Ballmer Sounds Off

PreacherTom writes "Steve Ballmer shares his thoughts on the Web 2.0 phenomenon, Zune, XBox, Vista, Bill's upcoming 2008 retirement, the future of Microsoft, and other subjects. For example, regarding the GooTube deal: "Right now, there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion. And what about the rights holders? At the end of the day, a lot of the content that's up there is owned by somebody else. The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google." He's blunt, if nothing else."

Comments

Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[eldavojohn]

The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google.

Ballmer:That's right, once Google bought YouTube they telephoned all the banks of recording industry artists and movie association members and said explicitly, "All your wealth are belong to us." And it was that point right there when all the banks handed large sacks with green dollar signs on them to Google. Remember back to that day, it was a long time ago, do you remember? Don't you remember Google having a long mustache that they twirled as they laughed and took the money?

Interviewer: Aren't you oversimplifying things? I mean YouTube was taking down copyrighted content once they were notified of its presence.

Ballmer: I'd never be guilty of oversimplifying something--I was merely attempting to explain a situation to the rest of the world about a company that just happens to be one of our biggest competitors and a direct threat in the search and advertisment industries. You don't remember it like that? Well I do and so does DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS ... sorry, I have Tourettes syndrome.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Ubergrendle]

Ingnoring your little pantomime, Ballmer's point is legitimate -- even 'user created' content is a HUGE liability on the website. A World of Warcraft video w/ a soundtrack from a current music album, populated with soundbits from TV shows... lawyers no longer need viagra.

Youtube is a very, very young company...just like it took the RIAA a few years to realise what Napster was, I'm sure the MPAA is having closed door sessions today to figure out how to litigate/shut this down.

In the land of the DCMA, laws banning online gambling, the RIAA and MPAA, this is a huge legal disaster waiting to happen. I'm supportive of Google pushing the envelope, but I think they have overreached on this acquisition. Their first major mistake IMHO.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[drsmithy]

In the land of the DCMA, laws banning online gambling, the RIAA and MPAA, this is a huge legal disaster waiting to happen. I'm supportive of Google pushing the envelope, but I think they have overreached on this acquisition. Their first major mistake IMHO.

On the upside, the impact of such litigation on The Common Man might just wake everyone up to how out of control copyright laws have gotten...

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[twistedsymphony]

I don't really see how this changes things for Google, I mean they already have Google Video, which is essentially the same service as You Tube. If you're going to oversimplify you could say they basically the just bought a userbase. I can't imagine Google Video was any more immune to copyright infringement then You Tube is.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[allenw]

... except Google Video does provide a revenue stream for content holders, thanks to that Buy button.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[aplusjimages]

Videos on YouTube go up like 3-5 minutes after you upload them. Google Video goes through a process that takes a day or two. This helps slow down impulse uploading. Why show off a cool video to your friends online that isn't yours on Google Video that will take a day or two. It's faster to post it on YouTube where it will be up in minutes and you are still excited about it.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Opportunist]

...which we'll probably see soon on YouTube, too.

They just bought it. Give them at least a few days to come up with some plan.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Macthorpe]

I have to agree with this.

Who would have sued YouTube before? Universal hinted but never made good, and considering YouTube would probably have been barely able to cover fighting all these lawsuits let alone winning/losing, it seemed like an uphill battle trying to squeeze the money these companies 'deserve'.

Now that YouTube is backed by deep-pocketed Google, this is every lawyer's wet dream waiting to happen. Let's hope that the deals that Google have already signed with some of the major players are enough to stem the tide of lawsuits waiting to happen.

Also, let's be honest, if Steve Jobs had said this people here would have thought about it rather than the rampant anti-Ballmer sentiment that seems to be throwing itself up here. The funny thing is that if Jobs had said it, he has far more of a reason to be biased because Apple are in the business of actually buying video content before they sell it.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[mrchaotica]

A World of Warcraft video w/ a soundtrack from a current music album, populated with soundbits from TV shows... lawyers no longer need viagra.

And it's a fine example of how copyright is entirely out of whack, that actual creative effort gets the shaft in favor of so-called "rights holders" that do nothing more than sit on their asses all day! It is exactly this kind of situation that copyright is supposed to encourage, not prevent!

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[mrchaotica]

Ah, so that's why Youtube seemed more popular! I'd been wondering...

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[LaughingCoder]

They just bought it. Give them at least a few days to come up with some plan.

When you spend $1.6B you're supposed to have a plan ahead of time. Now that doesn't mean they don't have a plan, they just aren't telling us what it is yet.

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[Hijacked Public]

But those who made the actual creative effort voluntarily chose to ally with these rights holders in order to get their games and TV shows and such created and distributed. I don't see how that makes copyright out of whack.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Mateo_LeFou]

I think Google has the funds, and youtube has the user base, to (finally) get the "content industry" to sit down and actually work with technology instead of just trying to sue it out of existence. e.g.: google could get a meaningful compulsory license deal imposed.

Personally I'd prefer that they use the leverage to draw more attention to how much free/creative-commons work is out there, but to each his own.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Macthorpe]

Chuck out my last comment about having more reason to be biased, I forgot about the Zune.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[aichpvee]

Corporations aren't people and shouldn't be able to own anything. They're legally more of a person than you are now, and that's fucked up.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Lonewolf666]

Ingnoring your little pantomime, Ballmer's point is legitimate -- even 'user created' content is a HUGE liability on the website. A World of Warcraft video w/ a soundtrack from a current music album, populated with soundbits from TV shows... lawyers no longer need viagra.

True, but in a different way than you think. Because (I guess except for the soundtrack) one might argue that we have fair use here. Consider
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_und er_United_States_law
Sorting this out could go all the way to the Supreme Court, with big lawyer fees and lots of publicity for the law firm.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Catbeller]

"voluntarily chose"

Oh, please. No one voluntarily chooses to give up the rights to copy and play their own music. They do so under duress, to make a living. They always gave it up because the other choice is to work at McDonalds.

Those people they voluntarily give up their rights to steal all the profits for decades. If they decide to give the artist anything at all, after the "expenses" are deducted.

If any artists are on the side of the corporations that hold the copyright gates, then they are usually young, dazzled by the bright lights, and were brought up thinking that the proper way of things is to submit to the flashy men in the conference room. They were born in a slave culture, and they think like slaves. This is the downside of feudalism: serfs eventually wholeheartedly support their lords -- they can't imagine that it could work any other way. And corporatism = feudalism; it's not even a metaphor.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Kijori]

e.g.: google could get a meaningful compulsory license deal imposed.

There's no way Google could get a compulsory license deal. They have deep pockets, but the RIAA/MPIAA have deeper ones, as well as an established lobby. What Google might be able to get, though, is a voluntary licence.

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[Hijacked Public]

It is still voluntary. You sit down, usually with your agent and an attorney from the company offering the contract, and sign the thing or you don't. If you do it isn't because the only possible thing you might otherwise do with your life is work at McDonalds. As many Slashdotters will tell you, there are scores of other possible ways to make money off your art. Micropayments, nanopayments, somehow peer sharing your work and hoping people will come to your show or gallery opening and buy a T shirt. While none of those may actually work, ever, they are indeed some of the many alternatives.

What I find even more annoying than my exercising the choice to sell a company the exclusive right to content I create, is the desire of some people to jump in and save me from myself by taking that content and redistributing it as they see fit.

While there are certainly problems with the corporate world railing against copyright laws under the banner of freeing slaves won't get you much further than laughed at by most people.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Chosen Reject]

Which only goes to show that the ??AA actually do know that piracy does increase viewership. If all they were concerned with was copyrights then they would have sued youtube into oblivion and ended a lot of the copyright infringement. But if they sue now only because a company with deep pockets can pay up then they get to have their cake and eat it too. That is, they get the increased viewership and they get the money from suing.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[gkhan1]

Very interesting, I did not know that. Mods, pay attention!

Does google check every video before it goes up? I seriously doubt it, so what's whith the wait?

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Mateo_LeFou]

I'm not a lawyer, but I suspeect that most contracts signed with new artists are borderline fraudulent: http://negativland.com/albini.html

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[patmfitz]

Google Video goes through a process that takes a day or two.

