Slashdot Mirror
YouTube Leaves Google Vulnerable?
PreacherTom writes "Yesterday's big news was Google's $1.65 billion deal to acquire popular video hosting service YouTube. But will it be a good deal? The market thinks so, as Google's stock rose about $10 per share after the purchase. On the other hand, YouTube increases Google's risk of copyright infringement, opening the door for significant liability...if Google cannot solve this issue. Will their planned video 'fingerprinting' be enough, or just a billion dollar mistake?" From the article: "YouTube's policy is to remove copyrighted clips once alerted to their existence. Content providers say the company needs to be even more proactive ... Todd Dagres, general partner at Boston's Spark Capital, says that Google's large market cap of $130 billion makes it much more vulnerable to lawsuits than a private company such as YouTube. 'Once Google starts to apply its monetization machine, there is going to be more money at stake and people are going to go after it,' says Dagres. 'You cannot monetize other people's content without their approval.'"
You cannot monetize other people's content without their approval.
That's not what the copyright laws say. It's what the content industry wishes they would say, and takes them to mean. This is a great quote because it reveals how they really think about it.
Google Video and YouTube are the SAME THING. The only difference is that google actually takes down copyrighted video when people post it to google videos and youtube doesn't. I don't see any reason why video.google can't merge with youtube and fix youtubes problems.
since when was google afraid of copyright lawsuits? caching webpages, images, (mostly open-source-ish) code, actual books, and (some of their) videos?
i think youtube fits right in, personally.
but also, i hate the current state of our copyright laws.
Obviously Google knows there is copyrighted content on YouTube. It also knows that YouTube is what people want. Before the idea of capitalistic humility was eroded by monopolistic content producers who unilaterally decided they had consumers by the proverbial balls and would take them for all they're worth, companies actually tried to give consumers what they wanted. Google, I think, understands that. Yes, people want everything for free, but we all love YouTube. And why? Ignoring the vlogs and random jackass-style videos that everyone likes to watch, YouTube is on-demand content. It's a service that is realizable within today's technological constraints and universally desired among consumers. If Google can find a way to get the money machine going on this, the possibilities suddenly become immensely attractive.
Exactly. They can just simply say: 'Oh, just because of sheer amount of videos we overlooked few. But we're trying.".
So we can be sure that we will still be able to see everything - but just for few days. Which is really good for marketing - you need to visit their page very often, just not to miss some content.
Good idea, plus if you don't annoy RIAA and MPIA (and their BIG members) too much it should work.
jackharrer
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
Think about it. Would Google, which already has Google Video, go and spend 1.6 billion on a virtually equivalent service, only to end up "vulnerable" and sued?
Somehow I feel this was discussed behind closed doors, risks assessed and measured, strategy outlined. The deal proceeded despite all this.
There's simply a lot we just don't know to start discussing if YouTube leaves "Google vulnerable". And when you don't know something, it's best to wait and see, versus flap your mouth, outputting unmitigated BS in your articles.
You keep using that word; I don't think it means what you think it means.
Is the entertainment industry going to lobby Congress to make movies and songs into a currency?
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
When the market realizes that young people switch over from one website to the next on a whim, and that you can make youtube out of slashdot out of wikipedia with just minor code changes, they will once again withdraw their money and the market will collapse. All these companies have is brands; it's a dangerous move by Google.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
You cannot monetize other people's content without their approval
And here we have, in one choice of wording in one sentence, the embodyment of everything wrong with out entire IP system.
We need to line asshats like this need up against the wall, ASAP. Yes, YouTube hosts quite a lot of copyrighted content. Yes, Google has deeper pockets. So what?
Camwhores aside, anyone considering suing GooTube does not have the advancement of human culture in mind - Or even their own sales! They just want a quick buck via legislation rather than work. YouTube has taken what amounts to the "abandonware" of the media market, and made it popular again even in a low-quality format. Sales of cheesy 80s videos collections have skyrocketed thanks to YouTube, and at least some major labels haven't failed to notice this. But it only takes a single holdout, who considers their one-hit-underground-wonder as the single most important pile of dung on the planet, to make YouTube the next Napster.
