The second incarnation of Viacom Inc. ( or ; a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsmultinational

mass media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit informati ...

conglomerate with interests primarily in

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

and

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

, which was formed on December 31, 2005, as a

spin-off Spin-off may refer to: *Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work *Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity * Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gov ...

of the original Viacom (founded by

Ralph Baruch Rudolph Maximilian "Ralph" Baruch (August 5, 1923 – March 3, 2016) was a German-American CBS executive and the first president and chief executive of Viacom. Early life Baruch was born to a Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923, but ...

in 1952 as CBS Television Film Sales). It was one of two companies which succeeded the original Viacom, alongside the second incarnation of CBS Corporation; both were owned by National Amusements, a theater company controlled by businessman Sumner Redstone. The spin-off was structured so that CBS Corporation would be the legal successor to the first Viacom, with the second Viacom being an entirely separated company. The second Viacom operated Viacom Media Networks, through which it controlled approximately 170 networks and reached approximately 700 million subscribers in approximately 160 countries.Press release: "VIACOM REPORTS EARNINGS GROWTH FOR FOURTH QUARTER AND FULL-YEAR FISCAL 2012"
Viacom Viacom's studio assets included

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

MTV Films MTV Entertainment Studios is the film and television production arm of MTV Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Founded in 1991 as MTV Productions, it is a consolidation of the former MTV ...

, and Nickelodeon Animation Studio, as well as a 30% ownership stake in the

Rainbow S.p.A. Rainbow S.p.A. is an Italian studio founded by Iginio Straffi. Viacom (now known as Paramount Global) became a co-owner of the studio in 2011. Rainbow has collaborated with Viacom/Paramount's other company, Nickelodeon, on multiple shows, includ ...

animation studio. CBS Corporation retained the over-the-air broadcasting, television production, pay television subscription service, and publishing assets, which were previously owned by the first Viacom. The second Viacom was the world's ninth-largest media company in terms of revenue, and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildi ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The second merger between Viacom and CBS Corporation, creating the combined company ViacomCBS (now

Paramount Global Paramount Global ( doing business as Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned and operated by National Amusements (79.4%) and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York. ...

), was announced on August 13, 2019; the merger was completed on December 4, 2019.

History

Early years

In March 2005, the first Viacom announced plans of exploring the option of splitting the company into two publicly traded companies because of a stagnating stock price and the rivalry between Les Moonves and

Tom Freston Thomas E. Freston (born November 22, 1945) is an American media proprietor, businessman, and financier. Early life and education Freston grew up in Rowayton, Connecticut. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Saint Michael's College and an MBA fro ...

, longtime heads of CBS and MTV Networks, respectively. Also, the company was facing issues after

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

was banned from producing any more

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the gam ...

halftime shows after the Super Bowl Halftime Show controversy in 2004. After the departure of

Mel Karmazin Melvin Alan "Mel" Karmazin (born August 24, 1943) is an American executive. He was the president of Infinity Broadcasting (formally known as CBS Radio now Entercom) and eventually became the president and CEO of CBS television . From 2004–201 ...

in 2004, Sumner Redstone, who served as chairman and chief executive officer, decided to split the offices of president and chief operating officer between Moonves and Freston. Redstone was set to retire in the near future, and a split was seen as a creative solution to the matter of replacing him. It was also intended to provide alternative investments that would be more appealing to investors: one a high cash flow, lower growth company that could afford to pay a substantial dividend and the other a growing company that would have greater investment opportunities and therefore would not be expected to pay a dividend. The second Viacom, was created and headed by Freston. It consists

BET Networks Black Entertainment Television LLC, doing business as BET Networks, is an American entertainment company that oversees the company's premium cable television channels, including its flagship service BET. It is a subsidiary of media conglomerate P ...

