CBS - VIACOM CHIEF CALLS FOR GREATER COPYRIGHT SAFEGUARDS

VIACOM CHIEF CALLS FOR GREATER COPYRIGHT SAFEGUARDS

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman appeared to part ways with several other media executives -- including Apple's Steve Jobs and Les Moonves, his counterpart at corporate sibling CBS -- as he called for media companies to install more DRM safeguards and watermarks to combat piracy. Doing so, he said, "will usher in an unprecedented period of creative output across the globe." The techie website Techdirt commented that past efforts by media companies to force consumers to accept their current business model has only made the copyright problem worse. "Limiting what people can do and treating them like criminals diminishes value, rather than increases it," it said. Referring to Dauman's remarks, it concluded: "It's hard to craft a forward looking strategy for a rapidly changing market when your boss seems to have nearly all of his assumptions wrong."

03/10/2007