Bought Adscape for $23 Million

After some rumors of a deal these past weeks, Google has expanded it’s advertising reach by moving into video game advertising with their $23 million acquisition of Adscape. Adscape is a video game advertising company whose AdverPlay product lets developers place dynamic ads right inside the game and Real Virtual Gateway product enables two-way text, audio and video communication via SMS Text or eMail.

Microsoft seems also to have acquired a pretty similar in-game advertiser Massive to run advertising across its Xbox Live and MSN gaming platform.

NBC Universal & Viacom vs. YouTube

Jeff Zucker, on his first day as chief executive of NBC Universal, came out swinging at YouTube, accusing the online video site of failing to deploy its technology to protect the copyrighted materials of traditional media companies.

“YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It’s proven it can do it when it wants to,” Mr Zucker said, referring to the site’s controls to block pornography and hate speech. He added: “They have the capability. The question is whether they have the will.”

That frustration boiled over on Friday when Viacom, which owns MTV, Comedy Central and other youth-oriented brands, demanded that YouTube remove all of their clips from its site. Viacom executives have been eager to see whether other traditional media companies will follow their lead.

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The end of Revver, Guba and Metacafe

Just now that YouTube announced that they plan to launch their own revenue sharing system and start displaying ads on the videos there, we see how companies like Revver, Guba and Metacafe will start losing ground under their feet, considering the fact that YouTube is hugely popular and reaches the mainstream on the web!

Here is what Techcrunch wrote today: "YouTube competitors have worked to differentiate themselves by compensating video content creators, but once YouTube enters this game with their top-dog status already -I question what would make a user go to a lesser-visible video site such as Revver, Guba, Metacafe, etc. Competitors have been struggling of recent — Revver lost two founders and Guba lost its’ CEO and two executives."

more plus some interesting comments

News Corp. Invests in ROO

The Wall Street Journal reported (behind paywall) this morning that News Corp would announce a $12 million investment in online video startup ROO.
News Corp. is expected to announce today that it agreed to buy as much as 10% of ROO Group Inc., an online video-technology provider.

The deal, valued around $12 million, puts ROOTV's valuation at more than $120M!

More Funding for Brightcove

Brightcove Raises $59.5 million!

Brightcove, an online video platform and destination start-up has raised $59.5 million in new funding from strategic and large-scale institutional investors. The new investors include Maverick Capital, Brookside Capital, AllianceBernstein, The New York Times Company and Transcosmos. Existing investors such as Allen & Company, AOL, and Accel Partners participated in this round of financing.

Joost - peer-to-peer video

Mr. Zennstrom last week took the wraps off a previously secretive start-up, Joost, that intends to provide a peer-to-peer approach to distributing video online, so it seems Joost is all about peer-to-peer video, just like Kazaa which was file sharing platform and the Skype, peer-to-peer Internet telephony.

“We’re trying to take the good things about television and the good things about the Internet and put them together,” he said.
Just like its previous ventures, Kazaa and the Internet telephony company Skype, which was sold to eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005, Mr. Zennstrom now tries to reshape the video industry, which many experts, after the YouTube's sale, predict to be the next big thing on the web...