By Alexandra Berzon

A fledgling video service is benefiting from big media’s growing disdain for YouTube.

Joost, the latest venture from the founders of Kazaa and Skype, walked off with a major content deal last week from media giant Viacom that doubled as a slap in the face to Google’s $1.65 billion conquest. Prior to announcing its deal with Joost, the New York City-based media group – which owns such networks as MTV, Comedy Central and VH1 – ordered YouTube to remove 100,000 Viacom videos that users illegally uploaded to the site.

YouTube has also reportedly lost similar licensing deals with NBC and CBS, and Joost says it is close to signing deals with more big media players.

The Viacom will offer Luxembourg-based Joost hundreds of hours of old and new shows, such as MTV’s Beavis & Butt-head and VH1’s over-the-top dating show I Love New York. But hot properties like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, favorites on YouTube, were notably not on the list.

Viacom says it went with Joost because it has a “piracy-proof Internet platform.” Indeed, Joost founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis built their service to avoid all the copyright problems YouTube currently faces.They learned about the hassles of copyright infringement the hard way—their file sharing service Kazaa was last year forced to pay more than $100 million to music companies for allowing users to swap illegal music and video files. For Joost, “what we’ve done is built an online television distribution platform from the ground up with the content owner in mind,” Joost spokesperson Kate Larkin says.

YouTube, however, has been a runaway success because it allows any content, copyrighted or not, on its site.By law, the San Bruno, California-based company is required to remove copyrighted material only when content providers specifically request it be taken down.

YouTube’s discussions with media companies have stalled over revenue-sharing issues, but analysts say copyright controversies don’t help. “It’s a thorn in the side of any media player,” says Forrester analyst James McQuinney. “They want to walk into a partnership discussion knowing their partner has their back, and they don’t think they have that with YouTube because YouTube also wants to maintain relationships with its users.”

Joost says it doesn’t want to disrupt the media status quo, claiming it will announce more major studio and network deals in the coming weeks.

It’s too early to say, however, if Joost poses a significant threat to YouTube. Joost’s peer-to-peer downloading technology streams continuously and the high-resolution videos can be viewed on TV screens. But Joost doesn’t host user-generated content – you won’t find clips of a young girl’s confessional or a politician behaving badly. It also doesn’t allow users to send files from its site across the Internet. But some analysts say Joost could lure away some of YouTube’s user base. “If it’s a way to get copyrighted material that works seamlessly, it could simply start robbing YouTube of media time and eyeballs,” says Gartner analyst Mike McGuire.

Despite frustrations with YouTube, industry watchers say media companies probably aren’t ready to quit the video-hosting site for good. Media companies “are going to work with YouTube,” Gartner analyst Allen Weiner says. “It’s posturing right now. They’re ticked off at YouTube, but YouTube provides them with huge opportunities for distribution.”