Agreement Fizzles, Viacom Threatens Legal Action Against YouTube

We all knew $1.65 billion would buy someone’s ire

Viacom is demanding YouTube and Google to pull over 100,000 clips of its content — which it estimates as “$1.2 billion video streams on YouTube” — after trying for months to come to an agreement, stating that YouTube is unwilling to “come to a fair market agreement.”

This is the second time the media giant has butted heads with YouTube since its sale to Google last year. As you’ll recall, Viacom demanded the ‘Tube pull clips of over five minutes in length of Comedy Central shows like the Daily Show and Colbert Report — which, beyond cat videos and goofy politicians, represent YouTube’s bread-and-butter and the best free advertising the network will ever get.

Why protest now? One reason could be that, oh, Sumner Redstone is still bitter for his brass’ fumbling of the YouTube sweepstakes [see: Tom Freston]. Another: That finding a Daily Show clip on YouTube is infinitely easier than Comedy Central’s clunky Motherload video player.

EARLIER:

YouTube Pulling Comedy Central Clips? Not Necessarily

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