MTV offers internet users greater flexibility

摘要

MTV, the music entertainment division of media group Viacom, is seeking to improve its internet business and develop a closer relationship with the online audience by offering people more ways to use its content. Viacom has been a vocal critic of websites that it believes do not respect copyright and earlier this year launched a US$1 billion (￡490 million) law suit against video-sharing site YouTube and its owner Google, accusing them of "massive intentional copyright infringement". Despite this robust defence of its intellectual property, MTV Networks International is attempting to "open ourselves up", according to Mika Salmi, president of global digital media. "Consumers have taken control of their media experience and they're not going to give it back, so we are asking ourselves 'how do we give people control?'," said Salmi, who last year sold his Atom Entertainment online film business to Viacom for US$200 million. There is an opportunity for building a community of users, according to Salmi, by offering them more video and information about individual musicians and by enabling a certain level of "control" over MTV content.