It used to be like that, but no longer. They implemented a web upload form for videos less than 100MB, and the video is available as soon as it's uploaded.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[kalidasa]

Well, I tried to post a video for a friend, under his account, that he had the right to distribute - it was a television broadcast of his own performance. Google Video refused to post it because he was not the legal copyright holder. I'm guessing that YouTube will end up with this model.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[gkhan1]

Can I just say that your sig is remarkably apt in that post. If you'd eliminated the -- I wouldn't have thought twice about it being part of the message.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[cliffski]

interesting how those guys manage to actually create all that IP in the first place, that people enjoy so much they want to add it as a soundtrack. You know, what with them sitting on their ass all day.
Methinks it takes longer for peter jackson to create the LOTR movies, and for Gnarls Barclay(sp?) to write an album than it does for some kid to stick em together and claim he's 'creative'.
I give the original IP creators more points for 'creative effort' than 99% of youtubes offerings.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[garcia]

Corporations aren't people and shouldn't be able to own anything.

That's exactly what a corporation *is*. A legal "person" on paper. Yes, it's fucked up but that's how it works.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[ultranova]

Well, I tried to post a video for a friend, under his account, that he had the right to distribute - it was a television broadcast of his own performance.

Haven't you heard ? Television channels own the copyright to the signal they send. Therefore, your friend is a criminal who was trying to shaft them out of their rightful profits.

I'm starting to think that the only solution is to abolish copyright completely - any copyright model, no matter how reasonably seeming, will inevitably creep towards draconic. "Just say no to copyright" - you may quote me on that.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[88NoSoup4U88]

I uploaded (personal) movies at both YouTube and Google, and they came up instantly. The file that I uploaded to Google was under 100 MB, so I don't know if this presumed reviewing of content is only taking place once the filesize gets bigger than the 100 MB: But under 100 MB there doesn't seem to be any manual reviewing going on at Google.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[ScentCone]

What I find even more annoying than my exercising the choice to sell a company the exclusive right to content I create, is the desire of some people to jump in and save me from myself by taking that content and redistributing it as they see fit.

Yes.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[ScentCone]

interesting how those guys manage to actually create all that IP in the first place, that people enjoy so much they want to add it as a soundtrack. You know, what with them sitting on their ass all day.

Well, technically, someone who manipulates wireframe models at Weta all day is probably, actually, sitting on their ass all day. In front of a very expensive piece of equipment, running fantastically complex and expensive software, on a huge and complex network. And making things... not passing off cut/paste jobs as art. The cut/paste people don't have to persuade investors to feed them and hundreds of other people for a few years while they work on their project, either. Honestly, I think some people are so desparate to make sure that they can avoid subscribing to HBO that they'll feign being total idiots. There's no other explanation for the GP's "thought" process.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Stokey]

Once more we need the presence of a FAQ for all things Slashdot.

The DMCA says that you can't be sued unless the compyright holder has given you fair notice to take down the offending material and you have failed to comply after reviewing their case. You could have 1 million pieces of flagrantly nicked pieces of film, but no one is going to sue you until you've failed to respond to their take down notices.

Do you honestly believe that Google won't have thought this through? That their experience with caching and book copyright and images and goodness knows what else hasn't prepared them to deal with the non-issue that is copyright on You Tube?

Now your very valid point is "If I make a comedy WoW video, is that fair use?", "If I show it to my friends, is that fair use?", "If I host it on the Internet, is that fair use?", "If the hosting company makes money of it, who will be sued?". I'd guess not the hosting company... Google will jsut get a take down from Blizzard... Which as someone else points out in this thread, is all that's broken with copyright today...

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[mrchaotica]

What I find even more annoying than my exercising the choice to sell a company the exclusive right to content I create, is the desire of some people to jump in and save me from myself by taking that content and redistributing it as they see fit.

You've made a fundamental mistake in your argument: erroneously assuming that you "own" the content just because you created it. This is not the case; all you "own" is a government-granted (not inherent) monopoly over distribution of it. In fact, the public owns the content from the beginning, and merely lends it back to you temporarily, in order to encourage you to create more.

The people "taking that content and redistributing it as they see fit" are merely of the opinion that the copyright holders of the content they distribute have abused their privilage, and don't deserve to have it anymore.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[M-G]

When you spend $1.6B you're supposed to have a plan ahead of time. Now that doesn't mean they don't have a plan, they just aren't telling us what it is yet.

Well, I'm sure they do have a plan, but it's not like they actually spent $1.6B in cash. It was an all stock transaction.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[DittoBox]

Nope. Wrongo. The way the media --who, if I may remind you, is big content themselves-- will portray it is that the big bad evil teenagers with their video mixing software and bad lipsyncing and their wholesale copying of small portions of television shows that might garner us viewers against the innocent and do no wrong, upstanding copyright owners. This is one area where we're going to get very, very screwed from all the media outlets being owned by, what...4 people?

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[mrchaotica]

interesting how those guys manage to actually create all that IP in the first place, that people enjoy so much they want to add it as a soundtrack. You know, what with them sitting on their ass all day.

The guys sitting on their asses all day are the copyright holders, who are generally not the ones who "actually creat[ed] all that IP[sic]" (and therein lies a large portion of the problem).

Methinks it takes longer for peter jackson to create the LOTR movies..

Actually, the vast majority of the (new -- not including the story itself) creative effort was done by all the CG artists, set designers, etc. working under Peter Jackson, and was "work for hire." They don't get royalties; they get paid for their time, and that's it. In fact, Peter Jackson and that 'kid on youtube" you deride have a lot in common: all either of them did was "stick together" somebody else's work!

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[testadicazzo]

I'm starting to think that the only solution is to abolish copyright completely - any copyright model, no matter how reasonably seeming, will inevitably creep towards draconic. "Just say no to copyright" - you may quote me on that.

I'm not going to argue whether any copyright concept should be abolished, that's a long and different debate. I just want to argue with your reasoning here, which crops up all too often.

Something 'inevitably' drifting to draconian doesn't mean it is preferable to do away with it all together. It just means that you have to a system in place to protect against that occuring. The founders of the constitution attemped to do this by placing a system of checks and balances in place, but sane political analyses shows they were unsuccessful, and some modfications are needed.

Same thing with copyright. Severe modifications are needed, I'll grant you. Maybe doing away with it alltogether is prefereable, but I personally kind of doubt that. It's pretty tough to create any kind of a security system (in comptuers, in national or emotional security, whatever) that will work against any assault. People are clever and will always try to find a way to twist a system to their advantage. What's needed is a populace that's alert and motivated enough to guard against this. Tough sure, but that's life.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Hijacked Public]

That case could be made of just about anything. People claim to own real estate, but all they own is a document entitling them to do various things at a location described by a particular set of coordinates to the exclusion of other entities doing various things at their own accord. That document is only as good as the force that backs it up. Just like copyright is only as good as the force that backs it up.

Debating semantics is fun, but the reality of the situation is that copyright law is backed up by people who own tanks and canons and the like. Maybe I'm mistaking the direction your comment goes but I don't see how people getting the feeling that distributors have abused their privilege, when the distributors have the law on their side.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Hijacked Public]

In a thinly veiled attempt to get modded up I will blame the missing text above on Microsoft and their bug ridden proprietary software.

I left out:

"...abused their privilege allows them to jump ahead of the timeline established by copyright law, when the distributors..."

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[mrchaotica]

That case could be made of just about anything. People claim to own real estate, but all they own is a document entitling them to do various things at a location described by a particular set of coordinates to the exclusion of other entities doing various things at their own accord. That document is only as good as the force that backs it up. Just like copyright is only as good as the force that backs it up.

Not really. Ownership of real estate makes sense because it's physically impossible for two people to be occupying the same space at the same time. In contrast, ownership of ideas does not make sense because any number of people can have them at the same time. It's not "semantics;" it's a feature of reality.

I would explain it in further detail, but this post elsewhere in the thread did a fairly good job of it already.

Maybe I'm mistaking the direction your comment goes but I don't see how people getting the feeling that distributors have abused their privilege, when the distributors have the law on their side.

The legality and the morality of an action are completely orthogonal. Considering that modern copyright law has, by and large, been bought and paid for by publishing industry lobbyists (especially Disney -- we can't let that mouse become Public Domain, nosirree!), it's reasonable to say that it may not reflect the will of the people, and therefore should be abolished and/or ignored. (And then there's also the fact that it violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution...)

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[spun]

Corporations used to have severe limits and no rights. Corporations were created by the European Monarchies when they realized that the new merchant class had supplanted the nobility as the power they must court. They kings of european states knew they would need financial help to realize their dreams of empire, and that help could only come from the merchants.

But the monarchs knew that a corporation was essentially a landless, peasantless fiefdom. Corporations would have enormous power, so in exchange for the limited liability which would attract investors to risky, long term projects like colonization, they would say that corporations could only do the business for which they were chartered, in the region their charter covered. The East India company could neither trade in the Americas nor grow crops in the East Indies. And corporations were limited to the lifespan of the original founders: when the last of them had died or sold their shares, the corporation would be dissolved.

