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Copyright? Right, Right, Viacom and Google Are Both Bullies

We won’t bore you with another news article about Viacom lunging at Google’s YouTube jugular. But there's oh so much more to learn about these finicky media giants beyond copyright squabbles.

Dollars may be at issue with this lawsuit but its content that's the real battleground. With each merger or media consolidation and with each ownership change, content is owned and determined by fewer, wealthier folks. News organizations are dealing with content wars in all kinds of ways, such as buying out older employees and investing more in online and niche operations. Eric Klinenberg offers, another take on the media melee, arguing that the hunt for larger profit margins among traditional media companies, not the Internet and its subversion of original content, is what is in fact killing the news. And for well over 25 years Viacom has been trying smash the little guys with media mergers.

What do DreamWorks, Infinity Broadcasting, King World, BET, Blockbuster, Paramount, Showtime, UPN, and VH1 all have in common? They are all part of the Viacom/CBS media machine. Google, too, is not exactly an innocent bystander in the media intimidation game. The gobbler in many a merger, the fledgling giant runs fast and loose with that little thing called privacy. So we'll see how things play out with this lawsuit, but truth be told they might just end up being one company someday, all owned by Time Warner maybe?

For a doomsday scenario for media in general check out the Museum of Media History’s mockumentary EPIC 2012 that predicts the final collapse of the Fourth Estate.

--Gary Moskowitz

Comments

I love it. The greedy jew Sumner Redstone going at it with the two greedy jews at Jewgle that sold themselves out to China. Let them cut each other to ribbons.

Posted by: Tamara on 03/15/07 at 7:45 PM

Tamara,

Please leave this blog for intelligent discourse. Your comment shows bigotry for what it truly is, the result of horribly small-minded inDUHviduals. Please stop wasting oxygen and other planetary resources with your existence.

Posted by: Misnathropic Scott on 03/16/07 at 3:22 AM

Get her, Misanthropic Scott! Sometimes it seems like the people who visit MJ with these kinds of comments are not only bigots, but have tarrets syndrome, as well. Because there will be a post about something that doesn't seem to suggest a conversation about bigotry, for instance, chemicals in your chicken breasts, but somehow one of these little nasty grams will pop up. Like this: 'Chemicals, hell! It's those wop faggots that need to shut and go back to Swedin where their kind belongs!' And all you can do is scratch your head and wonder. There is probably a name for this; I wonder what it is?

Posted by: Paul Miller on 03/16/07 at 6:14 AM

I consult on this issue for the NAB, so I see Klinenberg's name pop up quite often.

However, his research has been shown to be shoddy, not to mention selective and self-serving. Clear Channel was not a bad thing for the Minot media market, in fact it improved the number of choices available to consumers.

Modernizing the ownership rules would have a positive effect on competition in local markets, and a benefit for consumers, too. Here's hoping they do the right thing.

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Copyright? Right, Right, Viacom and Google Are Both Bullies

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