As a result of a digital licensing agreement with Viacom, Amazon announced today that Amazon Prime members will now be able to instantly stream television shows from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, TV Land, Spike, VH1, BET, CMT and Logo. The …

Apparently, if you want to promote your video game, or members of the company that developed it through the use of online video hubs like YouTube, you had better make sure Viacom didn’t, at any point, put their hands on …

That’s Professor Chaos from South Park which appears on Comedy Central, which is owned by Viacom. The reason the image is leading this post is because it’s Viacom’s intellectual property, vicariously, anyway, and after watching their propaganda video supporting SOPA, …

Apparently, one of the main rules of corporate level lawsuits is if you at first don’t get your way, try, try again until you find a judge that agrees with your constant complaining. Just ask Viacom and YouTube, or, well, …

In case anyone was wondering, YouTube hasn’t decided to wave a white flag with respect to the legal battle that Viacom started in early 2007.  Indeed, lawyers representing the site have filed a new 94-page document defending YouTube’s approach to …

Eleven months ago, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were pulled from Hulu.  Fans complained in response.  Now the shows are back thanks to a wider deal between Hulu and Viacom, and Hulu’s CEO, Jason Kilar, has also revealed some interesting stats and opinions regarding the site’s performance and the future of television.

More than four months after YouTube won a lawsuit filed by Viacom – and just one day after Google announced several new ways in which it’ll try to aid copyright owners – it look like the legal fight is about to start again.  Viacom is reportedly ready to move forward with its appeal.

In late June, Google announced that it had won its long legal battle with Viacom. The court decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of  the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement.

Earlier this month, Viacom’s supporters came out in force, formally taking the corporation’s side in its legal dispute with YouTube.  Now eBay, Facebook, IAC, and Yahoo have acted to sort of balance the situation, stepping forward to ally themselves with YouTube.

If moral support determined the outcome of lawsuits, YouTube might be in a whole lot of trouble.  Fourteen organizations – including very important companies like Disney, NBC, and Warner Bros. – have officially declared themselves friends of Viacom by filing a legal brief.

Today, another nine exhibits from the Viacom-YouTube were released, and while Google will no doubt get around to spinning the documents its own way, Viacom has already had a go.  The entertainment company highlighted four rather incriminating quotes this afternoon.

Almost exactly three years ago, Viacom sued YouTube for copyright infringement, and since then, neither side has been able to say much in public.  But today, 108 pages’ worth of court documents were released, and YouTube also issued a more comprehensible, 865-word statement.

This morning, YouTube appears to be a touch closer to losing a lawsuit and owing Viacom $1 billion dollars.  A report indicates that some new evidence has surfaced in a 31-month-old case, and the evidence supposedly shows that YouTube employees didn’t quite do their best to keep copyrighted content off the site. 

In August, online video reached a record high, with over 25 billion videos watched during the month, according to data from comScore. A pretty good chunk of these were watched via Google sites (hardly surprising, considering the enormous popularity of YouTube). Google sites accounted for over 10 billion videos watched in August.

A federal judge has dismissed some claims for damages against Google’s YouTube in a class action copyright suit involving music publishers and Britain’s Premier League.

U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton ruled that damages are not available for any foreign works that are not registered in the United States except those that fall under a live broadcast exemption.

Netflix has announced it will be offering programming from Viacom’s MTV Networks and Comedy Central via its streaming service.

The first nine seasons of  "South Park" featuring 139 episodes are now available to be instantly streamed from Netflix.

Today Microsoft announced the creation of the Publisher Leadership Council, a group of Web publishers who will consult on the development of Microsoft PubCenter, its next-generation advertising platform for digital media publishers.

U.S. Internet users watched 12.7 billion online videos during the month of November, representing an increase of 34 percent over a year ago, according to comScore Video Metrix.

Google sites were again the top U.S. video property with nearly 5.1 billion videos viewed (representing a 40 percent share of all videos viewed), with YouTube accounting for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed at the property. 

U.S. Internet users watched 13.5 billion online videos during October, marking a 45 percent increase compared to a year ago, according to comScore Video Metrix.

In October, Google sites once again dominated, ranking as the top U.S. video property with 5.3 billion videos viewed (representing a 40 percent share of all video viewed) with YouTube accounting for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed at the property.

An advocacy group created by a number of major media and technology companies plans to promote the Internet as a place for people to get songs, television shows and movies without turning to piracy.

MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, said today it has purchased Social Project, Inc., its partner in creating the Flux social media platform.

Flux allows users to share content across a network of more than 1,000 entertainment and music Web sites with more than 7.5 million registered users. Previously, MTVN held a minority stake in Social Project.

No doubt the high priced attorneys working for Viacom will have to prove CEO Philippe’s Dauman’s words in court—or at least sell them well enough to convince those that matter.

The rhetoric reporters recorded last night was far from clouded: Eric Schmidt and Google had no intention of fighting copyright violations on YouTube so long as it helped them get to the top of the online video market.