, MTV Networks, and

2000s

In June 2005, Viacom announced its purchase of Neopets, a virtual pet website, along with

GameTrailers ''GameTrailers'' (''GT'') was an American video gaming website created by Geoffrey R. Grotz and Brandon Jones in 2002. The website specialized in multimedia content, including trailers and gameplay footage of upcoming and recently released v ...

, GoCityKids, and iFilm. That December, Paramount announced it would acquire DreamWorks Pictures. All indications were that the whole of DreamWorks—both live-comedy film and television studios, albeit not the DreamWorks archive (which was sold to a group led by George Soros in March 2006) nor the animated unit (which was not part of the deal)—would remain owned by Viacom, even though CBS acquired Paramount's television studio. In February 2006, Paramount completed the acquisition of DreamWorks. On April 24, Viacom obtained

Xfire Xfire (pronounced "X-Fire") was a proprietary freeware instant messaging service for gamers that also served as a game server browser with various other features. It was available for Microsoft Windows. Xfire was originally developed by Ul ...

. In August, Viacom announced that it had acquired Atom Entertainment for $200 million. In September, Viacom acquired game developer Harmonix for $175 million. In February 2007, Viacom ordered leaked copyrighted video clips be taken off the video-sharing service

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

for copyright reasons. On February 21, Viacom publicly announced they would be offering free online access to their material through Silicon Valley's distributor Joost. On May 21, 2007, Viacom entered into a 50–50 joint venture with Indian media company Network 18 to form Viacom 18 which would house Viacom's existing channels in India:

, VH1 and

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its networks division's Kids and Family Group. It ...

as well as Network 18's

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" ...

movie business. All future Viacom content for India and new ventures such as a

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

entertainment channel and a Hindi movie channel would be housed in this joint venture. On December 19, 2007, Viacom signed a five-year, $500 million contract with

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

that included content sharing and advertisement. The deal allowed Microsoft to license many shows from Viacom owned cable television and film studios for use on Xbox Live and

MSN MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...

. The deal also made Viacom a preferred publisher partner for casual game development and distribution through MSN and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

. On the advertisement side of the deal, Microsoft's Atlas ad-serving division became the exclusive provider of previously unsold advertising inventory on Viacom owned websites. Also, Microsoft purchased a large amount of advertising on Viacom owned broadcasts and online networks. Finally, Microsoft would also collaborate on promotions and sponsorships for MTV and BET award shows, two Viacom-owned cable networks. On December 4, 2008, Viacom announced layoffs of 850 personnel, or 7% of their workforce. At the end of the year, Time Warner Cable (along with partner Bright House Networks) and Viacom's MTV Networks could not come to terms for the renewal of any Viacom channel beyond the end of year. Time Warner Cable's operations include New York City and Los Angeles, with Bright House including the Tampa Bay and Orlando markets, both top-20 markets. This blackout was narrowly avoided when a zero-hour deal was reached shortly after midnight on January 1, 2009. On December 7, 2009, Viacom sold its stake in MTV Brasil to

Grupo Abril Grupo Abril (simply also known as Abril) is a Brazilian media conglomerate headquartered in São Paulo. The company is the holding company of Editora Abril, which publishes the weekly newsmagazine ''Veja.'' History and profile Victor Civita, ...

along with rights to the brand. Details on the deal were not disclosed.

2010s

In February 2011,

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television series ...

and Viacom announced the return of '' The Daily Show with Jon Stewart'' and ''

The Colbert Report ''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December 18, 2014, for 1,447 episodes. The show fo ...

'' to Hulu, along with shows from the Viacom library.

's shows are not part of this deal. Also that month, Viacom became a co-owner of

, an Italian television studio best known for the '' Winx Club'' franchise. Since the purchase, Viacom's Nickelodeon networks have broadcast Rainbow's shows worldwide. Nickelodeon's American studios have also collaborated with Rainbow on multiple productions, including ''Winx Club'' and '' Club 57''. Later, in October 2011, Viacom purchased a majority stake in Bellator Fighting Championships. Spike TV started to air Bellator in 2013, after the rights to the UFC (

Ultimate Fighting Championship The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...

