Slashdot Mirror
Google Launches Pay-Per-View Web Video
Elliot Shepherd writes "According to John Batelle, on Monday Google is launching in-browser video playback based on VLC. Google has been accepting video uploads in April, including allowing the video owner to specify that payment is required, through the Google Payment Program." Update: 06/27 22:21 GMT by T : An anonymous reader writes "Google Video is now up. The about page describes what kinds of content has been uploaded to their servers so far -- mostly a random assortment of stuff from Gamespot's archives, a few things from Greenpeace, a Google recruiting video, some breakdancing videos, and other randomness. The in-browser video plugin works seamlessly (although Windows only for now). Looks like it has potential." Check the top entry on Google Blog for a few more words on it, too.
What kind of content control does Google have in place for this service? (I haven't looked into it)
Is every file looked through to make sure it's not copyrighted? Or if the file depicts illegal activity, etc?
On the same note, would Google take files out if someone paid them to (eg. insulting clips, though not illegal, may tarnish a reputable name or something)
Let the commencement BEGINULATE!
TFA says nothing about patents problems that VLC and other media players are facing (see http://www.videolan.org/patents.html). But with Google in the bandwagon, I guess this problem can be solved with a win on the open source front :-)
Animoog.org
I think I've started figuring google out.
Microsoft and Linux and MacOSX might actually be on the way out, or at least on the way to obscurity. All of these offer interfaces to the computer, and that's useful in its own way, but I think one thing that Google has figured out is that mastery of the computer is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. It's throwing an abstracted layer over the top of it all and owning that layer, and making it useful enough that people eventually aren't going to care what OS they're running, so long as it'll give us what google has to offer.
Google maps. Translation services. Multimedia access. Shopping/Pricing comparison. News. Wikipedia (well, not exclusively, but you get my point). Limitless-space email. They're coming closer to giving us what we expect computers to give their users in Sci-Fi movies.
Google's on the verge of becoming THE content broker. What's odd is that from this point of view, Yahoo is more of a player than Microsoft at this point. But they've got to be worrying. Most of what google's done has been collecting and mining, but with Google maps developing the way it is, it's obvious that they're doing more than just throwing a bunch of computer clusters at a problem.
Anyways, if this is what they're about, the consistency behind all their new forays, then maybe Microsoft's already lost the battle to Google, but they're stuck on what no longer matters as much, which is people's relationship to the computer. Google, by focusing on people's relationship to the content, is miles ahead now.
Yeah, yeah, -1 full of shit or totally obvious, but I really think this is the way it's going.
Google approached my company about uploading our content. We ultimately decided against it since they couldn't tell us what the terms were going to be. For example:
Me: How are you going to protect copyrighted material from being copied?
Google: We're working on that.
Me: You say video can be free or fee based. How does that work?
Google: We'd prefer free content, but you can also charge a fee. We will have a payment mechanism in place.
Me: In a fee-based scenario, what "cut" does Google want?
Google: We haven't decided.
Me: What if I upload free content and a LOT of people like/view it? How does Google make money?
Google: We reserve the right to charge the uploader if the content becomes "very popular."
Me: Define "very popular".
Google: We don't know yet.
Me: Why should I upload content if you can't answer these basic questions?
Google: You just should.
So unless they're just planning to get lots of home videos, I didn't see any real incentive for a content provider to participate. It costs real money to produce content so companies aren't going to just give it away.
Cheers,
Call it an iTunes for everything that's not music, an Amazon for self-published eBooks, or an eBay for digital content, whatever you call it, there might well be space there for a big player...?
TFA mentions some really neat stuff: Google is giving away the code. That means that folks will be able to take open source browsers, and extend them to use the video streaming code. You could set up your own streaming service too.
When I first heard about the Google's video hosting service, I thought, "SO WHAT."
But if others set up compatible porn video streamers, and others make firefox work with the video service well, then suddenly the combination of the video streaming and the video features (built in to browser) suddenly make them "gotta have" features --- esp. if porn video sites pop up.
Suddenly IE and WMV start looking totally behind the times. MicroSoft won't be able to integrate those features cheaply if they are done under a GPL: they are totally hosed, and have to play an expensive catchup game. Fine -- they do "embrace and extend", but it will cost them a lot of time and money.
In the meanwhile, pornlovers will have switched over, and M$ will be looking pretty useless.
If the people at Google are doing this on purpose, you have to give them credit for doing to Billy what he's done to so, so many others!
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
This reminds me of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. He had a sub-plot centered around these techno-nerds that wired themselves up with a suit of computers and cameras.
They would run around everywhere there might be something remotely interesting going on and capture it. Then they'd copyright it and offer it for sale. If someone wanted it, they paid a royalty and could download it. It was all centered around some big company with lots of storage that made money off of hosting the video and getting it copyrighted. Kind of a higher-tech paparazzi, I guess.
"Well..here I am..." - Jubal Early
" then why can i watch any wmv file i dl off the net?"
Probably because they're not WMV9 or 10. Earlier WMV versions were reverse engineered and are included in VLC's codecs.