Tensions between technology and media companies are usually humming just beneath the surface during a weeklong retreat for top CEOs that this cozy mountain resort hosts every year, but this week a marketplace clash between Viacom Inc. and Google Inc. just couldn’t be kept down.
Viacom, a major media conglomerate that owns the MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon cable networks, has hit Internet search leader Google with a $1 billion lawsuit, saying that Google’s popular video-sharing site YouTube is a massive center of copyright infringement, routinely displaying clips from Viacom shows such as “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.”
