Was the BBC deal with YouTube the straw that broke the camel’s back? Probably not, but if more corporations had followed the Beeb down the ad-share route it would have started to chip away at Viacom‘s position. If you read the full text of Viacom’s suit here, you can see the exact nature of their problem – they didn’t like the deal that was on the table, or the negotiating strategy:

YouTube has deliberately withheld the application of available copyright protection measures in order to coerce rights holders to grant it licenses on favorable terms. YouTube’s chief executive and cofounder Chad Hurley was quoted in the New York Times on February 3, 2007, as saying that YouTube has agreed to use filtering technology “to identify and possibly remove copyrighted material,” but only after YouTube obtains a license from the copyright owner. Geraldine Fabrikant & Saul Hansell, Viacom Tells YouTube: Hands Off, N.Y. Times, Feb. 3, 2007, at C1. Those who refuse to be coerced are subjected to continuing infringement.

And again:

YouTube’s failure to take reasonable measures to prevent infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrights stands in stark contrast to the protection which YouTube offers for the content to which it has acquired licenses through various business partnerships with other copyright holders. YouTube’s cofounder and chief executive Chad Hurley has publicly stated that YouTube will use filtering technology to identify and remove copyrighted works for companies that grant licenses with YouTube, but not to companies that decline to grant licenses on YouTube’s terms. By limiting copyright protection to business partners who have agreed to grant it licenses, YouTube attempts to coerce copyright owners to grant it a license in order to receive the protection to which they are entitled under the copyright laws.

Rafat Ali has a quick link history here.