) library ended in 2012. On December 1, 2011, the company stopped trading on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its liste ...

(NYSE) and began listing its securities on

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

instead. The stock ticker symbols are the same as that used while the company was on the NYSE. On July 10, 2012, during contract negotiations over raising carrier rates the U.S. satellite TV provider,

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...

's executives approached Viacom with a new proposal and a request to continue broadcasting 17 of Viacom's television networks (including Nickelodeon, MTV,

Logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wo ...

, and Comedy Central) during talks, but received no response and thus Viacom ceased transmission to DirecTV's 20 million subscribers. On July 11, in a counter response to DirecTV advising its subscribers to view original programming from the affected networks online, Viacom scaled back access to recent episodes of Viacom-owned program content available to the websites of its networks. Viacom described this as a "temporary slimdown" until a new carriage deal with DirecTV was reached. Viacom and DirecTV reached an agreement on July 20 to return the interrupted programming. In 2012 CEO Phillip Dauman began to report Viacom's intentions to bundle past programming and make it available on-demand via services like Hulu. On January 22, 2014, Viacom established a marketing division, Viacom Velocity. On April 1, 2014,

Cable One Cable One, Inc. is an American broadband communications provider. Under the Sparklight brand, it provides service to 21 states and 900,000 residential and business customers. It is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, though it does not serve that ...

removed 15 channels owned by Viacom (MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, and TV Land) off after the two companies failed to reach an agreement. Channels were replaced with other networks, including BBC America, Sprout, Sundance TV, IFC, Investigation Discovery, TV One, CMP/TV, National Geographic Channel, and TheBlaze. The change has been deemed permanent. On May 1, 2014, Viacom announced it had agreed to take over the British broadcaster Channel 5 from

Northern & Shell Northern & Shell (holding company name Northern and Shell Network Ltd) is a British publishing group, founded in December 1974 and owned since then by Richard Desmond. Formerly a publisher of pornographic magazines including '' Penthouse'' and ' ...

, the media group owned by the British newspaper publisher

Richard Desmond Richard Clive Desmond (born 8 December 1951) is a British publisher, businessman and former pornographer. According to the 2021 ''Sunday Times Rich List'', Desmond was the 107th richest person in the United Kingdom. He is the founder of North ...

. Viacom becomes the first American media company to take over a British broadcaster with a public service remit. The purchase of Channel 5 closed on September 10, 2014. On October 1, 2014, Suddenlink Communications, removed channels owned by Viacom off after the two companies failed to reach an agreement. Channels were replaced with other networks including Sprout,

FXX FXX is an American basic cable channel owned by the Walt Disney Television unit of The Walt Disney Company through FX Networks, LLC. It is the partner channel of FX, with its programming focusing on original and acquired comedy series and fe ...

, Pivot,

Uplifting Entertainment Uplifting Entertainment is a Christian production company based in Pennsylvania. It was conceived by Greg Robbins in 1999, who portrays Pastor Greg, with the purpose of "informing with delight." It was formally founded in Oregon in 2003 as a limi ...

, Investigation Discovery,

Oprah Winfrey Network Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) is an American multinational basic cable channel jointly owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and Harpo Studios that launched on January 1, 2011, replacing the Discovery Health Channel. The network is led by talk show ho ...

, Women's Entertainment, and TheBlaze. On August 20, 2016, a settlement between Sumner and

Shari Redstone Shari Ellin Redstone (born April 14, 1954) is an American media executive with a background in numerous aspects of the entertainment industry and related ventures. She currently serves as the non-executive chairwoman of Paramount Global (formerly ...

and Philippe Dauman was reached that would have him resign as chief executive officer and be replaced with Thomas E. Dooley as interim CEO. Dauman would continue to serve as chairman until September 13. On May 25, 2017, Viacom channels returned to Suddenlink after nearly 3 years of absence. In November 2016, Viacom bought Argentine television network

Telefe Telefe (acronym for Televisión Federal) is a television station located in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The station is owned and operated by Paramount Global through Televisión Federal S.A. Telefe is also one of Argentina's six national televisio ...

. In December 2016, the Viacom board appointed

Bob Bakish Robert Marc Bakish ( ; born December 14, 1963) is an American business executive. He has been President and CEO of Paramount Global since December 4, 2019, formerly holding the same position at Viacom before the merger with CBS Corporation. Ear ...

as acting CEO. His appointment as president and CEO was made permanent on December 12, 2016. In November 2017, Viacom announced the opening of a new digital content division named Viacom Digital Studios. The company has hired former AwesomenessTV chief business officer Kelly Day to lead the studio. Day began her duties on November 20. In February 2018, Viacom announced their plans to acquire the internet video conference VidCon in an effort to reach out to youth audiences (in a similar way to Viacom's Nickelodeon and MTV channels). In the same month, Viacom announced that they would launch an official Viacom streaming service in fall 2018, in another effort by Bakish to revitalize the company. This streaming service would support ads (similar to Hulu) and was expected to include television series from Viacom Media Networks that have not been available on other services, such as Hulu or Amazon Prime Video. Bakish has stated that the streaming service would serve as a "complement" to OTT MVPDs, rather than a replacement. In April 2018, Viacom hosted its first presentation at the annual Digital Content NewFronts, where they announced new original content for sites such as

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, and

Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before the ...

. They also announced the expansion of VidCon to London in 2019 at the same conference. On July 25, 2018, Viacom announced that it was in talks to acquire AwesomenessTV for a fraction of the company's $650 million valuation in 2016. Two days later on July 27, Viacom officially acquired the company for $25 million. Jordan Levin would leave his position as CEO of AwesomenessTV following the acquisition. In January 2019, it was announced that Viacom has acquired Internet television streaming service, Pluto TV for $340 million.

Re-merger deal with CBS

On September 29, 2016, National Amusements sent a letter to Viacom and

CBS Corporation The second incarnation of CBS Corporation (the first being a short-lived rename of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation) was an American multinational media conglomerate with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing, an ...

, encouraging the two companies to merge back into one company. On December 12, the deal was called off. On January 12, 2018,

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk s ...

reported that Viacom had re-entered talks to merge back into CBS Corporation after the

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile ...

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

merger was planned, as well as

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

's proposed acquisition of most

21st Century Fox Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc., doing business as 21st Century Fox (21CF), was an American multinational mass media corporation that was based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was one of the two companies formed on June 28, 2013, fo ...

assets and heavy competition from companies such as

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...

and

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

. Shortly afterward, it was reported that the combined company could be a suitor for acquiring the film studio Lionsgate. Viacom and Lionsgate were both interested in acquiring

The Weinstein Company The Weinstein Company (usually credited or abbreviated as TWC) was an American independent film studio, founded in New York City by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in March 2005. TWC was one of the largest mini-major film studios in North America pri ...

in the wake of sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein. Viacom was listed as one of 22 potential buyers that were interested in acquiring TWC. They lost the bid, and on March 1, 2018, it was announced that

Maria Contreras-Sweet Maria Contreras-Sweet (born 1955) is an American businesswoman and former government official who served as the 24th Administrator of the Small Business Administration from 2014 to 2017. She was the executive chairwoman and founder of ProAmérica ...

