Online Media Cultist

Last post I talked about how the blogosphere and social networks have been colliding and that 2007 will be a year when the gaming world and MMOs will incorporate social networking in a big way. Another huge convergence that’s been happening all the while is that of the television and the Internet, to the point where the meaning of “TV” is rapidly changing.

Case in point: now you can add a widget to your Google home page that pipes in live TV updates from networks like CNN.

It’s no wonder that the music industry is crumbling and that Viacom is suing Google for $1 billion for alleged copyright infringement on YouTube. The old establishment of entertainment and content distribution is dying, fueled by technology and innovation and a public that increasingly demands that it should consume the content it wants anywhere, anyplace, any time.

Picked up on the Google widget story on Micro Persuasion.

You knew that Mark Cuban would come out swinging on this one.

In a piece entitled You Go Viacom! the Blog Maverick ripped into “Gootube” (one of his favorite current targets) for being complacent and basically setting itself up for the massive $1 billion lawsuit that it’s now looking at from heavy hitter media company Viacom.

Cuban uses the example of HBO programs to explain the case from the standpoint of television content providers, noting that the reported $2.2 million fee per episode that A&E paid to syndicate The Sopranos would be far devalued in a world where the hit show was easily available via YouTube.

Cuban ends on an ominous note, writing, “Google may not know it, but they have already lost,” on the notion that entertainment companies are if nothing else superior in bending copyright laws to their needs.

While my opinion is just one more blogospheric whim in a sea of speculation, my hunch is that Viacom is looking to cut an advantageous deal here, and the $1 billion number is simply bluster and a means to gain leverage. This is not the age of Napster, the music industry in particular is in mortal danger, and entertainment companies will not be able to use the legal route forever as a last stand against the Internet wave.

Some of the smartest people I know are on opposite sides of the YouTube debate. One camp thinks that YouTube that was worth the gargantuan sum that Google paid for it, while the other foresees major troubles ahead, whether it be loss of market share because of the relatively easy replication of the platform (a danger most online media websites face: in the end, the value lies in community and the ability to hold onto it) or because of some kind of major lawsuit over copyright issues.

The announcement today that Viacom is suing Google for $1 billion over “unauthorized use of its copyrighted entertainment” is a pretty big test case. I would write “major test” except for the fact that Google is amongst that select group of companies on the planet for which $1 billion is but a pittance.

The suit centers around an alleged 160,000 uploaded “unauthorized” video clips. It will be very interesting to see if YouTube/Google will be able to cut a deal with Viacom to let these clips slide. It’s entirely possible that Viacom is using the suit as a gambit to put it in a position to insert its content offerings online in a more “legal” (read: profitable to the company) manner.

There will undoubtedly be a flood of reaction across the web about this today and throughout the week. I’ll try to add an update or two as this story plays out.