[Infowarrior] - NBC Teams Up With News Corp., AOL and Others to Form Online Video Site

[Richard Forno]

NBC, News Corp. in Online Video Venture
Thursday March 22, 12:06 pm ET
NBC Teams Up With News Corp., AOL and Others to Form Online Video Site

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070322/online_video.html?.v=3

NEW YORK (AP) -- NBC Universal and News Corp. joined forces with several
Internet companies Thursday to distribute TV shows online in an effort to
better control their programming and stave off competition from YouTube.


The new network, which would launch this summer, comes in response to the
explosive growth Google Inc.'s YouTube, a do-it-yourself video-sharing site
that is currently being sued by Viacom Inc., another major media company,
for copyright infringement.

The venture is aimed at giving broadcasting companies like NBC and News
Corp., which owns the Fox broadcast network and the Twentieth Century Fox
movie and TV studio, greater control over how their shows are distributed on
the Internet.

Programs owned by NBC and News Corp. such as "Heroes," "24," and "House"
will appear on the network, supported by advertising, and distributed
through Yahoo, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN site, and
MySpace, which is owned by News Corp.

Besides homemade videos, YouTube also carries many clips uploaded by users
from copyrighted TV shows such as "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," which
airs on Viacom's Comedy Central cable network.

In its lawsuit, Viacom says YouTube is encouraging copyright infringement.
YouTube says it's protected by law so long as it promptly takes down any
copyright-protected material as soon as it's asked to.