We don't need an overhaul of IP law (and yes, I do include the whole plate of copyright, trademark, patents, and the rest in that term, quite deliberately), we need it completely done away with. We need a judiciary that has at least a basic grasp of the technology they keep making very dangerous decisions about. And we need people who talk about "monetizing" anything other than physically backed currency taken out back and shot.
YouTube has just signed how many agreements with major content providers. Do you think that MAYBE, just MAYBE, Google was waiting for that to happen before buying them?
So, the question isn't even relevant. Nobody cares whether they can do it without their approval. YouTube HAS their approval, and now that Google owns YouTube, so does Google.
Any remaining content providers will quickly realize their choices are 1) spend money on long, expensive lawsuits against Google with little/no prospect of a ROI, or 2) jump on the bandwagon for practically free and make some money out of it. It shouldn't take long even for a corporate board member to figure that one out.
1. Google paid 1.5% of the company in stock to purchase YouTube. Google stock jumped 5% on the news. Purchasing YouTube resulted in a profit for Google.
2. Television as we know it is dieing, and quickly. You can already watch many network shows on the web. Moving shows to the web means that networks can gather better metrics, which means better add targeting, which means higher add prices, which means fewer adds. Everybody wins. (And before you go on about greedy media companies, nobody knows better how not to kill the goose that laid the golden egg than Google).
3. Media providers were already signing up in ones and twos with YouTube. They will now fall all over themselves to sign up with the web's largest advertising company.
4. You can't be sued for hosting copyrighted content unless you have been properly notified of your infringement by the copyright holder and ignored it. No legal risk unless you bungle it.
5. With media providers signing up with YouTube to host their copyrighted content, there will be more copyrighted content available, at higher quality. You will have to sit through adds, but not as many as when you watch TV, and you can do it at your own schedule.
Google will be the largest media company in the world within 10 years. You heard it here first.
YouTube's policy is to remove copyrighted clips once alerted to their existence. Content providers say the company needs to be even more proactive
The law says otherwise.
Nice try, __AA.
Latewire
I think this move is quite brilliant actually. They are going to make a rival to broadcast TV with this move. Copyright issues, I don't think so. The media companies will be paying THEM to host their content. This is going to be the TV of the future with targetted ads for "On Demand" content.
Everyone I know also uses Firefox. That's gotta mean something. Oh wait, that's right; it doesn't mean anything. I mean, anything other than everyone I know uses Firefox. It implies absolutely nothing about the market or popularity or usability or safety or anything else. And, more importantly, it ignores the MASSIVE AMOUNT OF EVIDENCE that points to the other, far more logical conclusions.
Yeah, this is flamebait, I know, but for the love of Jebus, STOP USING ANECDOTES IN ARGUMENTS. Am I the only friggin' Comp Sci person that had to take a logic class and actually remembers what Unrepresentative Sample means? Anecdotes add absolutely nothing to debates. It's almost as useful as saying "My favorite color is blue" when talking about website design.
This sig is intentionally left blank
You confuse purpose with implementation.
;-)
And communism could work, in theory.
Yes, in an ideal world, some form of extremely limited IP law seems like a good idea. In practice, every exclusionary granting of certain rights and benefits to one person/group over another has rapidly degenerated into a self-perpetuating polarization of "haves" and "have-nots".
And what if someone removed your means to "get yours" to begin with?
[...]
What if you are an author? You want someone to copy your work whole and pass it off as their own?
What, before I wrote it?
And yes, actually, if I wrote a book and made enough to comfortably retire on, have fun gnawing on the leftovers, it harms me not at all. And if I don't have the popularity of someone like JK Rowling who could retire after her one well-known series (itself massively ripped off from another author, ironically (in the context of this topic) enough)? Then (as I do in reality) I'd damned well better not quit my day job, even if that day job means writing a new book every year or two.
You might be ok with that but who the hell are you to tell me I should be too?
"I" form the culture that you draw 99% of even the most creative and new ideas from; "I" give you an audience to sell to. And even under our current system (at least as intended, if not the farce we have now), "I" have granted you a metacontractual limited monopoly on what you borrowed from my culture, for the purpose of enriching that culture as a form of repayment-with-interest.
You have one, and only one, natural "right" as a petulant means of depriving me of your ideas - Keep them to yourself. If you don't like those terms, don't create. Simple as that.