Viacom's Messy Relationship With YouTube and The Rise of Stephen Colbert

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Viacom's Messy Relationship With YouTube and The Rise of Stephen Colbert

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday December 21, 2014 @12:40PM from the birth-of-the-nation dept.

Presto Vivace writes with this story about how Stephen Colbert became a YouTube Megastar. "Clips from The Colbert Report soon became a staple at YouTube, a startup that was making it easier for anyone and everyone to upload and watch home movies, video blogs, and technically-illicit-but-increasingly-vanilla clips of TV shows from the day before. And Colbert’s show was about to find itself at the center of a conflict between entertainment media and the web over online video that’s shaped the last decade. In fact, The Colbert Report has been defined as much by this back-and-forth between Hollywood and the web as by the cable news pundits it satirizes....A year after The Colbert Report premiere, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock. Five months later, Viacom sued YouTube and Google for copyright infringement, asking for $1 billion in damages. The value of these videos and their audiences were clear. The Colbert Report and “Stephen Colbert” are mentioned three times in Viacom’s complaint against YouTube, as much or more than any other show or artist."

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Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-21 12:54 · Score: 1

Viacom has Google running scared.
1. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-21 12:57 · Score: 1
  
  Viacom has Google running scared.
  People keep posting video content of "banned" content on a regular basis.
2. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by SternisheFan · 2014-12-21 13:07 · Score: 1
  
  Call me an old neckbeard, but all this copyright shit has really gotten f**kin' tiresome. Figure it out already!!! How hard can it be??
3. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by The+New+Guy+2.0 · 2014-12-21 13:10 · Score: 2
  
  Yep, you can't capture a cable network and upload it to YouTube without permission. It took a lot of work to devise that scheme, and throws the concept of designing your own DVR out the window.
4. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by rudy_wayne · 2014-12-21 13:28 · Score: 1
  
  Viacom has Google running scared.
  People keep posting video content of "banned" content on a regular basis.
  Google keeps taking down content that should be allowed.
5. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by The+New+Guy+2.0 · 2014-12-21 13:32 · Score: 1
  
  Viacom led the YouTube lawsuit era, but ABC/Disney, NBC/Comcast and Fox/News Corp. followed behind. Content owners want you to watch on cable TV, not YouTube.
6. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by rudy_wayne · 2014-12-21 14:13 · Score: 1
  
  Content owners want you to watch on cable TV, not YouTube.
  Why? They still get paid regardless.
  Viacom and the other "content owners" collect billions of dollars a year from all the cable/satellite companies, just for the right to carry their programming. If I never watch a single minute of TV, Viacom and all the others still get paid.
7. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-21 14:26 · Score: 1
  
  It would be an easy problem to solve, if there weren't so many powerful people so keen on keeping it hard.
  Similarly, in a world where one country can produce more than enough food to feed the entire planet, on an ongoing basis, you'd think the problem of world hunger would be easy to solve.
  In a world where the overwhelming majority of the populace would prefer to feel safe every night when they go to sleep, you'd think the problem of war would be easy to solve.
  We make these problems hard, because are petty assholes.
8. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by TheRaven64 · 2014-12-21 21:22 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  It is hard. Producing a new creative work, be it a film, piece of software, book, or whatever, is hard and often expensive. Copying a creative work is cheap to the point that it's barely worth measuring the cost. Lots of influential companies have business models that revolve around doing the difficult thing for free and then charging for the easy thing to make up for it. They're eventually going to be displaced by companies that realise that it makes more sense to charge for the difficult thing - we're seeing this in software already, with open source companies giving away code that's already written for free and charging for writing new features or customisation (or, in some cases, entirely new programs).
  In 100 years, people are going to look back on DRM and restrictive copyright in much the same way that we look back at the laws that required motor cars to have someone walk in front of them with a red flag. Regulations that can't possibly work in the long term, designed to prop up an industry that's suddenly found itself obsoleted by new technology.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
9. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by Jack+Griffin · 2014-12-21 21:46 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The root cause of all this is that for a short period in history, the creative arts had a monopoly on distribution, so got to charge whatever they liked for their product, and hence vastly overvalued their self worth. Now the balance is swinging back they can't accept they shouldn't be paid millions of dollars for simply telling a story or singing a song. Tough shit, we shouldn't be propping up their outdated business model with legislation. Let them die and a new generation of 21st century entertainers take their place.
10. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by MachineShedFred · 2014-12-22 01:43 · Score: 1
  
  and throws the concept of designing your own DVR out the window.
  Tell that to the tiny PC I have hooked up to my TV that is better than any DVR equipment I've ever received from a cable or satellite provider, and has an equipment cost of $6/month for the CableCARD.
  There are several spin-your-own-DVR solutions out there, you just have to play the game. No, you can't use YouTube as your DVR; and that's not "designing your own DVR" anyway.
  
