• Forbes.com, Thursday, March 22, 2007 11 AM

Given that Google was just sued by Viacom for $1 billion in copyright damages, you could be forgiven for reading that headline twice. But Google, everybody's favorite "frienemy," is allowing users to put video content from Viacom and other media companies on their Google home page.

Indeed, the search giant is now letting its billions of users download a free software tool called "Google Gadget" that lets users watch a selection of video channels--not TV, but their mobile and broadband versions--on Google.com. Double-click on the little video image and you can instantly watch full-screen video.

This development is just the latest example of technology moving faster than lawyers. While Google sits in the middle of a legal battle with a big media firm over a 2-year-old technology, the search king is now unveiling something new that will probably also upset them. The new gadget is RSS-like in that it provides feeds to a variety of video and mobile programming, from CNN to the BBC, ESPN and MTV. These content providers will more than likely take a dim view of their material on an unauthorized Web site.

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