GooTube's Video Blunder

Good news for "I Spy" and "Gumbi" fans. Digital Music Group Inc. and YouTube today announced  a plan to post over 4,000 hours of classic TV shows. If YouTube and Google were smart, they would have worked out a similar agreement with Viacom. Instead, Viacom demanded YouTube take down over 100,000 video clips (not all belonging to Viacom though), and YouTube ended up losing some of its most popular clips.

Viacom may now be The Great Satan to some YouTube fans, but Viacom made the right move here to protect its content. First of all, Viacom made these demands because Google recently added YouTube clips to their video search capability. That means advertising on video searches won't be far behind. And most importantly, Viacom doesn't need YouTube. Viacom is betting Steven Colbert and John Stewart are so great to watch that most fans will head over to the revamped Comedy Central website to see the clips — and they're probably right. Smart move Viacom; tough luck YouTube.

Despite the popularity of user generated content on YouTube, Viacom's latest move shows that professional content is still in demand -- and it doesn't have to given away for free. If you've got something that's so good and so compelling that viewers will come find you no matter where you are, you're in a very rarified place: You don't have to bow down to Google.