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Only a 'Moron' Would Buy YouTube
ColinPL writes to mention a News.com article about some harsh words from Mark Cuban, on the possible purchase of video-sharing site YouTube. According to Mr. Cuban only a 'moron' would buy the site, because of the obvious possibility of lawsuits over intellectual property. From the article: "Cuban, co-founder of HDNet and owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, also said YouTube would eventually be 'sued into oblivion' because of copyright violations. 'They are just breaking the law,' Cuban told a group of advertisers in New York. 'The only reason it hasn't been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue ... There is a reason they haven't yet gone public, they haven't sold. It's because they are going to be toasted,'"
Not to mention the fact that their business model seems to lack a revenue stream.
We won't even get to enjoy this as long as Napster...
There is simply too much glass..
If you want to really succeed, you have to take risks.
Anyone suing U-Tube would be taking the risk of losing the lawsuit and setting a precident.
Isn't this the guy that started broadcast.com, that was later bought by Yahoo! for billions of dollars? I'd think he'd probably know a thing or two about this.........
On the one hand, he's probably right.
On the other, you've got examples like paypal.com - they've basically been enronning their ways around banking laws for years and no one has sued them to oblivion for not having a license, stealing money, etc.
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it's obviously because there is no one behind YouTube worth suing. Of course this hasn't stopped the RIAA or MPAA from shutting down thousands of other sites that host copyright material.
Not quite sure why Youtube is allowed to exist, when anyone else that sets up something similar would just get shutdown. It's very strange.
Gekido's Lair
Let's see...Fox owns Myspace, so another media conglomerate (say, Universal or whoever) could buy YouTube, or a group of them can get together and share it. Then, each company enters into a reciprocation agreement with the other, agreeing not to sue each other when users post videos that are in violation of copyright. Hell, if that isn't the YouTube founders' exit strategy, then it should be (and I'll take my consulting fee now, please).
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Let's see. News Corporation is a publicly traded company. News Corporation owns MySpace. Rupert Murdoch says one of MySpace's goals isto take the market lead in online video from privately held YouTube in the next 60 to 70 days. Granted, I'm not a Murdoch fan, and I'm not going to contend that he's not a "moron", but do you really think News Corp. would push this if they thought they were going to get the pants sued off of them?
"Only a moron wouldn't cast his vote for Monty Burns"
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you can bet the takedown rule is going to be challenged. YT can check for porn, but cant check for copyrights ? Plus, they dont just host for others, they host for their own financial benefit. Then there will the argument that they induce people to break copyright laws by not doing the obvious. Now the DMCA doesnt say you have to do the obvious, but judges and courts usually do. Then the question of why is it that other videohosting sites have no problem preventing copyrighted materials from being uploaded ,and the question will be asked if that is what seperates Youtube from other sites and has been more than minimally responsible for their success.
Then there will be every rights owner with any derivative earnings possible that will sue to get their share. Just like they did napster.
Then of course we will have to see the "training" that will come from the MPAA and RIAA after the lawsuits expand from just warning the utes of America not only about the dangers of downloading, butnow uploading.
Think Major League Baseball is going to just sit by as highlights of every game are uploaded so people dont have to buy their various online video offerings ? They will ask them to take down everything on the site they can find. Then they will sue and ask a judge why YT cant post warnings for people not to upload baseball, as they do porn. Then a tv show like the Letterman show will do the same thing with monologues, guests whatever.
the list of people who will sue will be long.
And for the record, we sold broadast.com to Y! for 28mm shares, and the latest comscore shows Y! being the top streaming destination on the net.
Commercials.
As soon as YouTube places commercials in front of their vids, even if they cookie them to just 1 per hour per viewer, the money will be flooding in.
Here's why: YouTube's content review and tagging system for searches, plus their popularity and "stars" rating systems are perfect metadata for targeted ads. Not "somewhat fuzzily targeted" based on collected trends but directly. That car. That skateboard. THAT song. Learn THAT trick. Go to THAT place. All for sale "HERE".
People won't stand for too many, but tuned right the loss of viewers from annoyance versus the revenue from commercials' simple brainwashing techniques (think of commercials as competing social memes) will balance.
On one hand, you probably lost out on a lot of money, on the other hand, you can know that that you didn't profit from a scam.
Broadcast.com was just that, a scam. I remember the Cuban road-show where he and Mary Meeker (who was an equity advisor at Morgan Stanley) both tried to pitch the sale of Broadcast.com. Not only was the presentation full of exaggerations and outright lies, Marky Meeker was grossly breaking the law and directly working for Morgan's IBanking side as an equity analyst (Equity analysts are supposed to have a "chinese-wall" in place where they can't work on IBanking relationships).
Cuban is rich, and you (probably) aren't. Cuban made his money as a despicable liar, side by side with a professional con-artist -- you have a chance to do otherwise and don't have to live down their deceitfulness.
Contrary to popular opinion, bags of money aren't so wonderful if you have trouble sleeping at night.
You are happy, working, providing neat products. Your employees are happy, customers satisifed? Well, sounds OK to me.
Look at this dudes idea about selling out. Sometimes it is better to just do what you are doing at the level you are doing it at and be happy! Companies that get that "must keep growing faster and faster or we fail it!" are not the ultimate. They are just one type of business mindset, no law says you have to emulate them.