Viacom demands YouTube pull 100K clips

Viacom is demanding that YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips, disrupting months of negotiations between the companies.

The media conglomerate has contended that the Google-owned YouTube is unwilling to reach "a fair market agreement that would make Viacom content available to YouTube users." In addition, Viacom contends that filtering tools promised repeatedly by YouTube and Google have not been put in place, while unauthorized video has continued to be streamed.

"YouTube and Google retain all of the revenue generated from this practice, without extending fair compensation to the people who have expended all of the effort and cost to create it," an MTV spokesman said Friday, adding that virtually every other distributor has conceded the fair value of entertainment content and has taken deliberate steps to secure agreements with content providers. "The recent addition of YouTube-served content to Google Video Search simply compounds this issue."

Viacom has asked for the clips to be removed but stopped short of filing a lawsuit. Viacom estimates that its contribution to YouTube amounts to 1.2 billion streams, many of which are big draws on the site, including clips from Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" and VH1's "Flavor of Love."

In response to Viacom's call for removal, YouTube said that it will comply with the request, adding that the viral video site "cooperates with all copyright holders to identify and promptly remove infringing content as soon as we are officially notified."

Despite Viacom's differences with YouTube, the company's MTV Networks reached a licensing deal last year with Google allowing its video search component to use clips from MTV and its sibling networks under a revenue-sharing agreement.

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