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  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
11. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by MachineShedFred · 2014-12-22 01:45 · Score: 1
  
  They make more money by having your eyeballs on their channel, in the form of ratings-metered advertising.
  
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  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
12. Re:Can't find anything on Youtube anymore by The+New+Guy+2.0 · 2014-12-26 10:14 · Score: 1
  
  TV ads are usually worth more per viewer than YouTube ads, because they get a large number of people to react at the same time, even in the age of TiVo people are still watching live streams for things like sports, and even an "I Love Lucy" effect (you know, jokes like water pressure changes based on Lucy's commercial timing) on popular shows.
  
  Viacom and the other "content owners" collect billions of dollars a year from all the cable/satellite companies, just for the right to carry their programming. If I never watch a single minute of TV, Viacom and all the others still get paid.
  Viacom doesn't get paid for what didn't work like Nick GaS (Games and Sports channel) or CBS Eye on People (a CBS News rerun channel). Why not? Because the channels no longer exist since nobody was watching.
CBS doesn't own Colbert by The+New+Guy+2.0 · 2014-12-21 13:05 · Score: 1, Informative

Steven Colbert doesn't work for CBS, his show is sold to Comedy Central and his future project is sold to CBS.
The Daily Show and Colbert report are part of Comedy Partners Inc., which was first the joint venture name for Viacom and AOL Time Warner when they shared the Comedy Central network, but is now the company headed by Jon Stewart that supplies the programs to Comedy Central.
Colbert is moving to replace David Letterman on Late Show, but that project is owned by Worldwide Pants which has run Late Night/Late Show since the beginning. CBS buys the right to broadcast it.
1. Re:CBS doesn't own Colbert by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-21 13:57 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  WRONG WRONG WRONG!! And it gets modded up!!
  "CBS will own and produce the new show, with Letterman's Worldwide Pants no longer having a role in the series after the "Colbert Report" host takes over."
  http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/late-show-stephen-colbert-perfect-695173
2. Re:CBS doesn't own Colbert by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-21 16:36 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Believe it or not, you're not the first person to find something wrong on the internet.
  But he is the last. After this, no more mistakes.
3. Re:CBS doesn't own Colbert by dean.cubed9947 · 2014-12-21 16:45 · Score: 2
  
  You just started a sentence with the word 'but'. Reset the timer!
4. Re:CBS doesn't own Colbert by Paradise+Pete · 2014-12-22 03:43 · Score: 1
  
  I did say "after this." However (heh), as you have now made a more recent mistake, now we do have to reset the timer....
5. Re:CBS doesn't own Colbert by disambiguated · 2014-12-22 17:24 · Score: 1
  
  Probably Poe's Law, but you can never be sure.
  
  Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing.
I think it is useful to document the history by Presto+Vivace · 2014-12-21 13:25 · Score: 2

From the article:

Viacom’s claim wasn’t that YouTube was just turning a blind eye to users infringing copyright—it was that YouTube was offering filtering technology to its media partners that it wasn’t making available to companies who weren’t playing ball.
Lost His Balls by Kunedog · 2014-12-21 13:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

Colbert sacrificed his integrity and actually did fluff piece on Anita Sarkeesian. Comments are disabled on the interview vid; has that ever happened to any other Colbert vid?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
1. Re:Lost His Balls by retchdog · 2014-12-21 13:47 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  yeah, Viacom probably didn't want to deal with subpoenas and a federal investigation from the comments of people like you.
  pretty wise of them, really.
  
  --
  "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
2. Re:Lost His Balls by theskipper · 2014-12-21 15:34 · Score: 1
  
  Never heard of this Anita person before, but after watching the interview it looked to me like just a standard/funny Colbert interview. Shrug.
  Btw, your youtube link was wrong. Here's the correct one:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
3. Re:Lost His Balls by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-21 16:21 · Score: 1
  
  What do you do when you have no leg to stand on? Ad hominem attacks!
  "young boys, neckbeards, misogynists, etc"
4. Re:Lost His Balls by camg188 · 2014-12-21 22:37 · Score: 1
  
  Colbert lost his integrity
  The Colbert Report is a fictional comedy show. I hope you are refering to his professional integrity to deliver laughs, not news.
5. Re:Lost His Balls by drinkypoo · 2014-12-21 23:57 · Score: 1
  
  Quick question... What kind of biscuits? If they are the cheddar ones from Red Lobster I think you wouldn't even need a ravenous anything to not eat every single one.
  Fuck, put some shredded cheese and some old bay into some bisquick already, what year is it?
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
6. Re:Lost His Balls by mvdwege · 2014-12-22 00:00 · Score: 1
  
  Oh my. People this stupid really exist.
  Hey kiddo, hate to burst your bubble, but Colbert was never on your side. I'll spell it out for you: he does a parody of a White Conservative Man.
  And if this kind of rampant stupidity is a sample of the kind of comments that video was expected to attract, disabling comments seems eminently reasonable to me.
  
