Now Viacom will STEAL your movie Viacom has claimed ownership of an independent filmmaker's film and now she has to fight them for it. They allow her to leave it on YouTube but they claim ownership and they get to collect data on who's watching.
posted by njohnson23 on Jul 22, 2008 - 47 comments

Google has been ordered to turn over all of its electronic records of the videos watched by users on YouTube to Viacom. The 12 terabytes of data include records of every video watched by every user, including the user's login name (if any) and IP address. Google had complained that the disclosure would invade user's privacy, but this argument was blunted somewhat by Google's earlier statement that IP Addresses are not, in and of themselves, personally identifying information. Google was also ordered to turn over certain other information, including its video classification database schema, but was not ordered to turn over information regarding videos marked as private, its source code, or its advertising database schema.
posted by The Bellman on Jul 3, 2008 - 267 comments

Dan Rather sues Viacom and CBS for $70 million. Complaint (PDF). [more inside]
posted by starman on Sep 19, 2007 - 77 comments

Viacom used my video without permission on their commercial television show, and now says that I am infringing on THEIR copyright for showing the clip of the work that Viacom made in violation of my own copyright! Writer, film-maker and "somewhat renegade Christian thinker" Christopher Knight (No, not the Brady Bunch kid. And yes, I'm as disappointed by that as you are.) fights back via his blog, with links to his original material. The show in question is Vh-1's Web Junk 2.0, and the clip in question was removed from YouTube, but preserved for posterity by Political Soup (A .wmv file here).
posted by amyms on Aug 31, 2007 - 48 comments

The Man Who Could Kill YouTube. Bob Tur is the little guy who is suing one giant (Google) to do what another giant (Viacom) probably never will -- shut YouTube down
posted by srboisvert on Jul 16, 2007 - 206 comments

She's dead sleeping, Jim. With UPN's cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise (nee just Enterprise), the Trek franchise is, for the first time in 18 years, without a weekly broadcast show. While many might agree that Star Trek needs a rest, others continue to hope, while producer/right hand of Satan (depending on which Trekkie you talk to) Rick Berman says the series (which is a billion dollar baby for Paramount/Viacom) is going to be off the airwaves for at least three years. Here's to hoping the rest is what's needed for a phenomenon that's fueled a lot of geeks for a lot of years.
posted by WolfDaddy on Feb 3, 2005 - 142 comments

Dish Network drops Viacom. Dish Network dropped Viacom-distributed channels last night, and CBS channels in 16 metropolitan areas. I can't see how alienating 1.6 million subscribers is going to be good for business, no matter what it does to their bottom line.
posted by pizzasub on Mar 9, 2004 - 43 comments

Viacom's CBS today rejected a request from liberal group MoveOn to air a 30-second anti-President Bush ad, saying the spot violated the network's policy against running issue advocacy advertising. This, despite running anti-drug and anti-smoking ads. So, is it only issues about which they disagree?
posted by dejah420 on Jan 16, 2004 - 57 comments

Jackass sues Jackass! The jackass of the first part, who had his name legally changed to Jack Ass in order to raise awareness about drunken driving somehow, has sued Viacom, owners of MTV, proud presenters of Jackass, a show about grown men falling over things and drinking pee pee, for *ahem* defamation of character. Frivolous lawsuit at its finest, or should Mr. Ass check the dictionary?
posted by mikrophon on Jan 2, 2003 - 18 comments

The Big Ten infographics that accompany The Nation's latest issue on big media conglomerates lays out just how big they are (maximize your browser for the viacom and AOLTW ones, there's a lot of small type in there).
posted by mathowie on Dec 22, 2001 - 9 comments

Robert Johnson is the first black billionaire, and ranks #172 on the list of richest Americans after he sold BET to Viacom. Does he have a social responsibilty to show more than T&A and comedy on BET, or is he being unfairly singled out?
posted by owillis on Sep 29, 2001 - 32 comments

Welcome to the blob. Please watch your step. It looks like Viacom's going to swallow up Yahoo! and all its assorted properties. What does this leave untouched, by partnerships or redistribution deals or what-have-you? Anything? (Who was it again who was predicting that one large company that controlled everything called Omnivox? I remember reading about it somewhere when I was, like, ten or so.)
posted by maura on Jan 17, 2001 - 11 comments

Human Multi-Tasking: If you count all the things we do two-at-a-time (TV-and-computer, music-and-reading), the average Metafilterer does 29.8 hours a day!
Considering that the survey was commissioned by MTV, the TV channel most likely to be playing in the background while doing something else, it's a little self-serving. Viacom (owners of MTV, CBS, UPN and Nick) needs some way of measurement that doesn't show TViewing going down...
posted by wendell on Jun 28, 2000 - 4 comments