Viacom will sue bloggers who post unauthorized 'Daily Show' clips

By Eriq Gardner

Hulu announced yesterday that Comedy Central was pulling "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" from the popular video website. The decision will impact the many downstream websites that have relied on Hulu's embedded player to gain access to these shows.

We checked in with Comedy Central to see whether it will now target websites and bloggers who post unauthorized clips from the show.

"Yes, we intend to do so," says PR rep Tony Fox. "My feeling is if (websites) are making money on our copyrighted content, then that is a problem."

Fox says bloggers are free to use Comedy Central's embedded player to post clips, but they'll be restricted to the network's choices. If the network chooses not to post a particular clip, a viewer would be out-of-bounds to post their own digital copy.

This is sure to be somewhat controversial. As others have pointed out, "Daily Show" relies extensively upon "fair use" to take content from other networks such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC for nightly commentary. We expect that whenever Viacom files its first lawsuit against a blogger for an illegal video posting, this will trigger cries of hypocrisy from those who don't understand how copyright law allows Jon Stewart to show another network's clip but prevents bloggers from doing the same.

ED. UPDATE: Viacom takes issue with our headline, saying it's not going to sue, just enforce its legal rights. We're not sure what the legal difference is but here's Viacom's statement: "We have always tried to be as permissive as possible when looking at what might be fair use, and we haven't changed our approach at all. Frankly, fair use works for us. I can't recall a time we've ever sued a blogger for the use of a Comedy Central clip, and there's no reason to believe that would be more likely today."