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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.
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Google is providing their infrastructure free of charge to let anyone upload video and have it be found.
So no matter what you search for, you're likely to come across a movie of someone etching "penis" in the snow
With VLC's ability to play pretty much any codec under the sun (including microsoft and realmedia's proprietary formats), maybe we'll begin to see more out-of-box compatibility with competing video players. I bet a lot of end-users are tired of codec searching any time they want to watch a certain video.
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
Something about Mission Impossible.
After viewing the video: "This message will self destruct in 5 seconds".
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
they just happen to have this insane amount of cash. I much prefer their way of spending the cash to the microsoft way : buying patents & sueing people.
The filosophy of all the semeingly nutty google projects is pretty simple : start 10 projects in the hope that one of them becomes wildly successfull. The other 9 are just duds
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
The title of this story is completely misleading. Google aren't releasing a pay-per-view thing. In fact, TFA said that those videos which were tagged free were the ones that would be available at first...
"Plenty of folks uploaded video to Google with a payment option, and that has yet to roll out"
and if you see me strut, remind me of what left this outlaw torn...
...PPV pr0n on Google?
Sign me up.
This would depend fully on the content, I think... who would pay to see TV shows and such when they could use a TV?
... but if the service is akin to, say, a subscription to CNN.com or something... I am not sure how well it would do (heck, any pay-for-video service on the web, I just am not sure on how it would do) ...
... http://www.ruckusnetwork.com/
... but in the end, would I pay for them?
Movie "rentals" aren't out of the question, to be sure...
===
Admitedly, I've tried one (albeit for free, as the network was in beta)
Essentially its needs its own web browser, so I guess technically Google's got a leg up (and their video format is different, Ruckus uses WMV)
Probably not.
Someone might, I suppose, but how many need to before it becomes profitable?
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Ahh google, tapping deeper into what really runs the internet.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
They're trying to provide a global information infrastructure, and so far they are succeeding.
...so I'll have to try out the upgrade :)
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,
Im not sure that this particular project is outside of Google's remit. Essentially they are an information storage and retrieval company and this new tech seems to fit that pattern.
GBrowser probably doesnt (didnt) but this is a company that encourages staff to explore their own avenues so there is bound to be some diversity.
It has been days since they launched a new service ;-) I was starting to get worried.
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...?
Actually, I believe I misspoke. Realmedia isn't supported by VLC, but RealAlternative is a good non-real player that's worked with every realmedia type I've used. It seems that the way it plays realmedia files (by using realmedia's own .dll files) is illegal, and with all the patent dodging VLC's had to do I believe they're trying at all cost trying not to step on any of the big players' toes.
I don't have experience with wmv10 files specifically, but I do know that the windows version of VLC is the one with the best wmv compatibility, so that may be an issue.
What amazes me about Yahoo is that they have banners for stuff that if it were mail, would be marked as spam by their own service. Things like weight-loss pills, green card lottery etc.
Makes you wonder about ethics.
Regards, Tommy
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
You've probably misunderstood my comment, partially my fault with ambiguous wording.
I meant will Google check through all the files to make sure things like hollywood films, tv shows, etc...
Let the commencement BEGINULATE!
Of course they do, VLC is a GPL license project...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
http://www.eonestudio.com/download/01.jpg Checkbox makes you certify that it is your material or that you have the right to upload it. It also makes you certify that you're not uploading pr0n.
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
Google Video Upload Program FAQe rview4
https://upload.video.google.com/video_faq.html#ov
I doubt the parent was trying to say that google should pander to big business and walk all over smaller copyright holders...
Yeah, you hold a copyright for your material by default...BUT...as far as I understand it (and IANAL), when you upload that material to a service and offer it for download for free, you are extending authorization for people to use it. If it's not a default extension of authorization, I'm almost certain that google would have looked into this and required the use of some type of agreement that explicitly stated that. It's not illegal, and google should not have to worry about doing anything to protect that copyright - its use it authorized. There is a chance, though, that people will upload stuff that is not theirs to upload. MOST of the time this would be pirated movies from big hollywood type productions. Not always, you're right. and that represents a copyright violation too. But it's naive to state that for the sake of fairness these two should be treated the same. The fact is that there is a large backlash from big hollywood movie business right now, and failing to properly protect themselves against allegations of copyright violations on these films would be monumentally stupid. More importantly, it is EASY to recognize these types of violations. It's way harder to determine if random #1 uploaded a video made by random #2 in violation of random #2's copyright.
Would it be prudent for google to check these for obvious copyright violations? Yeah, it probably is. Can the company reasonably be excepted to find ALL the violations? No.
Now, I freely admit that I do NOT know what is legally required of google in this case (I'm not sure there IS a solid legal backing for this, judging by some of the more recent law suits). BUT, I do think it's reasonable and prudent for google to try and weed out obvious copyright violations, and unfortunately, most of this WILL be the big movie type things. If they can't see an obvious violation, then they'll have to assume authorized use. Yeah, it's not fair, but I, personally, think they're doing what they can, and that's all we can really expect of them if they want this venture to get off the ground.
...no two people are not on fire.