Viacom v. YouTube, litigation v. innovation?

A while back, when Viacom sent their cease and desist letter to YouTube/Google, I wrote a post declaring that it was getting ugly. It's beyond ugly now, it's downright hideous. Viacom is suing YouTube for $1 billion in damages. Yes I said $1 billion.

Om Malik @ GigaOm has a great post which sums up a couple of key points:

• Viacom missed out a couple of years ago to create a YouTube-like network
  
• Viacom is behind the 8 ball and is doing this in part to catch-up
  
• There is question if YouTube is even violating the law
  
• YouTube's traffic numbers spiked after the takedown announcement and continue to rise
  

I understand what Viacom's rationale is. It's their material, but at some point you have to look at what is more valuable...the eyeballs or the content. Consumers are choosing where they consume content. The era of content creators dictating where these venues are is coming to a close. Consumers are in control and publishers should a) realize this is happening and b) put their content where the most people can see it and come up with a plan to monetize it.

Wouldn't Viacom be better off in the end to provide high-quality videos with pre-roll ads on YouTube? Does their litigious stance show they really care about the customers?

Paul's not happy about this either.

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