Music Ally

Bad news for labels hoping to rake in buckets of cash from music videogames, as Viacom’s president and CEO Philippe Dauman has told financial analysts that he hopes to find ways of paying the music industry less for the use of tracks in Rock Band. According to Dauman, Viacom is “looking to reduce the cost structure associated with Rock Band, being selective in the music titles that we choose for Rock Band based on their cost. The music industry will assist with this category (more…)

It’s been nearly three years since Viacom announced plans for a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against Google over YouTube, but the intricacies of the case mean it still hasn’t come to trial.

Now it may not, as both sides have filed motions for summary judgement, asking the court to rule in the case without sending it to trial.

Google maintains that YouTube is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and cites the recent decision in favour of Veoh in its legal battle with UMG.

Meanwhile, Viacom reiterates that Google knew about widespread copyright infringement on YouTube and profited from it, meaning it can’t claim DMCA protection. A resolution could – and we stress the ‘could’ – come sometime this year.

MTV has announced plans for something called the Rock Band Network, which will launch later this year. It will allow any artist, signed or unsigned, to submit their songs to be made available to download and play within the Rock Band console game. Labels and artists will submit songs, which will then be converted for Rock Band by (more…)

MTV’s parent company Viacom has announced plans for 850 layoffs – around 7% of the global workforce. The news was announced in an internal memo sent to staff, which also promised that senior level management will have salary increases suspended next year.

Not exactly the pre-Christmas bonus MTV staffers were hoping for. The full text of the memo is after the jump.

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Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube rumbles on, and it’s currently in the discovery process. As part of that, Google has been ordered to give Viacom a complete set of every video ever removed from the site for copyright infringement (more…)