February 21, 2007 at 15:31Viacom will partner with Joost
The promising startup Joost (formerly Venice Project ) has proven that his huge ambitions are not without foundation. Today's news of the signing of a contract with Viacom is a clear signal that the founders of Joost have very serious intentions. Niklas Zennström and his team, who founded Kazaa and Skype, took up a new business seriously.
Particularly symbolic, the news of Viacom and Joost collaboration looks in light of the recent conflict between Viacom and YouTube. As you know, two weeks ago, Viacom, which owns several entertainment television channels, including MTV, demanded that the YouTube video service remove from its servers more than 100 thousand clips that it owns copyright to. At the same time, the media company said that YouTube and the owner of Google’s service “do not want to conclude a fair market agreement that would provide YouTube users with access to Viacom’s content.”
In other words, startup Joost agreed to Viacom terms that YouTube did not suit. Moreover, it seems that Joost agreed to them quickly , because a couple of weeks ago negotiations continued with the previous partner. According to expertsa fair proportion of the division of advertising profits is 65% to 35% in favor of Viacom, although the true terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Under the agreement, Joost will receive a license to broadcast hundreds of hours of television broadcasts from cable channels Viacom, such as MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and Spike, as well as the rights to broadcast movies from Paramount Studios.
One of the main factors that pushed Viacom to the deal was Joost’s promise to protect content from unauthorized copying. According to media corporations, broadcasting through Joost is “less pirated” than through YouTube, because when viewing via Internet TV, video files are much more difficult to save. It is known that special browser extensionsAllow you to save YouTube videos with one click. For Joost, the process of unauthorized copying appears to be much more time consuming.
At the moment, the closed beta testing of Joost is continuing, in which some habra people are taking part . The first reviews and screenshots can be found here . The commercial launch of Internet television is planned for the summer of 2007.
Particularly symbolic, the news of Viacom and Joost collaboration looks in light of the recent conflict between Viacom and YouTube. As you know, two weeks ago, Viacom, which owns several entertainment television channels, including MTV, demanded that the YouTube video service remove from its servers more than 100 thousand clips that it owns copyright to. At the same time, the media company said that YouTube and the owner of Google’s service “do not want to conclude a fair market agreement that would provide YouTube users with access to Viacom’s content.”
In other words, startup Joost agreed to Viacom terms that YouTube did not suit. Moreover, it seems that Joost agreed to them quickly , because a couple of weeks ago negotiations continued with the previous partner. According to expertsa fair proportion of the division of advertising profits is 65% to 35% in favor of Viacom, although the true terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Under the agreement, Joost will receive a license to broadcast hundreds of hours of television broadcasts from cable channels Viacom, such as MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and Spike, as well as the rights to broadcast movies from Paramount Studios.
One of the main factors that pushed Viacom to the deal was Joost’s promise to protect content from unauthorized copying. According to media corporations, broadcasting through Joost is “less pirated” than through YouTube, because when viewing via Internet TV, video files are much more difficult to save. It is known that special browser extensionsAllow you to save YouTube videos with one click. For Joost, the process of unauthorized copying appears to be much more time consuming.
At the moment, the closed beta testing of Joost is continuing, in which some habra people are taking part . The first reviews and screenshots can be found here . The commercial launch of Internet television is planned for the summer of 2007.