Viacom and Google Pick Up the Gloves, Again

The YouTube copyright case — now more than four years old — won’t go away. In the real world, though, most media companies have made their peace with the world’s biggest video site.
fight! (shutterstock)

Anybeat Is a Social Network for People You Don’t Know (Yet)

A new service called AnyBeat looks and acts like existing social networks and has many of the same features. But there are key differences: Pseudonyms are allowed and almost all activity is public.

Why the MP3Tunes Case Is a Big Deal You Won’t Notice

Had it gone the other way, EMI’s lawsuit against Michael Robertson and his music locker could have been a problem for Google and Amazon. And maybe YouTube and Tumblr and lots of other Web services. But since it didn’t …
michael robertson

QOTD: You Know What Sounds Cool? Another Facebook!

“I know it sounds crazy, but our new company, http://altly.com, is building an alternative to Facebook. More details soon :-)”

— Former Veoh CEO, and, more recently, former MySpace Music CTO Dmitry Shapiro, setting some not-very modest goals for himself via Twitter.

MySpace Music CTO Dmitry Shapiro Departs

Myspace Music CTO Dmitry Shapiro, who joined the company less than a year ago, has left to found a new start-up, he and Myspace confirmed late Thursday.

Index, Union Square Like SoundCloud's Web-Based Tune

Here’s another bet on Web-based music: SoundCloud, a start-up that makes it easy to share streaming music, is about to land a funding round from high-profile investors.

News Byte

Not a Pretty Picture for Move Networks

After raising almost $70 million in funding, online video technology outfit Move Networks is now reportedly in dire health and looking for a buyer to put it out of its misery. Blog reports say that most of the company’s employees have been laid off and that CEO Roxanne Austin, former DirecTV president, has bailed. Tough market–ask Veoh and Qlipso.

Veoh CEO Dmitry Shapiro Resurfaces at…MySpace Music

It’s not a huge shock to see former start-up CEOs join big companies after the demise of their own. But this move is a bit more surprising: It means that Veoh founder and former CEO Dmitry Shapiro will be working for one of the companies that helped put him out of work.

A Web Video Divorce: “Lonelygirl” Creators Eqal Break Up With Spark Capital

Eqal, the Web video start-up best known for the “lonelygirl15” series, has handed back the money it raised from its primary investor, Spark Capital. This sounds alarming, but you can think of it as an amicable divorce: Spark gets back all of its bubble-era investment and Eqal gets to keep going, with fresh money from new and existing investors.

More Money for Web Video? Sure: Clicker Raises Another $11 Million.

How do you launch a Web video start-up without getting crushed by lawsuits and bandwidth bills? Launch a Web video search engine. That’s the thesis behind Clicker, a would-be TV Guide for Web video, which has raised an $11 million B round led by JAFCO Ventures, with participation from earlier investors Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures. The funding follows an $8 million round announced last fall that was actually raised in 2008.

Weekend Update, 4.04.09