viacom

We tried so hard to enjoy various good news items today, like how the DirecTV TiVo is coming in 2010, Sony is climbing up the game console sale charts, and the tech sector is finally hiring again and making money and stuff! But ... you know. There's also Sony's refusal to refund retailers who give money back to unhappy PS3 owners, Ireland trying to censor the Internet, and Ning working as hard as possible to lose every single one of its users. We tried, though. We really did. --Molly

Viacom says newly released documents in its copyright fight with Google over the search engine's YouTube subsidiary help prove its case.

We've heard these kinds of sweeping declarations from both sides throughout the legal standoff, which began when Viacom filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google in 2007, claiming YouTube encouraged users to commit intellectual property theft. A review of the documents filed with the court on Thursday shows that much of the material, such as Google employees making critical statements about YouTube's "rogue" business model before buying the video sharing site in October 2006 … Read more

The ailing Rhapsody music service that Viacom and RealNetworks failed to revive starts going it alone this month. The newly independent company will partner with a major music label this time around as well as slash monthly music prices from $15 to $10.

In February, Viacom and Real announced they would spin off the jointly run music subscription service and that they would sell a minority share while each held on to 47 percent of the company's stock. On Monday, Rhapsody said that Universal Music Group, the largest of the top four recording companies, has acquired a stake of … Read more

One of the most closely watched races in online video the past two years has been between Hulu and YouTube, and it appears Hulu has just earned some bragging rights.

In a New York Times interview, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar said the streaming video service has posted profits in two quarters (though he provided few details). Kilar also said that revenue surpassed $100 million in 2009.

Profits are a significant benchmark for the company, jointly owned by News Corp., NBC Universal, and Disney. Two years ago, Google's YouTube reigned over online video nearly unchallenged. YouTube employees snickered at the … Read more

NEW YORK--Bob Tur, the Los Angeles broadcast journalist whose company sued YouTube in 2006 over a copyright complaint, has been accused by Google-employed lawyers of leaking confidential court documents related to the depositions of YouTube and Google executives in a longstanding battle with Viacom over pirated content.

In a hearing Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, attorney Andrew Schapiro of the law firm Mayer Brown cited circumstantial evidence that he claimed pinpoints Tur as the source of documents leaked to CNET's Greg Sandoval. Those documents included a deposition on behalf of … Read more

Parties in the Viacom-Google copyright court case plan to meet Friday to discuss an investigation into leaked materials at the heart of two CNET stories from last fall, according to multiple sources.

Judge Louis Stanton is expected to discuss the progress of an investigation into who leaked court documents related to the depositions of Google CEO Eric Schmidt and YouTube managers, revealing that Google knew it was overpaying for the video upload site in 2005 and that YouTube managers were likewise aware that copyright material was being uploaded to the site, according to the sources. It's not clear whether … Read more

Since March 2007, when Viacom first accused Google in a $1 billion lawsuit of profiting off thousands of unauthorized copyrighted clips that once appeared on YouTube, most of the conflict had smoldered out of public view.

Once the case documents were unsealed on Thursday, all the spite roared into the open. Google attacked Viacom for chopping up e-mails from YouTube's founders in an obvious attempt to invent sinister-sounding messages. In Viacom's motion for summary judgment, the parent company of Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures railed against Google and YouTube for developing "serial amnesia" during depositions and … Read more

We already knew that in the heated battle among location-based social-networking start-ups, Foursquare already had Ashton Kutcher on its team. Turns out it also has "Jersey Shore" star "DJ Pauly D," one of a handful of MTV and VH1 celebrities who are featured in a new marketing campaign that MTV Networks has inked with the pumped-up Foursquare.

(Serious question: Has this start-up jumped the shark already?)

The partnership tests a new kind of Foursquare account known as "Celebrity Mode," in which a prominent Foursquare user (ahem, Ashton) can choose to share "check-ins" … Read more

Thursday's 200-page dump of court documents in the 3-year-old, $1 billion copyright fight between Viacom and Google's YouTube was entertaining enough.

The documents, filed in federal court in New York, had everything from accusations of young, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs cynically ignoring the law as they sought their fortune, to claims of duplicity from a New York media conglomerate trying to embrace a start-up's youthful audience, even while it was threatening to sue that start-up into oblivion. Oh yeah, and they revealed that the conglomerate also considered buying the little company, which made the entrepreneurs multimillionaires upon selling … Read more