The Viacom Effect: What About Sarah Silverman?

The biggest tech policy news of recent days has been the entirely predictable move by Viacom to order more than 100,000 videos off of YouTube that allegedly contain Viacom-copyrighted content.

Of course, most everyone is suggesting that the demand is just part of a complex chess game between Google/YouTube and content holders and that a deal will be eventually struck that still allows your favorite Comedy Central, MTV, or Spike clips to be seen on YouTube.  But, in the meantime, what about Sarah Silverman? 

Comedy Central just launched the Sara Silverman Program on February 1.  It's a big new show for the network and an attempt to bring in a broader audience for Comedy Central.  You would think that the viral ability of YouTube to bring buzz to the show would be most welcome to network honchos.  Therefore, if Viacom  has called for takedowns of Silverman's program, will it be collateral damage?  But, if somehow, the Silverman clips are exempted from the takedowns, won't that be telling?

Since you can still find (less and less) Daily Show segments on YouTube, it's hard to tell whether the YouTube elves are just lagging with the removals or if Viacom asked for their removal at all.   An easy way to track this is by seeing if the Sarah Silverman Program clip after the jump is still playable or not.... (it is currently one of only six clips from the show easily searchable)....