Viacom vs. Google: As the Tube turns
In the ultimate Silicon Valley soap opera, mud flies as court documents reveal the details of Viacom's copyright infringement suit against YouTube
Follow @ifw_cringelyStop me if you've heard this plot line before: The aging sugardaddy who gets spurned and seeks revenge. The grasping ingenue who will do anything (or anyone) to gain wealth and power. The dashing young hero who swoops in to save the ingenue from the decrepit suitor, thus becoming his enemy.
Sounds like an episode of "One Life to Live," doesn't it? Only in this case, the soup soap opera players are Viacom, YouTube, and Google.
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It's surely the most entertaining drama to hit Silicon Valley in an age, thanks to a federal court's decision yesterday to unseal documents from Viacom's $1 billion suit against Google.
The blogosphere is buzzing over some of the revelations in the suit and the public catfight that's erupted between the warring parties as a result.
The major news: It appears Viacom had its eye on YouTube as an acquisition target for some time before all the drama hit. According to documents filed by Google, 187-year-old Viacom honcho Sumner Redstone offered to buy YouTube before Google did. Weirder still, at one point Viacom execs wanted Google to go in on the purchase. Talk about kinky.
After YouTube spurned Viacom's offers and hooked up with Google, Redstone decided that YouTube is just a copyright slattern, a Website of easy virtue -- thus, Viacom's $1 billion suit against Google. Per Viacom's official statement yesterday:
YouTube was intentionally built on infringement and there are countless internal YouTube communications demonstrating that YouTube's founders and its employees intended to profit from that infringement. By their own admission, the site contained "truckloads" of infringing content and founder Steve Chen explained that YouTube needed to "steal" videos because those videos make "our traffic soar."