would acquire all of TWC's assets for $500 million. On March 30, 2018, CBS made an all-stock offer slightly below Viacom's market value and insisted that its existing leadership, including long-time chairman and CEO Les Moonves, oversee the re-combined company. Viacom rejected the offer as being too low, requesting an increase of $2.8 billion, and requesting that Bob Bakish be maintained as president and COO under Moonves. It was reported that these conflicts had resulted from Shari Redstone seeking more control over CBS and its leadership. Eventually, on May 14, 2018, CBS Corporation sued its and Viacom's parent company National Amusements and accused Redstone of abusing her voting power in the company and forcing a merger that was not supported by CBS or Viacom. CBS also accused Redstone of discouraging Verizon Communications from acquiring it, which could have been beneficial to its shareholders. On May 23, 2018, Les Moonves stated that he considered the Viacom channels to be an "albatross," and while he favored more content for CBS All Access, he believed that there were better deals for CBS than the Viacom deal, such as

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded o ...

, Lionsgate or

Sony Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acq ...

. Moonves also considered Bakish a threat because he did not want an ally of Redstone as a board member of the combined company. On September 9, 2018, Moonves left CBS after being accused by twelve women of sexual assault. National Amusements agreed to not propose a CBS-Viacom merger for at least two years after the date of the settlement. On May 30, 2019, CNBC reported that CBS and Viacom would explore merger discussions in mid-June 2019. CBS's board of directors was revamped with people who were open to a merger. The re-merger was made possible with the resignation of Moonves (who opposed all attempts for a Viacom merger). The talks had started following rumors of CBS acquiring

Starz Starz (stylized as STARZ since 2016; pronounced "stars") is an American premium cable and satellite television network owned by Lions Gate Entertainment, and is the flagship property of parent subsidiary Starz Inc. Programming on Starz cons ...

from Lionsgate. Reports say that CBS and Viacom reportedly set August 8 as an informal deadline for reaching an agreement to recombine the two media companies. CBS announced to acquire Viacom as part of the re-merger deal for up to $15.4 billion. On August 2, 2019, it was reported that CBS and Viacom agreed to merge back into one entity. Both companies came to an agreement on the management team for its merger with Bakish serving as CEO of the combined company and president and acting CEO of CBS, as Joseph Ianniello oversees the CBS-branded assets. However, on August 7, 2019, both CBS and Viacom delayed their merger announcement as the two companies reported the quarterly earnings, though the talks about the re-merger continues. On August 13, 2019, CBS and Viacom officially announced their merger; CBS would purchase Viacom and change its name to ViacomCBS. Bakish would become president and CEO of ViacomCBS with Ianniello serving as chairman and CEO of CBS, where he would oversee the CBS-branded assets. Shari Redstone would also serve as chairwoman of the new company. On October 29, 2019, National Amusements approved the re-merger deal and expected to close the deal in early December with the recombined company trading its shares on Nasdaq under the symbols "VIAC" and "VIACA". On December 4, the deal was completed.

Copyright complaints against YouTube

In February 2007, Viacom sent upwards of 100,000 Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices to the video-sharing site

. Of the 100,000 notices, approximately 60–70 non-infringing videos were removed under the auspices of copyright infringement.Media Companies Blast YouTube for Anti-Piracy Policy
. Foxnews.com (February 19, 2007). Retrieved July 13, 2011. On March 13, 2007, Viacom filed a US$1 billion legal claim (''

Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. ''Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc.'', 676 F.3d 19 (2nd Cir., 2012), was a United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decision regarding liability for copyright infringement committed by the users of an online video hostin ...

'') against

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

and YouTube alleging massive

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...

, alleging that users frequently uploaded copyrighted material to YouTube—enough to cause a hit in revenue for Viacom and a gain in advertisement revenue for YouTube. The complaint contended that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom's programming were made available on YouTube and that these clips had collectively been viewed more than 1.5 billion times. In July 2008, the case generated controversy when District Judge

Louis Stanton Louis Lee Stanton (born October 1, 1927) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Education and career Born on October 1, 1927, in New York City, New York, Stanton was ...

ruled that YouTube was required to hand over data detailing the viewing habits of every user who had ever watched videos on the site. Judge Stanton rejected Viacom's request for YouTube to hand over the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the ...

of its

search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

system, saying that the code was a

trade secret Trade secrets are a type of intellectual property that includes formulas, practices, processes, designs, instruments, patterns, or compilations of information that have inherent economic value because they are not generally known or readily ...

