Viacom to YouTube: we want $1 Billion

The media giant claims that more than 160,000 of its videos have been posted on YouTube and that they have been viewed more than 1.5 billion times. “YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google,” said Viacom in a statement.

This is quite a bit more than the "in case we get sued" stash of cash Google put aside. Of course if Viacom win, more suits will follow. Most commentators predicted this from the get-go, so perhaps the Google hubris has got in the way of rational decision-making?