Viacom Turns to Joost, Spurns YouTube

Vincenzo writes "Viacom has signed a deal with Joost that will see content from MTVI, Comedy Central, and CBS distributed on the new P2P distribution service. The move comes just two weeks after demanding YouTube pull over 100,000 videos offline. 'Joost's promise to protect their copyrights was a major factor in Viacom's decision, and also a stumbling block in their discussions with YouTube/Google. At the moment is it quite easy to download and store video content from YouTube, but no such exploit for Joost is known to exist.' It's also a 'secure' distribution medium in the eyes of many in the entertainment industry, since users can't upload content themselves.'"

Comments

Re:Great thinking guys

[truthsearch]

One of the nice things we see in music these days is the little guy creating and distributing high-quality audio. I'd like to see the same for video. The problem so far is that only these behemoth companies own the current content and can afford large production and distribution. If finally we'd see some significant competition from startups then Viacom and others might be forced to let go a little. If some hot new show distributed freely over the internet took eyeballs away from Viacom content maybe they'd be forced to come to their senses. Maybe.

Re:Is the smaller audience more beneficial?

[AKAImBatman]

You have to wonder what Viacom is thinking here. Is copyright protection such an issue that they would shun the market leaders?

Realisticly, it's an attempt by Viacom to place pressure on GooTube to do what they want. What they want is for Google to offer ultra-restrictive access to their... [my] precious... video content. Furthermore, they want Google to invent a foolproof copyright checker (as if such a thing is possible) to prevent average users from uploading Daily Show and Stephen Colbert clips. They're using the Joost deal as a bargaining chip to make Google do what they want.

In reality, this will end one of two ways:

1. Google will reply with a big, "So what?" and Viacom will only pay lip service to their Joost contract. A year down the road, Viacom will come back to YouTube with a cry of "me too!" when they notice how well the advertising is working for their competitors.

2. Google will appease Viacom with special features like: Prominent display of their content on the YouTube front page. Viacom will gruffly agree (when that's really one of the outcomes they were hoping for), but "only if you guys crack down harder on copyright violations!" Joost will get dropped like a rock.

Now if this was the Google of old, I'd say they will go with the first option. But given the slow progress of Google toward becoming Just Another Big Business(TM), I'd say it's just as likely that they'll take door #2.