Michael Fricklas is Viacom’s (VIA) general counsel, and it’s his job to oversee the company’s legal efforts, including its $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube. When people talk about Big Content, they’re talking about people like Fricklas.

So it might be surprising to watch him tell a class of Yale law students this month that suing end users for online copyright infringement is “expensive, and it’s painful, and it feels like bullying.”

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Will Comcast (CMSCA) use its rising cash pile to make a large acquisition in the content business?

Reuters raised that question in a lengthy news analysis yesterday which wondered if the company is plotting a giant deal along the lines of its failed $54 billion bid for Disney (DIS) in 2004. The story says speculation on the Street has the company potentially targeting Viacom (VIA), or even Time Warner (TWX). (A combination with Time Warner–which would give the company control of key cable properties like HBO and CNN – would be truly weird, given that Time Warner only months ago spun off Time Warner Cable as an independent company.)

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Four years ago or so, a handful of big, lumbering old-media companies, desperate to show investors and the technorati alike that they had a clue when it came to the Internet, created the new position of digital strategist-in-chief.

Almost in lockstep, companies from ABC to Viacom (VIA) named a round of rising stars to a new position of top interactive honcho: MTV Networks hired entrepreneur Jason Hirschhorn as chief digital officer.

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There was an article about Blockbuster (BBI) on Venture Beat yesterday. The trading of the stock was halted after it dropped 77 percent because apparently the company is seeking to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

I worked for Blockbuster for a brief period of time after Bankers Trust (another defunct company–now part of Deutsche Bank) and before CRV. I was the President of BBI responsible for new media. I got there right before their second IPO as it spun out of Viacom (VIA) and left right before the now infamous Enron deal.

It was an excellent career move for me and despite my short time there I learned a lot, got to do a lot and almost became the kingpin of cable!

Here is the story of what almost happened.

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National Amusements, the holding company for media mogul Sumner Redstone, need to raise cash–and that has implications for a number of public companies he controls.

In a research note earlier today, Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield noted that the combination of the declining value of National’s public holdings and “unfriendly credit markets” are going to force Redstone to take action. Greenfield thinks his best move would be to put Viacom (VIA) up for sale, but that Redstone isn’t likely to allow that.

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The world’s biggest record companies would love to shutter LimeWire. They say the popular file-sharing service has built a lucrative business by enticing users to illegally swap the latest hit songs without paying a dime. But not everybody in the entertainment business sees LimeWire as a pariah. On Wednesday, LimeWire announced that it had struck a deal with Viacom’s Comedy Central to sell the cable network’s library of 60 digital comedy albums by guys like Lewis Black, Denis Leary and Dane Cook in its download store.

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It’s shaping up to be the hottest race on the Web. Much as they do on TV, Disney and Viacom’s Nickelodeon are duking it out online. And if the most recent numbers from Web-traffic researcher comScore are any indication, Disney is pulling into the lead.

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Here’s the thing about the TV business: It’s only as profitable or as valuable as the people who watch it. And if the only people who watch it are senior citizens strapped by debt, it’s not worth much–not to advertisers, anyway.

When Viacom posted second-quarter results yesterday, the company admitted its TV business hit a snag. Global advertising sales grew just two percent, and U.S. ad sales only eked out one-percent growth. Ad volume “dropped off” mid-quarter, according to Viacom president and CEO Philippe Dauman.

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Viacom and Google have reached an agreement about how information about YouTube users can be used as potential evidence in the ongoing copyright dispute. Instead of giving Viacom the user names and Internet Protocol addresses for everyone who has uploaded or downloaded a video on YouTube, Google will provide an anonymous code number that represents those names and addresses.

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Why is Viacom (VIA) still a public company?

Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield thinks Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone ought to consider that question carefully. In a research piece this morning, Greenfield recalls that in July 2006 he wrote a report entitled “Dear Mr. Redstone: Take Viacom Private.” Since that time, he says, Viacom has installed a new CEO and CFO, topped EPS expectations in 2006 and 2007, showed improving cable ratings and bought back $3.3 billion of stock, or about 11% of the shares outstanding. But in that period, the stock has dropped 2%, cutting its one-year forward EPS multiple to 10.6X from 14.4X.

Greenfield thinks that “given increasingly broad investor distaste for Viacom’s management team and the lack of respect and confidence in the company’s earnings prospects,” Redstone should “seriously revisit our go-private analysis.”

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As Viacom’s lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company Google rolls forward, it’s worth asking if any outcome of the suit will change the situation for Viacom. In fact, were the impossible to happen, like a judge shutting down YouTube altogether, Viacom may be worse off.

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Viacom continues to pursue a $1 billion lawsuit against Google’s YouTube for allowing video piracy. On Viacom’s Comedy Central, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone aren’t helping their corporate parent’s legal case. In last night’s episode, Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny asked themselves “How Do We Make Money on the Internet?” and predictably, they find it difficult–just like YouTube.

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Last fall Philippe Dauman Jr. went to work for Google as a “Strategic Partner Development Associate.” This struck some folks as odd, given that his dad, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, is suing Google for $1 billion. Our understanding is that Google is an intense, go-go workplace, but apparently Philippe Jr. has some free time on his hands. He’s co-founded Yuzu Music, a New York-based start-up.

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Viacom’s MTV kicks off 2008 by announcing that it streamed 1.2 billion videos from its music-oriented Web sites last year, and that those Web sites attracted an average of 30 million uniques per month. Viacom has worked mightily in the last year to explain how committed it is to the Web, and frequently trumpets stats like these to make its case (other favorites: 300 Web sites, 90 million uniques across all of its sites, $500 million earmarked for video-game investment, etc.).

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