Not entirely true. All that it would mean is that Google would be canabalizing it’s own sales. Anyway… why would they ever buy Viacom? That company embodies everything Google isn’t.

If Google didn’t acquire YouTube, and missed the boat on the explosion of online video publishing and sharing, then it might well have called into question their position as The Internet authority.

Video and other forms of multimedia content have already become a permanent fixture, and will continue to have a place in our firms space so long as people find a convenience to sharing their opinions and views through a video presentation or a photograph.

As it stands, Google has inherited a legally volatile asset in YouTube.

Complying to requests to remove content won’t work all the time because to some company, a second longer than it takes for Google to yank the content is a second too long.

If they retrofit the current site with the controls to place restrictions based on copyright, ownership, etc., then it ruins the “open” participation and publishing aspect that has made YouTube such a fan favourite.

And if the suit sticks, will we see sites like Break.com, Veoh, Dailymotion, Metacafe, iFilm and MySpace recieve the spoils from the fallout?

Although the figure tied to the YouTube lawsuit dwarfs the AP one, the optics of the AP and Google dispute for some reasons appeared to be a much bigger cause for concern.

And not to minimize the current case in front of them, but if for no other reason than to maintain their foothold as The Internet authority, then as Kevin has pointed out, and as we have already seen happen in the AP case, a settlement is not only well within Google’s reach, but because of how multimedia has exploded onto the online scene, we just might still be able to make some sense of the YouTube purchase.

Google’s market cap: $139.97 billion

Viacom’s market cap: $27.61 billion
CBS’ market cap: $24.38 billion (sorta kinda relevent here)

Google buys Viacom. Lawsuit disappears. Problem solved.