Hogan's Blog #3

From Thursday, September 20, 2012


Viacom has been all over the news in recent months. One incident involved DirecTV where Viacom was trying to get more money out of DirecTV subscribers. Another involved YouTube and copyright infringements.

DirecTV vs. Viacom

A couple of months ago, DirecTV subscribers lost access to all of the Viacom channels is was carrying. The dispute was that Viacom, a wealthy transnational conglomerate, wanted DirecTV to charge more to its customers for Viacom stations. DirecTV responded with a resounding, "NO!," and stopped airing Viacom channels until the dispute was resolved. A resolution was reached in only a couple of days, but the CEO of DirecTV released a video explanation of what was going on, why the channels were suspended, and that steps were being taken to resolve the issue. Following whatever arrangement that was made between the two companies, DirecTV reactivated access to Viacom stations without an increase in monthly charges to its customers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVmR51gXueA&feature=related

Viacom vs. YouTube

Viacom was involved in a legal dispute with YouTube, and subsequently Google, about copyright infringements on videos posted on its site. The original suit was filed back in 2007 claiming that YouTube was not adhering to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Viacom insisted that the video clip be taken down immediately and YouTube complied. The suit was for $1 billion dollars in damages against Google, but the crazy part is that some of the evidence being presented in the case pre-dated Google's acquisition of YouTube. So, how is Google liable. What puts another crazy twist to the story is that some of the video clips Viacom was suing over they posted themselves!!

In conclusion:

Who are these characters running Viacom, and why are they after so much money?! You would think that a corporation with as many propoerties it owns would be sitting on a mound of cash that would put Scrooge McDuck to shame.

A list of Viacom Properties: