Wait a minute, wait a minute. We don't miss boats. Other people miss boats, and they may have missed the Viacom boat.

Viacom's Sumner Redstone, responding testily to a question on whether or not his company "missed the boat" on Web 2.0. He also shares his tender feelings about Youtube and how smoking hot he looks in comparison to Hollywood Reporter interviewer Scott Roxborough.

The fact of the matter is, without copyright protection, there is no entertainment business. And so we instructed YouTube to remove 100,000 pieces of video from their site. Why? Because they were using it without paying for it. I don't believe in that. If you want to use us, pay us. Or make a deal with us that is commensurate with the value of our product. We are the only totally content company, and our content has taken years and years to develop, with a lot of hard work. People who want to use it are going to pay us, or good-bye.

Though describing himself as "ambivalent" about creating a Viacom-only video content reservoir (as opposed to making a deal with Youtube or some other video portal), Redstone was not shy about taking his interviewer down a peg or two: "You look very good now, but I hope when I see you again in 15 years you look as good as I do." That's about as close to a gypsy curse as you're going to hear in modern America.

[Photo: Getty]

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