Say goodbye to John Stewart on YouTube. After failing to reach an agreement, Viacom has demanded that YouTube pull down all its video clips from Comedy Central and the rest of its cable channels. Those clips are estimated to number 100,000. And even more surprising, Viacom said an outside consultant estimates its clips have generated about 1.2 billion streams on YouTube. This is a major blow to YouTube and Google and their ongoing efforts to get the networks in their corner. You may remember back in November when Viacom asked that YouTube pull down selected clips from Comedy Central, but after a quick purge, they were back in full force. I suspected that it was a negotiating ploy, but this time it looks like it could be a done deal. Oddly, Viacom sister company CBS did the first network deal with YouTube back in October, and CBS has since applauded its success, even suggesting it has increased ratings. One other thing to point out: There was news last month that YouTube had missed a deadline for debuting its promised technology to automatically identify and filter out copyrighted clips, and I haven’t heard anything since. Some speculated this would have an impact on YouTube’s ongoing talks with content providers. Update: Read the statements from Viacom and YouTube.
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