Finally, a corporation had no legal rights as a person seperate from its officers. This was one of the biggest limitations, and one of the last to go. But money buys power, and over time the concentration of money available to corporations allowed them to buy politicians who would enact legeslation expanding their power, allowing them to make more money and buy more laws in a vicious cycle.

Now, a corporation has always been able to own things, and to owe money. Seperating ownership and liability was the whole purpose of corporations and the thing that made them different from partnerships. But in exchange for that, severe limits were originally placed on what they could do. Now those limits have been erased and corporations have all the benefits with none of the societal responsibilities.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Hijacked Public]

The fact that ownership of property exists at all is a construction of governments. Here in the US there existed thousands of people who got along fairly well for a long period of time with, in relative terms, no concept of such a thing as real estate. Yet here we are arguing that the impossibility of two people being able to occupy the same phyical space at a given time necessitates some law delineating who gets which space.

The laws governing copyright have indeed been bought and paid for by the industry, but every penny the industry spent came from the hands of the public, who bought content produced by individuals who voluntarily chose to have it distributed by the industry.

There exist ways to change laws. Feel free to make a run them at them through the courts. If indeed they are unconstitutional and you aren't just cheerleading, you'd should have a pretty easy go of it and should have no trouble finding pro bono representation. Take to the street and picket. Choose some alternate path for the copyrightable works you produce. Just stop trying to force me to go along with you.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[sixoseven]

The value of everything on YouTube has just been established by Google. Before that it was worthless. Additionally, the liability of everything on GooTube depends on the willingness and ability for 'rightsholders' to sue successfully.

There is no intrinsic value for uploaded video content, no matter what's in it. The value accues based on the advertising revenue generated by hits to the site. Google will instantly know this accrued value the moment they recieve a desist order or a claim for damages. They can then instantly drop the content or fight for it. Either way, Google's publication of the content establishes the value. If Google decides to drop it, the revenue stream is immediately lost.

BTW, lawyers searching for content marginally adds to the hit value of GooTube content. They have already mastered click fraud enough to discount artificial pumping up of the value. So basically attorneys will be guessing at value (or speaking of the value of other negotiated deals), but Google will know the residual and accrual values.

Now consider all of that and think about the complexity of the release problem within a music video where somebody is playing a song, drinking a Pepsi, wearing Nike shoes and the lyrics mention Madonna. Negotiated value vs web hit value. Who has the advantage? Google.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[teknosapien]

do you really beleive that google doesn't have something up their sleeve. so far they have done noting but amaze the rest of the established internet community. I'm pretty positive that they have a plan. We just dont know about it as of the purchase.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Kazoo the Clown]

Actually, I think perhaps Google is taking a longer term view of this-- eventually web-videos will be as ubiquitous as phone conversations. Are you stealing money from a music company if you have your stereo on in the background while you're on the phone with someone? Or if you sing along? People will not stand for the content police impeding their ability to communicate with their friends, just as they wouldn't stand for someone butting into their phone conversations and bleeping out copyrighted or trademarked phrases they may utter. The difference in the internet is only a matter of the number of "friends" one has and can talk to at once-- but the process is essentially the same.

And sure, this is at odds with a lot of things the content corporations have been taking for granted, but I think there's a good chance they're on the losing end of the argument of whether or not people are free to express themselves in public-- simply because that expression is recorded when it's on the internet is not enough excuse to block that expression, IMHO. If I walk down the street singing the latest top 40 tune, am I guilty of copyright violation? If so, is that in the spirit of the original copyright intentions and of the concept of free speech in a free country?

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[mrchaotica]

The fact that ownership of property exists at all is a construction of governments. Here in the US there existed thousands of people who got along fairly well for a long period of time with, in relative terms, no concept of such a thing as real estate. Yet here we are arguing that the impossibility of two people being able to occupy the same phyical space at a given time necessitates some law delineating who gets which space.

First of all, I only used real estate as an example because you used it first. Second, I didn't say that it "necessitates" anything; it just explains why doing such a thing makes sense. Third, even though native americans didn't own land, they did own other things -- clothes, tools, animals (?), etc.

The laws governing copyright have indeed been bought and paid for by the industry, but every penny the industry spent came from the hands of the public, who bought content produced by individuals who voluntarily chose to have it distributed by the industry.

So? Hardly any politcal movements capture the attention of even half the public, much less all of it. Do you think the civil rights movement, for example, was any less valid because only X% (where X is a small number) of people were actually getting hosed down by the police? (Note: I'm not trying to compare the magnitude or validity of the two; the only necessary similarity is that they are both social or political in nature.) Besides, just because somebody isn't willing to go out of their way to help the cause, doesn't mean they are hostile to it.

Choose some alternate path for the copyrightable works you produce. Just stop trying to force me to go along with you.

How would a person doing this be forcing you to go along with anything? If you reason according the principles I laid out, you're not involved even if you created the work in question because you had no valid claim to it anyway.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Hijacked Public]

I do not reason according to the principles you laid out because I do not agree that a person who creates something immediately loses all control over that something simply because there are people who disagree with the way copyright law has been implemented.

The law as written allows for control of distribution. You freely distributing my work is forcing me to go along with your interpretation of the failings of copyright laws. While I do not care one way or the other whether you chose not to seek the rights afforded to you by copyright, or to distribute the works of others who do not, I prefer to opt out of your campaign to save us all.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Bugmaster]

Methinks it takes longer for peter jackson to create the LOTR movies

Oddly enough, the LOTR movies themselves are derivative works, based on ye olde books by J.R.R.Tolkien.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Anonymous Coward]

... lawyers no longer need viagra.

Can we at least be certain that no chairs were harmed in the production of this interview?

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Andrewkov]

Let me guess, you've never created anything worth protecting?

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[cliffski]

peter jacksons such an evil swine. I hear he put no effort in to those movies whatsoever. I also hear that those poor sods who did the CGI didnt get paid. he used to laugh and spit at them, as he sat on his pile of free money.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[ElleyKitten]

It's not that people lose rights as soon as they create something, but they lose control of things when they give them to other people. The government tries to give them control because they believe it will encourage more creativity, but there's no way to take back control of something that you've given to someone else. People used to xerox and even hand copy books, now that things are digital and can be copied instantanously it's stupid to even try to stop people.

But it's not like you're doomed to never make money off your music/books/movies/whatever anymore. In addition to live performances and collectors' editions which cannot be easily copied, the creators have the ability to make copies available that are easier to find and better quality than others. Why do you think iTunes makes money despite all their music/tv shows/movies being available on bittorrent for free?

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this continued perception is how youtube has contiued it's popularity dominance over youtube. All of the early adopters such as myself were unimpressed with the wait time on our initial upload and abondoned it at that point. First impressions do matter. Probably something to keep in mind when betaing a new web service.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[sponga]

He is very right and somebody made a reference to it in an earlier in the 'Google Youtube Purchase'; it was the On-Demand feature.

On-Demand is a very popular feature and people want the news brought to them as soon as possible and love to have control over it.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[ozbird]

I think I like Google's way. How much better would the world be if there was GoogleMobile/GoogleCell: instead of just calling up your friends to say "OMG, ponies!", you have to think for a while to decide if it's really worth it. Perhaps not much, but it would be bliss for the rest of us...

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Daravon]

Oh, like the lashing out by The Common Man when the RIAA sued teenagers, adults and senior citizens (some without computers). Or is it more like the rejoicing at getting a few free DRM'd songs in exchange for the rootkit put on your computer by Big Media? Nevermind, explain this again. I've gotten lost somewhere...

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Anonymous Coward]

> It is still voluntary. You sit down, usually with your agent and an attorney from the company offering the contract, and sign the thing or you don't.

Umm, if you bring your *own* attourney, or hell, just attempt to read the stupid thing over after they've assured you its "standard boilerplate" or some other BS, they'll tell you they don't have time for that and will go on to find someone else.

Like they said, though--starstruck kids with dreams of fame and wealth. Don't get me wrong--there's plenty of wealth to be had. The trick is that most of it is going to the guys in the cheap suits.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Anonymous Coward]

They are following the Bush Doctrine. Shoot first, ask questions later. Much easier on the paperwork you see..

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[GaryPatterson]

Are you kidding about Peter Jackson?

You seriously think all he did was to "stck together" other people's work?

