News is just coming out that Viacom, the parent company of MTV and Comedy Central, is demanding Google-owned YouTube to remove all of Viacom’s videos. Reuters.com has a brief article explaining that about “100,000 video clips from Viacom-owned properties including MTV Networks and BET has been asked to be removed.” Viacom reportedly claims “1.2 billion video streams” have been generated by YouTube without permission or compensation to the company. PaidContent.org also has coverage here, and see Techmeme here for even more related stories.

Postscript: MarketWatch reports YouTube to comply with request to remove Viacom videos. YouTube issued a statement: “It’s unfortunate that Viacom will no longer be able to benefit from YouTube’s passionate audience which has helped to promote many of Viacom’s shows.”

Related Topics: Google: Legal | Google: YouTube & Video | Legal: Copyright

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz