Viacom Inc. and Microsoft Corp. today announced a broad-based, strategic alliance under which major divisions of both companies will collaborate on advertising, content distribution, event promotions and games over the next several years.

Some people claimed it was bound to happen. Some people hoped it never would. Pirates didn't care one way or another, and continued uploading illegally-obtained clips to YouTube. There have been tons of rumors regarding YouTube getting sued, and Viacom can proudly claim that they are the first company to actually do it. Viacom was unable to reach a licensing agreement with YouTube, and ordered their clips off YouTube. YouTube attempted to comply, but piracy appeared to prevail. The lawsuit details 160,000 clips still on the site, and wants $1 billion USD in damages. Viacom claims that YouTube's business model, which is "based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws". YouTube claims that they have done everything in their power to remove Viacom's content from their website, and is almost certain the courts will agree.