For a start, he co-wrote the treatment used to sell the film to the studios. Then he worked with a team on the animatics, to create a shot-by-shot walkthrough of the entire movie. After that he actually directed nearly the entire thing over the course of about five years, often out in the wilderness somewhere in New Zealand. During this time he managed to keep his actors positive and focused, the film on track (they hit the release day for each film spot on - that's solid project management right there) and stay in control of the film's look and feel.

On top of this, he was personally involved in the creative aspects of the film, approving, suggesting and improving models, visuals and CG. He oversaw the cutting of the film and to a lesser extent the scoring. He'd watch the daily rushes after the actors had left, reviewing each take.

Do you think a five year project with 18-20 hour days for almost the entire period is just sticking stuff together?

As for the money issue - yes, people running the show take the lion's share. That's business. The CG people at Weta are pretty much set up for life-long careers now though, as are the model-makers. In fact, the wage-earners on the film have generally bright careers in front of them now because the whole production was so well done.

I usually like your posts, but this one was particularly egregious. You clearly don't know what it was Peter Jackson actually did, or what good directors and producers do either for that matter.

I must have misread sarcasm or something. You can't be this far off-base, surely.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Anonymous Coward]

While none of those may actually work, ever, they are indeed some of the many alternatives.

Meaningless bullshit. It's the same as the crap scholarships handed out like candy so the alumni can pump their dicks about "all the kids being lifted out of poverty." Bullshit -- how many ghetto kids ever get to the NFL, NBA, NHL, etc. or actually become anyone higher paid than a high scool coach?

Your alternatives are trivial and meaningless until I see a Grammy given to the kid "who made the largest total of the year in nanopayments".

.. and the winner is ....

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[mrchaotica]

I must have misread sarcasm or something. You can't be this far off-base, surely.

It was half-sarcastic. I completely agree that the magnitude of the work that Peter Jackson did was much greater than the average Youtube video maker, but I do believe it was similar in kind. From your post, it seems as though you agree: you mention all the time he spent "approving, suggesting ... reviewing" and praise his project management skills. It's laudable, but it's mostly management, not art -- it's not the same as creating something from scratch by himself.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[Emetophobe]

Funny that you mention the DMCA, considering Google may actually protected from litigation thanks to a particular DMCA provision.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[kalidasa]

Actually, no, my friend holds the copyright on the performance, and the television station on the broadcast, and part of the agreement they signed indicated that he had distribution rights for the clip we tried to post. Copyright is fine, as long as you don't go nuts in enforcement.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview

[aichpvee]

They're more of a person than you are, which is exactly what I said. Stop trying to argue with me by agreeing, it makes you look foolish.

Uh...

[sammy baby]

Uh. Surely if YouTube is the ticking time bomb of copyright infringement that it's claimed to be, then what's happening is Google transferring money from the hands of Google investors into a holding tank for eventual litigants.

I mean, if you were Ballmer, wouldn't you be thrilled that Google had bought YouTube?

Re:Uh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, if you were Ballmer, wouldn't you be thrilled that Google had bought YouTube?

Maybe if I were an alternate-universe good-guy version of Ballmer with a goatee who was telling the actual truth instead of speaking a load of PR bollocks meant to discredit my competition.

Re:Uh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I wonder what happens if you do not enforce your copyright.
And frankly, only the big names can enforce their copyright on YouTube.
Most small copyright holders won't even know that there is an infringement for years....

Re:Uh...

[LilWolf]

if YouTube is the ticking time bomb of copyright infringement that it's claimed to be

I'd say it's pretty certain. Even YLE(the Finnish national broadcast company, about the same as BBC is in UK) is looking into Youtube and unauhorized use of its content. They haven't excluded the idea of suing Youtube through USA courts.

Re:Uh...

[Billosaur]

I mean, if you were Ballmer, wouldn't you be thrilled that Google had bought YouTube?

No. Now I have to compete with Google in yet another arena that I don't want to. Every time Google makes a move, I have to counter or be caught behind the eight-ball. True, Google is going to have its hands full with litigation, but then this is what Google wants, so it can force media agencies to make concessions about allowing content on Google. Their pockets are pretty deep too.

Re:Uh...

[elrous0]

Let me translate what Balmer is really saying:

Ballmer: The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google.
Translation: They're going to undercut the video section of Zune Marketplace...wahhhhh

-Eric

Re:Uh...

[cgenman]

Notice that this is also the sort of thinking that has kept MS "late and last" to the web space for so long.

You have to waste some money up front if you want to be #1. And MS badly needs to become #1 somewhere in the online space to really deliver value to their advertisers. They may have "learned their lesson" from the Xbox, but they wouldn't have been competitive in the console space without it.

Re:Uh...

[KarmaMB84]

Is there even a requirement to enforce a copyright in order to keep it?

Re:Uh...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Only for trademarks. Patents and copyrights last regardless of how you enforce them. Trademarks do expire from unenforcement.

Re:Uh...

[Overly Critical Guy]

What's weird about Ballmer's comment is that Microsoft was reportedly one of the bidders for YouTube along with Yahoo. As for not having a business model, maybe Ballmer should take a look at their own web services sometime...

Re:Uh...

[edmicman]

Why does Microsoft all of a sudden have to compete with Google Video/YouTube? If McDonalds comes out with a new burger, does GM all of a sudden have to react? Yes, MS and Google are both tech companies, but why should MS start doing a hosted video service just because Google is doing it?

Re:Uh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that is the direction of part of their business model. Longevity is in diversity and anything they can get into will help that goal

Re:Uh...

[GeckoX]

Maybe you should be asking MS? Just a thought ;)

Re:Uh...

[ultranova]

Even YLE(the Finnish national broadcast company, about the same as BBC is in UK) is looking into Youtube and unauhorized use of its content. They haven't excluded the idea of suing Youtube through USA courts.

Why ? YLE has been hellbent on pushing digital broadcasting - to the point where analogical ones end in less than a year, despite this putting hospitals and other such institutions to an impossible situation, as well as making television a useless communication medium in an emergency if there's any interference - and unlike the "digi-tv", downloading movie files from the Internet actually works and works well.

Oh well. In a year's time I'll either get to download the MPEG-2 packed programs from the Internet, or quit television entirely. I've spent 80 euros on the stupid nonfunctional digital shit, I'm not spending any more. It shouldn't matter to YLE how I get the bytes, but then again, copyright laws have never made sense...

Re:Uh...

[Cid Highwind]

Why does Microsoft all of a sudden have to compete with Google Video/YouTube?

Did you read Slashdot yesterday? If they don't react, people will start to question whether Windows (and the whole concept of OS as platform for applications) is still relevant. Microsoft felt threatened by web 1.0 turning the browser into an application platform, slashdot types started to ask if PC operating systems and local applications would be relevant in the future. Something had to be done, so they introduced MSIE, WMP, MS Java, Active X, and gratuitiously incompatible html and javascript. Eventually they killed off Netscape and gravely wounded Real and Java. For 6 years after that nobody, not even the die-hard Linux and Mac zealots, asked whether Windows was still relevant.

Now they're even more threatened by web 2.0. The ghost of Netscape is back to haunt them. Flash and AJAX make a much more compelling platform than html forms, Java and Realplayer ever did. Articles questioning whether Windows is still relevant are back on the front page of Slashdot. They've got to kill somebody soon, and Google and Yahoo seems like the obvious targets.

Re:Uh...

[WilliamSChips]

Wait, to undercut the video section of Zune Marketplace doesn't it need a marketshare greater than zero?

Re:Uh...

[chefren]

I've spent 80 euros on the stupid nonfunctional digital shit, I'm not spending any more.

Money is the problem here. If people can just get their "tv-fix" for free over the Internet, why pay for television licenses? (YLE doesn't have commercials)

Re:Uh...

[elrous0]

doesn't it need a marketshare greater than zero?

It would need at least twice as much.

-Eric

Re:Uh...

[looseSpark]

Remember this?

"I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again ... I'm going to f---ing kill Google."

if only...

[gEvil (beta)]

Now if only somebody could come up with an example of Microsoft laying claim to something that wasn't theirs...

Re:if only...

[FinchWorld]

What? Just one? :P

Re:if only...

[RockRampantly]

Now if only somebody could come up with an example of Microsoft laying claim to something that wasn't theirs...
you forgot the "Oh wait..." part.

Re:if only...

[Cartzca]

How about "The Internet" which they kindly link to from the start menu? Remember that it won't fit in the recycle bin...

Re:if only...

[Opportunist]

Are you from one of those 0900-call-in shows where you have to name the "right" 5 things where there are like 5,000?

