YouTube faces some (real) competition

The number of video-sharing sites seems to rise every day. MySpace, owned by News Corp. (NYSE:NWS), has gotten on board. So has photo site Photobucket. But Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOG) YouTube remains the largest.

Several large media companies are angry at YouTube because it won't properly police pirated content that the media companies might charge for. The argument may be thin, but it counts for something at the media giants.

Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIA) recently got upset with YouTube and asked it to take down about 100,000 clips of content that belongs to the big media company.

And after getting the knife in, Viacom gave its a twist.

Viacom has signed a deal to distribute its content on Joost [subscription required]. Joost has vowed that it will protect Viacom's content.

Joost is not just another start-up. It is backed by the founders of Skype whose pockets are bulging with billion of dollars from the sale of the VoIP company to eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY). These are the same people who started the wildly successful file-sharing company KaZaa. Joost uses peer-to-peer technology to deliver its content.

Being YouTube is not as good as it used to be. The content companies are always crying about their goods being stolen. And now, there may be some real competition.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.