  --
  "I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
7. Re:Lost His Balls by MachineShedFred · 2014-12-22 02:01 · Score: 1
  
  More than that, his "Steven Colbert" act (that's what it is - an act) is just being a contrarian. He'll be the first to say that his entire interviewing style is to be disinterested in whoever it is that is there, and to just argue with them with the absolute most ridiculous contrary statements he can think of. He, in fact, tells his guests this before any cameras are turned on in order to let them have some fun with it too - he genuinely wants his guests to have a great time when they appear, and thus warns them that this is how the act goes.
  That show was never meant to have "integrity" of any sort, and the GP is an idiot.
  
  --
  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
8. Re:Lost His Balls by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-22 02:03 · Score: 1
  
  > stop fucking victimising them
  You cannot stop victimizing SJWs. They will find offense anywhere because that's how they make a living. It's their job. Every time they cry harassment their patreon donations soar. They'll twist anything into racism, sexism, oppression and harassment. They are masters of raising the goal post.
  Ironically they complain about harassment and at the same time harass people who don't agree with them off twitter, wikipedia, send them threatening objects (knives, dead animals) or just get them fired.
  Yes, these are the SJWs, not GG. They are a toxic community that projects their hatred for everyone who doesn't think their way on everyone else. They're like the rabid anti-gay conservatives who get caught in airport toilets.
9. Re:Lost His Balls by Hillgiant · 2014-12-22 02:06 · Score: 1
  
  Clearly this is about ethics in gaming journalism; not about threats of extreme violence to silence dissent*.
  *Even if it is composed entirely of such threats. Modern political debate. So meta.
  
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10. Re:Lost His Balls by DrPizza · 2014-12-22 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  Fuck off, you stupid gator prick.
11. Re:Lost His Balls by jo_ham · 2015-01-03 00:51 · Score: 1
  
  It's amazing how you boys are so willing to white knight for lying wenches.
  Whether she lies or not (what lies exactly - or are you just talking about disagreeing with her stance or her talking points?), the response to her is not to threaten to rape her, or doxx her, or call anyone who does a piece that is not critical of her "sacrificing integrity".
  She has some extreme leaps of logic among some actual points, but the reaction to her has been nothing but immature whining and outright obscene and unacceptable behaviour towards her and anyone else who brings up the topic. You're essentially making her point for her better than she ever could. It's a self fulfilling prophecy at this point.
12. Re:Lost His Balls by jo_ham · 2015-01-03 00:55 · Score: 1
  
  What do you do when you have no leg to stand on? Ad hominem attacks!
  "young boys, neckbeards, misogynists, etc"
  How is it an ad hominem attack to call people who threaten to rape her to make her shut up, or call anyone who talks her about the media in anything but an oppressively critical light 'sacrificing integrity' anything but "immature young boys"? That's exactly what they are.
  Put it this way, if they don't want to be called misogynistic, immature boys who are whining like bratty children when someone they don't like says something they disagree with then they should probably stop acting like it.
amazing how threatened you young boys are by Presto+Vivace · 2014-12-21 15:59 · Score: 1

my thoughts preciscely https://www.youtube.com/user/f...
PROTECT BALLS FROM SARKEESIAN! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-21 16:55 · Score: 1, Insightful

BUT ETHICS1!!111ONEONEONE! Yes, it's kind of amazing how this bunch of obnoxious gamergating cunts have been whipped up into such a misogynistic frenzy by fairly tame documentaries making relatively obvious observations about the formulaic and trope-ridden world of popular gaming. Maybe heavy cannabis use among dudebros is a contributory factor in the spectacular levels of paranoia on show.
Re:wrong side by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-21 21:21 · Score: 1

Yeah, damn right! If he'd been mean to Anita, she would have had to criticise him, which as we know is the worst infraction that any God-fearing white male could ever withstand from a woman. It's a good thing you're here to issue propaganda on behalf of a movement that is currently harrassing JIMMY FUCKING WALES for the crime of demanding impartiality on a Wikipedia article.
You are rapidly running out of friends. May I suggest you would be better received on 8chan or your circle-jerk subreddit?
You mean he not only won Television by obarthelemy · 2014-12-21 22:33 · Score: 2

he also won the Youtube, and the Internet !

--
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WTF is Google ? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-22 01:38 · Score: 1

Massive Internet cultural assumption or what!
Gotten out of hand by Stele · 2014-12-22 02:56 · Score: 1

I recently got two take-down requests for two videos I put up on YouTube. They were both trade-show demo reel videos that I helped produce showing post-produced results in television shows and movies from software I wrote. These videos were 20 years old, but I thought it would be good to preserve them.
Paramount wanted one taken down for a 2-second clip from a Paramount movie. Someone else wanted the other taken down because I guess they owned the copyright on the music we had bought to accompany the video.
One could argue that putting these videos up was entirely fair use but I didn't argue at all and just yanked them. Not worth it.