Re:if only...

[Anonymous Coward]

just one?

1. stacker for one.
2. sql server; kind of.
3. windows gui itself

with so many more. but of course, you were being sarcastic(and funny).

Re:if only...

[Sique]

SoftImage. For this one Microsoft got convicted and in court slapped with a FFr 3 mio fee on Sep 27 2001, after the real copyright holder, Syn'x, filed suit. This one thus is real :)

Re:if only...

[jb.hl.com]

Not since Windows 95, I'm afraid.

Re:if only...

[R3d M3rcury]

Actually, I remember when one of the versions of Internet Explorer for Macintosh installed itself into a folder called "Microsoft Internet."

It's Microsoft's Internet. We just live in it.

He's right about the rights

[spywhere]

Now that YouTube has money behind it, Google can expect legal action from a whole bunch of people... some of it justified.

Re:He's right about the rights

[Rob T Firefly]

However, now that they have money and a huge corporate staff behind it, they can actually keep up with the copyrighted stuff that gets posted, while at the same time using their squadron of entertainment lawyers to actually start securing the rights to the stuff that people obviously want.

Google Video has been selling legit videos for a while now, they have the experience. YouTube had started legitamizing some of their videos, cf. their recent deal with (I think) Warner. This whole situation has the potential to converge quite nicely for all concerned, and combine the freebies and community YouTube developed with a full-fledged digital video competitor to iTunes and Amazon.

Re:He's right about the rights

[Anonymous Coward]

None of it is justified. Some of it might be legally correct under the USA's infofascistic system. Law != Justice. Copyright monopolies should die http://piratpartiet.se/

Re:He's right about the rights

[Jeff DeMaagd]

So long as YouTube staff doesn't deliberately post copyrighted material, and as long as they take down offending videos when they get a take-down notice, I don't think there's much of a legal leg to stand on.

Re:He's right about the rights

[mysticgoat]

Now that YouTube has money behind it, Google can expect legal action from a whole bunch of people... some of it justified.

That was truly insightful, at least for me.

Google's core business model revolves around "fair use" and similar provisions of copyright law. I think they are most vulnerable in this area-- look at Belgium. So Google needed to buy YouTube for a couple of reasons related to this.

The first is because YouTube's business model also revolves around many of the same "fair use" provisions, and if YouTube loses its upcoming court cases, the fallout could fatally poison Google's business model. It would be very hard for Google to immunize itself from any judgments against YouTube that changed the interpretation of copyright law. Purchasing YouTube allows Google to directly counter such an attack with all its resources. It also decreases the likelihood of such an attack, since all the ambulance chasers who were smacking their lips in anticipation of an easy meal from YouTube's carcass are now slinking away, looking for easier prey that won't be able to fend them off for years with delaying tactics.

The other reason that occurs to me is that the most important part of strategizing any conflict is choosing your battlefield carefully. Google is under constant threat of serious litigation over copyright concerns. Google has just bought a battlefield where these litigations can be played out, that is comfortably distant from the fields of green where Googles' cash cows graze.

I expect that Google is developing the muscles it needs to directly influence copyright legislation, and I expect it is also going to be increasingly influential in copyright litigation as well (intervening with friend of the court briefs, etc). This all seems to be part of Google's mission statement: "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Re:He's right about the rights

[Gonarat]

Damn, I wish I had mod points today. This is the most insightful post that I have seen on this subject thus far. Google didn't spend over a billion dollars for You Tube without some kind of game plan, and this makes perfect sense.

Re:He's right about the rights

[Mark of THE CITY]

Didn't YouTube sign agreements with several content providers in the last week? I seem to remember a story somewhere. If true, the exposure is reduced, and may with time be eliminated.

Re:He's right about the rights

[owlnation]

Google can expect legal action from a whole bunch of people... some of it justified.

Justified? Insightful, or flamebait? Well, that's a matter of opinion isn't it?

It assumes that one agrees with copyright laws. Not everyone does. There is no constitutional right anywhere that says an artist has the right to make money from his art, and even less so, the middle men that parasitically sell it.

The vast majority of writers, painters and scultpors do not gain from their work in their lifetimes. So, what makes film makers and musicians special? Just their lawyers and their vultures - nothing else.

Re:He's right about the rights

[BKX]

No, no, no, they can't keep, lest they will be sued. A better strategy is to have posting, and porno designations fully automated and only remove when a copyright holder specifically requests removal. If they are pro-active at removing infringing works then they lose their common-carrier/search engine status (albeit only for YouTube/Google Videos, not for standard web searches), and can b liable for any infringing works. If they only remove them upon request of the copyright holder, then they are never liable for infringing works unless they choose not to act upon the request. Also note that the requests must be for specific videos, not for "all videos with J-Lo's ass", otherwise they lose their common-carrier status. And, no, as long as the hosting is automated and a removal policy set forth, it doesn't matter that Google is doing the hosting. KaZaa and Napster lost because they didn't have a removal policy.

Re:He's right about the rights

[hagrin]

Insightful? More like shortsighted.

There are more players in the video distribution game outside of YouTube and Google Video and many of them do not have the deep pockets of Google. By the rationale of the parent, then the old, played Slashdot joke applies:

1. Make video content distribution site
2. Have users post content protected by copyright.
3. Google will then swoop down and buy your site to avoid legal precedent to protect their own legal future and future business model.
4. ???
5. Profit.

It's absurd to think that Google bought YouTube to protect themselves against poor legal decisions. Legal decisions are not based on "scale" i.e. just because YouTube is the player in video distribution right now doesn't mean they are going to be the end all and be all of legal decisions.

The overanalyzation of this purchase is mind numbing. It's as simple as huge user base, it didn't cost them anything outside of stock (which is overvalued as is) and it protected themselves from other large players acquiring YouTube.

Re:He's right about the rights

[netbuzz]

The notion that Google's deep pockets will *deter* lawsuits seems completely wrong to me. The world is full of lawyers willing to take on tobacco companies and car makers, despite the armies of lawyers those companies keep on payroll. And, while Google has indeed stepped up its lobbying efforts in Washington, they're still new kids on that block and by no means guaranteed protected status. They're going to get sued, all right, and they better be prepared to win on the merits.

Re:He's right about the rights

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

The overanalyzation of this purchase is mind numbing.

Mind numbing? I actually agree with your demolition of the argument. Nonetheless, the original argument is pretty damn interesting. It might not apply here but now that the idea has been suggested to me I'll looking for applications of it elsewhere. So far from mind numbing, I find it mind expanding.

Re:He's right about the rights

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understand the premise of the original post. One way or another, YouTube will get sued. Unfortunately for Google, which depends on a similar business model, if the YouTube case is not well defended (very possible for a company that doesn't make much money at the moment) then there will be a legal precedent set which lawyers can use to attack Google. Alternatively, Google can buy YouTube, put up a much better legal defence and on the way take the large user base (which will combine very well with Google's targeted advertising expertise) and eliminate a potential future competitor. I'm not sure that's worth $1.65bn, but then again I'm not the CEO of a major company with the best part of $10bn in the bank.

Re:He's right about the rights

[mysticgoat]

Thanks for clarifying my earlier post. You have saved me from trying to say what you just said (and its doubtful that I could have said it any better)

It should also be noted that the Google bought YouTube without actually paying out any hard cash-- the purchase was done with stocks. This hasn't put any dent in Google's war chest. I believe the gross oversimplification is that anybody who owned stock in YouTube before the purchase is now the lucky owner of enough shares of Google to boost the value of their portfolio by a very nice amount.

Ow, my brain...

[tdvaughan]

I want to squirt you a picture of my kids. You want to squirt me back a video of your vacation.

Coming from anyone else, I can cope with the picture that brings up in my mind. But from Ballmer?

Re:Ow, my brain...

[Penguinisto]

"Coming from anyone else, I can cope with the picture that brings up in my mind. But from Ballmer?"

That's because there was no mention any dog food in those pictures or videos. Now squirt pictures of his kids eating Alpo or a video of recent family vacations to the Purina processing plant in Des Moines, Iowa, and now you've got media that Ballmer would be overjoyed to see!

/P

Re:Ow, my brain...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, how else is it going to get through all the tubes of the intarweb? I suppose you could suck it out from the other end, or blow it through ...

Re:Ow, my brain...

[Anonymous Coward]

All this from the man who said, in the same interview:

Guys who can touch us in multiple places probably matter more than guys who can touch us in any one place.

Re:Ow, my brain...

