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.'"

Comments

Re:Actually they already agreed about it

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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.

This will then stimulate a change in the advertising industry. Since discrete commercials can be so easily skipped or completely snipped out, advertising must insinuate itself directly into the content.

In the case of television, perhaps we should expect to see new shows filmed with green-screens subtly placed around the sets. You know, such as on the door of the refridgerator, or on the billboard that is slightly visible from Will & Grace's back yard. At the time of broadcast or rebroadcast or publication on DVD, commercial content can be pasted onto the green-screens dynamically.

This would have major benefits, because the commercial content can be adjusted according to the intended audience and timeslot. Advertising dollars will bring more bang for the buck... and that means that less total advertising needs to be delivered and watched.

I'm all for it. Commercial breaks are irritating, and seriously disrupt the mental state that the show is trying to induce in me. I'd rather ignore the computer-generated label on Doogie Houser's cereal box than I would sit through a cereal commercial.