It was bound to happen. The brush-up between Viacom and YouTube was bound to come to blows, and today it did.

Enough was apparently enough for Viacom, and they brought out the legal big dogs.

Is there anyone who didn’t see something like this coming? Rumors of Google setting aside some cash reserves for a long, drawn out legal battle may prove to be more than rumors. Or at least look like some good foresight.

For other copyright holders around the world, Google is becoming a big target. Belgium newspapers claimed that Google violates copyright law by linking to their news articles without permission to reprint excerpts, and the Belgian courts agreed. The Google Book project has also created concern among book publishers.

But doing business in a global economy isn’t easy. Apple is under attack in France. Microsoft still hasn’t resolved all of their anti-trust issues in the EU.

Did-It’s Mark Simon wrote an excellent piece in Mediapost addressing the shift in power away from the search companies and back to the media companies. Once again, content is king.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 7:08 pm and is filed under News, Streaming, User Generated, Viral, WebTV, advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.