Scramble for control of the video-sharing industry

The spin-offs have not gone unnoticed among the rival companies that are scrambling for a slice of the multi-million dollar industry. In one of the most significant developments since the Google/YouTube deal, Viacom Inc is laying the groundwork for its videos to be available to hundreds of thousands of other sites. In the next few months, Web users will be able to grab videos from nearly all MTV-owned sites and post them on their own blogs or Web sites, lessening the need to go to YouTube, the top online video service that Google acquired last year. According to a report on the News24 site, Viacom, owner of MTV Networks and the Paramount movie studio, had been planning for this move months before it demanded earlier this month that YouTube remove more than 100 000 unauthorised Viacom video clips from its site, after failing to reach a distribution deal. Viacom has not ruled out a deal with YouTube yet, while analysts say the dust-up is mere negotiating tactic. In other developments, the Universal Music Group is poised to win a small battle in its war to claim royalties from sites that allow users to upload videos that contain its music. The company is in the final stages of negotiating a settlement with Bolt.com, an online community that it sued last November over copyright infringement. The New York Times reports that Bolt has agreed to pay a settlement valued at several million dollars. Bolt will also agree to pay royalties in the future any time its users submit videos that contain Universal Music. Full report on the News24 site Full report in The New York Times

Meanwhile, Google has been accused of helping Web site operators who are being sued for enabling online movie piracy. Google is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which was filed by a group of major movie studios against two owners of sites like EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPlace.com. The sites allegedly sold software to help people search for movies on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks and download them to their hard drive. CNET News reports that the lawsuit alleges that the defendants created the false impression that their sites were legal and promoted them as sponsored links that were displayed when people searched for certain recently released films on Google's search site. In response to the lawsuit, the defendants deny the allegations and say Google suggested using the movie names as keywords to be purchased. Full CNET News report

On Monday, MySpace announced that it is expanding the use of audio screening technology to block the uploading of unlicensed videos to its site. The company already uses 'fingerprinting' technology licensed from content management company Audible Magic to filter out music owned by major labels. In a statement, MySpace CE and co-founder Chris DeWolfe said the company's action was intended to show its users, many of whom are musicians, that it respects their work and ownership rights. 'MySpace is dedicated to ensuring that content owners, whether large or small, can both promote and protect their content in our community,' he said. BusinessWeek reports that it's a point particularly important for MySpace to make, given that its parent company is News Corp., owner of dozens of television stations, networks, and film studios. However, it also underscores the relative lack of copyright protection offered by YouTube Google at a time when media companies, including News Corp., are fighting to keep their unlicensed content off the video-sharing site. Full Business Week report

MySpace is expanding the use of audio screening technology to block the uploading of unlicensed videos to its site. The company already uses 'fingerprinting' technology licensed from content management company Audible Magic to filter out music owned by major labels. In a statement, MySpace CE and co-founder Chris DeWolfe said the company's action was intended to show its users, many of whom are musicians, that it respects their work and ownership rights. 'MySpace is dedicated to ensuring that content owners, whether large or small, can both promote and protect their content in our community,' he said. Business Week reports that it's a point particularly important for MySpace to make, given that its parent company is News Corp., owner of dozens of television stations, networks, and film studios. However, it also underscores the relative lack of copyright protection offered by YouTube Google at a time when media companies, including News Corp., are fighting to keep their unlicensed content off the video-sharing site. Full Business Week report