[jeffgtr]

Yes didn't' it just make your cringe to read about Ballmer squirting a picture. I read that and thought ewwww! I'll stick with my ipod, I don't want anyone "squirting" me anything.

Re:Ow, my brain...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we could use the term blit, bringing to mind the sound the Pong ball(or square) made whenever it hit a wall? (It's especially apt if you played one of the hockey Pong versions, and shot the puck behind the goal so that it did a rapid zig-zag and popped out the other side.)

oh... wait. I guess that already means something.

let's face it...

[advocate_one]

Microsoft and Vista are irrelevant... and he just can't stand it... they're jealous and they're trying to lash out at anything they can't control.

Re:let's face it...

[BSOD DOC]

Not jealously, moreso he seemed mad at himself for not having Microsoft buy/consume youtube instead of google...

Re:let's face it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft and Vista are irrelevant... and he just can't stand it... they're jealous and they're trying to lash out at anything they can't control.

You're surely joking- no one in their right mind would claim that the market leader is "irrelevant".

Re:let's face it...

[MSFanBoi2]

People have been saying Microsoft and Windows * have been irrelevant every time there is a major Windows update.

And yet they keep on being relevant.

Re:let's face it...

[advocate_one]

no one "needs" Microsoft anymore... everything is on the web and all you need is a cheapo whitebox with Ubuntu installed... email, wordprocessing, spreadsheets... all can be done with that cheapo box...

Microsoft is desperately trying to move the PC upmarket into multimedia entertainment centres (DRM'd to the eyeballs) but joe consumer (as long as he's not easily diverted by ohh shiny shiny...) is gonna balk at the cost of Vista and the hardware required to run it decently. and is gonna balk even more furiously when he discovers just how restrictive things will be in Visat land...

The world moves on... and Microsoft is getting behind the wave and has some desperate paddling to do to even think of catching up with it. They missed this wave BIG TIME...

Re:let's face it...

[lilfields]

Vista and Microsoft is irrelavent? I suppose that's how Microsoft posted 9.74 Billion in revenue in Q1 06 which is a 7% increase year-over-year? That all occuring without Vista and Office 2007...am I missing something?

Re:let's face it...

[Hijacked Public]

The same things were written about XP when it was in Beta, and the same things will be written about the successor to Vista. And the Xbox and Server 2003 and each version of Office. And MSSQL and WMV.

I've been reading Slashdot for a long time and it never ceases to amaze me that at no time has the groupthink expected a Microsoft product to be a success. And with each new kernel release Linux's time has finally come, the world will be running Debian with whatever the open source productivity suite is currently in vogue, and I'll be doing all my photo editing with gimp.

For people who seem to see every choice as binary, I guess I shouldn't be suprised.

Re:let's face it...

[Overly Critical Guy]

Yes, you are. Having the dominant market share doesn't mean you're the market leader. Microsoft hasn't led the market in a very long time.

People are calling Vista and Microsoft irrelevant because 1.) Microsoft itself is calling its shrink-wrapped business model irrelevant, and 2.) Windows hasn't seen any revolutionary updates since 1995, and everything else has gone web-based. More importantly, Microsoft isn't doing anything that competitors are clamoring to recreate--it's the other way around, with Microsoft repeatedly announcing their versions of web services that Google already does and their versions of digital media that Apple already does.

IBM was once #1 too, if you'll recall. They owned the market, but they became irrelevant.

Re:let's face it...

[Overly Critical Guy]

No, they don't. Microsoft is not relevant anymore. Tell me how they're leading the market these days? They have entrenched market share, and that's the only reason people are still using them. When Dell is telling the press that they wish they could sell OS X instead of Windows, you've got a problem. Vista and Office 2007 won't be big sellers outside the Microsoft enthusiast groups.

Re:let's face it...

[rekka]

No, we wish they were irrelevant. It's different.

Re:let's face it...

[advocate_one]

mods on crack again... can't recognise a valid comment when it smacks them in the face. Just look at the serious debate it sparked off...

Re:let's face it...

[MSFanBoi2]

Windows' market in both the desktop and server markets continue to grow.

Enough said. That alone, considering they own over 92% of the desktop market, and over 55% of the server market makes them VERY relevant.

People said 2000, XP and Windows Server 2003 wouldn't be big sellers as well, yet XP sold well over 7 million copies in its first WEEK of sales.

Re:let's face it...

[Overly Critical Guy]

Windows' market in both the desktop and server markets continue to grow.

No, it doesn't. Hell, Apache still has twice as much market share as IIS.

Enough said. That alone, considering they own over 92% of the desktop market, and over 55% of the server market makes them VERY relevant.

Again, their entrenched market share doesn't make them market leaders. XP did not sell over 7 million copies and was, in fact, a slow seller that only gradually replaced Windows 98 on users' desktops in the intervening years. Analysts are predicting even lower adoption rates for Vista, with figures as low as 35% by 2008. This is because Windows sales are directly tied to OEM sales of new PCs, not because users are rushing out and buying it off a shelf.

I have a theory about why Windows enthusiasts always cite market share figures as some sort of validator of quality. I think it's because they know Windows generally sucks and is based on an inferior, aging codebase, so to justify it in their minds, they say to themselves, "Well, it's #1, so it must be the best!" When you attack that fundamental premise, they go berserk. It's like clockwork--criticize Windows quality, and out comes the market share numbers, as if that justifies the inferior quality.

Regardless, IBM also owned the market, and we saw what happened to them. They had entrenched market share, but they were no longer leading that market and were eventually overtaken by smaller, nimbler competitors like Microsoft. Now Microsoft is in the same position.

Competitors once feared Microsoft, but now nobody does, and they're often the punchline of jokes. They'll always have their little core group of supporters (like yourself), but Microsoft defenders are like young Republicans--strange, militant outcasts who never get invited to parties and never get laid. All the hip products and technologies are elsewhere, and Microsoft has lost a ton of engineers to Google.

The new driving factors in technology are on the web and in digital media, the two markets Microsoft has virtually zero presence. They're an irrelevant company.

Re:let's face it...

[thparker]

Vista and Office 2007 won't be big sellers outside the Microsoft enthusiast groups

If by "Microsoft enthusiast groups" you mean the majority of corporate America, I agree with you 100%. I'm not happy about it, mind you, but I think that's the reality that many of the more rabid MS detractor around here fail to accept.

Re:let's face it...

[doconnor]

You got the fact right, but missed the meaning. If they can make that much money without Vista, why bother spending all the money to develop it?

Re:let's face it...

[everphilski]

XP did not sell over 7 million copies

did Linux sell 7 million copies? I don't think so. Take a look at this article, a few years dated but shows a trend that has existed for years. Linux doesn't sell copies. So what metric do you want? Number of sold boxes? No, no, Windows wins that one. Market share? No, Windows wins that one too...

No, it doesn't. Hell, Apache still has twice as much market share as IIS.

Funny though, cause according to Netcraft IIS has been making solid gains since January. You will notice the GP says "continues to grow", as in a "rate of change" which is true according to Netcraft. You lied and said "Apache has twice the market share of IIS" which is barely true (won't be in a few months if the trends continue) but you ignored the valid point of the grandparent post. Fanboi.

Fact is Microsoft is the big gorilla in the OS business. And they haven't declined yet. Will Vista be the turning point? I don't know. But Windows is still **the** dominant OS. They are very relevant. Until computers make the transition to being completely OS-less, networked devices (a transition I hope they never make), operating systems will be a relevant point (web and digital media, sure, whatever... they are fun to watch videos at night but 98% of us don't make our money doing that, but a good chunk of us **do** make money writing software **locally**, recardless of OS. Microsoft is very relevant, you are very short sighted.

but Microsoft defenders are like young Republicans--strange, militant outcasts who never get invited to parties and never get laid.

Heh, half right, I am Republican, I use Linux and Windows (2 boxes at work, 2 boxes at home, 1 RH, 2 WinXP, 1 Slack), I have plenty of friends of all persuasions and I have a very attractive wife. Stop trolling.

Re:let's face it...

[MSFanBoi2]

Apache isn't an OS, and last I checked all servers don't run Apache in the marketplace. Not to mention Apache also runs on Win32 as well.

Are you SERIOUSLY basing your Server numbers on Apache usage?

As for your thinking that XP was a slow seller:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/jan0 2/01-07xpmomentumcespr.mspx

Enough said on that topic.

Honestly, so far you have posted pure FUD, without any real access to the facts. Microsoft Windows XP Sales Exceed 17 Million Copies Just Over Two Months After Worldwide Debut

Competitors that don't fear Microsoft eventually don't exist. It's been proven time and time again since Microsoft entered the market.

