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Viacom vs. Google: As the Tube turns

19.03.2010
Stop me if you've heard this plot line before: The aging sugardaddy who gets spurned and seeks revenge. The grasping ingenue who will do anything (or anyone) to gain wealth and power. The dashing young hero who swoops in to save the ingenue from the decrepit suitor, thus becoming his enemy.

Sounds like an episode of "One Life to Live," doesn't it? Only in this case, the soup opera players are Viacom, YouTube, and Google.

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It's surely the most entertaining drama to hit Silicon Valley in an age, thanks to a federal court's decision yesterday to unseal documents from .

The blogosphere is buzzing over some of the revelations in the suit and between the warring parties as a result.

The major news: It appears Viacom had its eye on YouTube as an acquisition target for some time before all the drama hit. According to documents filed by Google, 187-year-old Viacom honcho Sumner Redstone offered to buy YouTube before Google did. Weirder still, at one point . Talk about kinky.