YouTube wins case against Viacom

The epic bore-saga that was Viacom's little-more-than-a-nuisance action against Google, owner of YouTube, looks to be over as a San Francisco federal judge granted Google's motion for a summary judgement. He decided that YouTube is protected by the Digital Millennium…

MTV launching HD music channel across Europe, from September

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Staring from September 15 you’ll be able to scrutinise the skin of your favourite pop star in more detail than ever before, as MTV and its parent company Viacom launch an HD music channel for quite a chunk of Europe.

Initially shaming Britney Spears in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland and Sweden, the channel will feature “new music” and “programming for kids,” all in English…

Viacom "backs down" – doesn't want to know everything about every YouTube user any more

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Angry media mega-corporation Viacom has lessened its demands for information about video watchers, says YouTube – but it still wants details of every item on the site.

YouTube says Viacom – which originally wanted to know what every user has watched on the site – has settled for a bit less data. The critical climbdown is regarding user-associations, so Google will still be handing over its database of stuff, only without the critical user details…

Viacom wins right to sift through YouTube user data, all four terabytes of it

viacomyoutube.gifIn the long running battle between Viacom and Google over YouTube hosting copyrighted videos, Viacom has now won a ruling to allow it to access a complete set of video viewing records, totalling some four terabytes of data.

Google argues that the data, which lists every IP address and the videos watched, would infringe on its users’ privacy. The judge used Google’s own argument — that IP addresses don’t personally identify an individual — to throw out that objection.

Will ad-funded TV streams kill off the video download market?

stu-mugshot2.jpgStuart Dredge writes…

There’s no shortage of big firms trying to sell us video downloads, including Apple and Microsoft. In theory, they should be pushing at an open door. Faster broadband connections are more widespread, devices like Apple TV make it easy to watch these downloads on our proper TVs, and more people have video iPods or PMPs to watch these vids on the go, too.