Re:let's face it...

[MSFanBoi2]

I REALLY don't know how you define lead the market.
1.) Largest install base by huge margin (Microsoft)
2.) Largest sales year over year (Microsoft)
3.) Largest OS market cap (Microsoft)

So just how do you define market leader...

The Mac hasn't seen any revolutionary updates since the introduction of MacOSX. Before that it was the introdcution the Mac operating system years before that.

People in glass houses shouldn't thorw stones... when was the last time something revolutionary came out of the Linux world for desktop or server OS's that impacted the world?

Re:let's face it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Having the dominant market share doesn't mean you're the market leader.

Yes it does. Quit trying to split hairs.

Re:let's face it...

[PitaBred]

You know how netcraft does their ratings, right? Did you hear that bit about Go Daddy parking domains on IIS? Think that might be part of it? Netcraft gives you a decent picture, but not the whole one.

Re:let's face it...

[MeanderingMind]

For what it's worth, I understood you.

The point being made is that it is possible to be the largest market player and even dominant but not be the "market leader". The point is that Microsoft hasn't done any leading in years, and has been following. They followed Netscape to the internet, followed Apple to the Mp3 player, and even are following Novell and other security companies to that market as well. There is very little that Microsoft does that isn't an imitiation of someone else.

Dominate they do, but lead they do not.

Re:let's face it...

[MeanderingMind]

FUD or not, the man has some valid points.

Increasingly the internet is becoming our OS. Programming teams are moving away from using Word or Appleworks for documentation and are using wikis. Videos and music are played as often in browsers as they are in Windows Media Player or iTunes. The rise of web applications is threatening the idea that one must be locked to a single OS.

This isn't happening overnight, but by the time I'm a 50 year old industry guru we'll be looking back on this period of time and laughing at the idea of software confined to a particular OS. Certainly there are enough legacy programs at the moment to keep Microsoft and Windows afloat. Still we're fast approaching a moment such as the one that generated C where the benefits of using a language which, while slower, is highly portable will outweigh the performance issues. Why do you think Microsoft despised Java at its conception?

Microsoft has no presence on the internet. The majority of people do not think "Internet Explorer" or "Safari" or "Opera" or "Firefox". They think "Internet" and click the pretty little icon that brings that to them. For a large number of these people the opening page is going to read "Google" in large letters with a little box for them to type Martha Stewart or Oprah into. If it doesn't, they're likely to type "www.google.com" and end up there anyway.

Ultimately how many copies of Vista Microsoft sells doesn't matter to Google, it's irrelevant. So long as all OSs out there have a web browser they will all be irrelevant to Google. That is Google's greatest strength. Were Apple to suddenly take over in marketshare, Google wouldn't be fazed in the least. Were UNIX to suddenly receive a mandate from heaven and replace Windows, Google still would remain as it is. So long as there is the internet the OS wars are a sideshow for them.

The only thing that does matter is when there is the potential for someone to compete with Google on their own turf. If Microsoft suddenly owned Youtube they would have pulled the internet video equivalent of buying out Nintendo in the video games industry. It would have been an instant buy-in to the market, and instant trouble for Google. Instead of having a premade beachhead availible for its competitors, there is now the requirement for Microsoft or Yahoo to either develop their own service and struggle to make it popular or find a premade, largely unknown service, buy it out and try and market it. Both options will take time to even potentially compete with Google on that front.

Google is tenacious. They have huge mindshare in e-mail, search engines, direction finding, and video. Without selling anything they have become a juggernaut in the industry, and are nigh impervious to the conventional methods of corperate attack common today.

I won't go so far as to claim that Microsoft is irrelevant, but they are steadily losing. Their OS grows in size every version, never shrinking or throwing off any old baggage that might weigh it down. This model won't reach critical mass with Vista, but in due time it will reach the point where Microsoft has to start from scratch. When the time comes for them to kill all backward compatibility in the name of starting fresh, there will be no legacy programs restricting companies to the continued use of the Windows OS. There will be nothing but the merits of the system by which to judge it. When that time comes Microsoft has to have their act together or they'll disappear. If the new OS is as bug riddled, cumbersome, resource eating and unintuitive as Windows has been thus far it won't float.

End rant.

Re:let's face it...

[Overly Critical Guy]

did Linux sell 7 million copies? I don't think so.

Linux is free. Of course it didn't sell 7 million copies.

Windows only has market share due to the crippling OEM deals of the 90s. As I said before, it amuses me that Microsoft fanbois obsess over market share metrics, because it's all they have left to defend the inferior Win32 codebase that makes up XP (and soon Vista).

Funny though, cause according to Netcraft IIS has been making solid gains since January. You will notice the GP says "continues to grow", as in a "rate of change" which is true according to Netcraft. You lied and said "Apache has twice the market share of IIS" which is barely true (won't be in a few months if the trends continue) but you ignored the valid point of the grandparent post. Fanboi.

Your anger amuses me. I didn't lie about anything (what the hell does "barely true" mean?). Maybe you should learn to read and see that Apache has 60% to Microsoft's 30%. Next.

Fact is Microsoft is the big gorilla in the OS business.

Just like IBM was?

And they haven't declined yet. Will Vista be the turning point? I don't know. But Windows is still **the** dominant OS. They are very relevant.

No, they are not. The tech industry is all about the web and digital media now, and Microsoft has nothing in those markets. They're not market leaders any more. They are irrelevant. Nobody's afraid of them anymore.

Re:let's face it...

[Overly Critical Guy]

Apache isn't an OS, and last I checked all servers don't run Apache in the marketplace. Not to mention Apache also runs on Win32 as well.

Nobody runs Apache on Win32. It's always coupled with BSD or Linux, which means Apache's market share reflects UNIX market share.

Are you SERIOUSLY basing your Server numbers on Apache usage?

Absolutely. It totally decimates your point. Apache has TWICE the share of Microsoft's lame IIS. UNIX powers the web and always has.

As for your thinking that XP was a slow seller:

HAHA. Linking to a Microsoft press release! Meanwhile, in the real world:

Windows XP sales lag
XP uptake 'too slow'

That 7 million sales figure you're quoting is typical misleading from Microsoft. It's not the number of SALES, it's the number of OEM PCs that Microsoft licensed Windows XP to. Microsoft never did provide official sales figures in 2001 because it was so disappointing and lagged behind both Windows 95 and Windows 98.

Sorry, kid. I will say it amazes me that the American economy has come to rely on something so unreliable. But again, Microsoft was convicted of being an abusive monopoly, and the company had to cheat to get its inferior product all over the market (Jacking up licensing fees if OEMs dared sell competing Microsoft software? Revoking licenses if they even uttered the word "Linux?" Awesome...).

No Business Like Model Business

[Doc Ruby]

"there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion. [...] what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google"

That sounds like a business model.

At $1.6B, Google has transferred wealth from rights holders to the (outgoing) owners of YouTube.

What is clear is that Ballmer has no clue what's going on. Just like during the last bubble, when Microsoft was the last to "get" it. But then there was no Google producing apps closer to the consumer than Microsoft sits. So maybe this time a bubble, maybe its pop, will actually finally wash MS down the drain, the way we all thought we'd see with "missing the Internet" or Netscape or "Bob" or the monopoly decision or...

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[HappySqurriel]

I know that all the cool kids make fun of Microsoft and their employees but what is there to really "get" about YouTube?

YouTube is a fantastic webapplication that has a lot of potential but lacks any type of business model that would justify the purchase price; on top of that a large percentage of the content will cause the MPAA and RIAA to sue YouTube because they didn't get their cut (and don't forget the vast quantities of movies that are stolen from other websites because YouTube has better bandwith). My only thought is why would google spend $1.6 billion on a company that will face legal doom, when they could have spent $5 Million producing a web application and convinced the MPAA/RIAA that google-tube was the best place for them to have their videos and they should sue YouTube?

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[theAtomicFireball]

There's a big difference between them "lacking" a business model, and you not being able to see it. 10 years ago, would you have thought that there was a "business model" around offering free internet search - a business model that would eventually lead to the juggernaut that is Google? I doubt it - I certainly didn't.

This could be a mistake on Google's part - I have no crystal ball, but I'm betting that the brains at Google gave this a little bit of thought before deciding to spend the money and have some plans (aka a "business model") for it.

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[Doc Ruby]

Branding. Like Napster, Google will probably clean it up. Or, better than Napster, will monetize the sharing of copyright videos, and like Apple, make a deal with the rights holders to let it circulate freely (unmetered) as long as they're making real money.