. Google and Viacom later agreed to allow Google to anonymize all the data before handing it over to Viacom. On June 23, 2010, Judge Stanton ruled in Google's favor in a motion for summary judgment, holding that Google was protected by provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, notwithstanding evidence of intentional copyright infringement. Viacom announced its intention to appeal the ruling. On April 5, 2012, the ruling was overturned by the

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate ju ...

. Writing for a two-judge panel (because Judge

Roger Miner Roger Jeffrey Miner (April 14, 1934 – February 18, 2012) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern Distr ...

had died while the trial was pending) of the Second Circuit, Judge José A. Cabranes concluded that "a reasonable jury could find that YouTube had actual knowledge or awareness of specific infringing activity on its website". Eric Goldman, a professor at the

Santa Clara University School of Law The Santa Clara University School of Law (Santa Clara Law) is the law school of Santa Clara University, a Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California, United States, in the Silicon Valley region. The School of Law was founded in 1911. The Jesu ...

, expressed concern that the ruling would negatively affect startups, by making them "more hair-trigger on taking down news or content, for fear that failure to do so will be held against them by content providers". On April 18, 2013, Judge Stanton issued another order granting summary judgment in favor of YouTube. An appeal was begun, but the week before the parties were to appear in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a settlement was announced, and it was reported that no money changed hands. Viacom and their sister company B_Viacom have since taken to removing videos or blocked countries themselves.

Corporate governance

The previous board of directors of Viacom were George S. Abrams, David Andelman, Joseph Califano, Jr.,

William Cohen William Sebastian Cohen (born August 28, 1940) is an American lawyer, author, and politician from the U.S. state of Maine. A Republican, Cohen served as both a member of the United States House of Representatives (1973–1979) and Senate (19 ...

, Philippe Dauman,

Alan C. Greenberg Alan Courtney "Ace" Greenberg (September 3, 1927 – July 25, 2014) was a chairman of the executive committee of The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. Early life and education Greenberg was born in Wichita, Kansas but raised in Oklahoma City in a ...

, Charles Phillips,

, Sumner Redstone, Frederic Salerno, William Schwartz, and Robert D. Walter. Following the Viacom/CBS split, the Viacom board consisted of George S. Abrams, Philippe Dauman, Thomas E. Dooley, Ellen V. Futter, Robert Kraft, Alan Greenberg, Charles Phillips, Sumner Redstone (chairman), Shari Redstone (non-executive vice-chair), Frederic Salerno, and William Schwartz. As of 2010, the Board consisted of George Abrams, Philippe Dauman, Thomas E. Dooley, Alan Greenberg, Robert Kraft, Blythe McGarvie,

, Charles Phillips, Shari E. Redstone, Sumner Redstone, Frederic Salerno, and William Schwartz.

References

External links

*
Ketupa.net – Viacom

Viacom information
by Hoover's
Viacom profile
by

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Mana ...

Split documentation
– SEC filing on Form S-4 from October 5, 2005, describing the split. {{DEFAULTSORT:Viacom (2005-2019) Predecessors of Paramount Global 2005 establishments in New York City 2019 disestablishments in New York (state) American companies established in 2005 American companies disestablished in 2019 Companies based in Manhattan Conglomerate companies established in 2005 Conglomerate companies disestablished in 2019 Mass media companies established in 2005 Mass media companies disestablished in 2019 Defunct mass media companies of the United States Multinational companies based in New York City Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Conglomerate companies of the United States Defunct companies based in New York City Mass media companies of the United States Mass media companies based in New York City Multinational companies headquartered in the United States Corporate spin-offs Re-established companies 2019 mergers and acquisitions