That might cost another $billion, but if Google can free video content among the huge YouTube audience, they will have "invented" Internet TV, without hardly trying.

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[ArikTheRed]

My only thought is why would google spend $1.6 billion on a company that will face legal doom, when they could have spent $5 Million producing a web application and convinced the MPAA/RIAA that google-tube was the best place for them to have their videos and they should sue YouTube?

Uh, they did develop their own app, but no one went there. They want the people to advertise to, thats all. If they have an even larger audience, their ad revenue will increase across the board.

I wouldn't worry about Google getting sued. Why? Because 5 parent companies (GE, Time/Warner, Disney, Viacom, News Corp) control most of that content anyway. They need to make deals with those companines, and then swat at the smaller ones. YouTube wasn't doing so well because of the bandwidth cost. Bandwidth is one thing that Google has plenty of, and is cheap (for them).

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Both Napster and YouTube have benn hemorraging money since their inception. How is a business that is losing tens of millions of dollars annually worth $1.6B, especially since Google already has an IDENTICAL product? Google doesn't need to acquire YouTube to start "monetizing" the sharing of copyrighted video! Google has already done this.

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[Doc Ruby]

Except that YouTube was sucking all the audience from GoogleVideo. Now it won't, if Google doesn't want it to.

Napster's business model was a payoff to its previous owners for throwing the lawsuit that purchaser Bertelsmann brought. That precedent bought the music biz several years legal power over their customers, while switching many of the downloaders to a legal model that put some money into Bertelsmann's pockets. A bad business model, but brought to you by the record labels with more political than business canny.

And a different model than Google's, which is to free content the world exchanges, finding our way with Google's help, looking at their targeted ads along with their guidance.

It's a different model than Microsoft's, too. And probably the best one. As long as Google can avoid getting held over a barrel by copyright. Which the original Napster should have been able to do, as a "pointer service" that doesn't host content itself. But which didn't because it threw that Bertelsmann lawsuit to get its money. Google is in the financial and legal position to reboot that business, just like Apple rebooted the MP3 player from the (now forgotten) Rio generation.

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[Baldrake]

What is clear is that Ballmer has no clue what's going on. Just like during the last bubble, when Microsoft was the last to "get" it.

Yes, that's why pets.com, webvan.com and kozmo.com are all doing so well, while Microsoft has been reduced to holding bake sales to pay their developers...

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[codemachine]

It actually seems to serve MS well to be late on the bandwagon, since their initial offerings in new spaces tend to be crap anyhow. That, and when these bubbles burst, MS is not hurt by them. Look how much of a hit Sun took when the dotcom bubble burst. Whereas MS came out just fine, especially compared to their competition.

The company is a whole is a lot better at entering established markets. Look at XBox and Zune. MS Office for Windows back in the day. Even NT and the server market. None of these were new markets when they entered. This allowed them to see what others were doing (and copy/borrow a lot from them), and then do something of their own that also happens to integrate very nicely with the OS and the rest of their software stack. Sometimes they dominate new markets (office apps, web browsers), and other times they just take a good slice (XBox, NT).

The only thing holding them back with this approach nowadays is antitrust issues. A lot of these new products and services aren't something that you can sell standalone that easily, yet they risk more antitrust trouble if they bundle them with their products. This makes it harder for them to have web based and advertising based services tightly integrated with the rest of their products.

I think that is why they'll be more successful on the hardware side with XBox and Zune. Of course they can only go so far on the hardware side without alienating the OEMs that load Windows onto their own hardware. So this approach will have its limits too.

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[Doc Ruby]

Are you claiming that MS knew what was going on in the Internet bubble? Or just the obvious fact that those companies' execs knew to take the money and run? Their dotcommies didn't really understand the Internet, either, or they would have stayed. Like the better examples of Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, or Google.

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[miller701]

Yes but Apple makes most of it's music money selling iPods. I Google going to sell aGoogTube?

Of course one of the Google bigshots (Eric Schmidt?) is on Apple's board, so maybe for a take on the iTube (or whatever they call it) it'll work out.

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[Doc Ruby]

Google makes its money advertising to people looking at its pages. The draw of people looking at video pages makes even more traffic. And making all kinds of media available to googlers really starts to turn "the Internet" into a "Google space" the way "the desktop" has been a Microsoft space.

Re:No Business Like Model Business

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation +3
    60% Interesting
    20% Flamebait
    20% Insightful

"Flamebait"? Just because TrollMods are such reactionary sissies that pointing out Microsoft's well known failures interferes with their MS worship, doesn't mean they have to flame back. They're too scared to do something so overt, so they just TrollMod anonymously instead.

Jealous, perhaps?

[blcamp]

Youtube is not a terribly complicated web application, yet the founders are going to cash it in and walk away with USD 1.65 Billion (with a B).

Certainly Ballmer's developers! developers! developers! could have come up with the same thing and brought it to market far faster... but they didn't. Redmond even think about it, did they?

Sounds like a bit of jealousy... or sour grapes.

Re:Jealous, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Certainly Ballmer's developers! developers! developers! could have come up with the same thing and brought it to market far faster... but they didn't. Redmond even think about it, did they?

Sounds like a bit of jealousy... or sour grapes."

Eh, Microsoft could have easily coded something so simple in design, however Microsoft is far too integrative with paid content providers to ever get such a thing off the ground. They have enough legal red tape with their other digital media projects.

Re:Jealous, perhaps?

[saridder]

Actually the co-founders "only" get to split $500mm.

And unfortunately right about YouTube

[MikeRT]

YouTube is trying to provide a legitimate platform, but it has A LOT of IP that doesn't belong to those posting it. For better or for worse, this is illegal and somewhat unethical. Google stepped into a minefield by buying them if they don't have a comprehensive way to filter out that stuff. If I were a shareholder, I'd be deeply worried that Google has opened themselves up to a potentially fatal IP battle. Between this and the Google book search IP lawsuits, Google is gambling big time and geek opinions on the legitimacy of IP law and how it should apply won't mean crap in a court of law WRT Google.

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.

one acronym: DMCA.

The DMCA protects service providers (i.e. YouTube, now Google) from being liable for the content they provide; I have no idea why people keep forgetting this. Google will get sued, but it will amount to -0-.

Cuban, for all his ranting and raving, missed this little fact on his blog - and society rewards people like him..... *sigh*

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[Rob T Firefly]

Google has the resources to start cracking down on the copyrighted stuff, and the clout to start securing the rights to actually distribute (and possibly sell) the copyrighted content that they can't help but notice people want. The demand is there and measurable, they only have to work out the deals to be able to supply it legitimately. They've been doing that with Google Video for a while now, so really it looks like smooth sailing from here on in.

The only people that lose out are the Youtube users who got used to the free ride with the copyrighted stuff and don't want to pay for legit downloads on GooTube, but they can always head back to the fileshares.

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[theAtomicFireball]

For better or for worse, this is illegal and somewhat unethical.

That's rather a broad generalization. Not all situations where IP is used by someone who is not the "rights owner" as Ballmer says (that should be "primary rights owner, as we ALL have rights, such as "fair use rights") is illegal or unethical. There is a lot of gray area in that regard, and certainly some of what is posted to YouTube is illegal and/or unethical, but you can't make a blanket statement like this.

Guess it goes to show that the RIAA and MPAA are doing a good job with their propaganda, though, since less and less people know or care about fair use these days.

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[asuffield]

If I were a shareholder, I'd be deeply worried that Google has opened themselves up to a potentially fatal IP battle.

That's because you're either not up to date on US law or you've been listening to Ballmer for too long. Title 2 of the DMCA creates a "safe harbour" which exempts Google (and any other "Online Service Provider") from liability for this sort of thing, so long as they comply with certain rules. Google almost certainly plan to follow these rules to the letter, as they do for all other other services, which means nobody can take them to court in the US for anything posted on YouTube by a third party.

Basically, if you post something to YouTube, it's your fault and not theirs. They are not obliged to screen the content. If somebody sends them a "takedown" notice, they are obliged to presume guilt and remove the content (without investigating). If you then send them a counter-notice, they are obliged to presume innocence and restore the content (still without investigating), and then you and the person who sent the notice get to fight it out in court.

(This is the "good" part of the DMCA, providing a form of common carrier status to hosting companies; Title 1 is the "bad" part, enslaving the US to DRM)

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[TapeCutter]

I think Google has a strong bargaining position with the big distributors: We are keeping youtubes "instant posting" policy, now we can come to an agreement about that or we can start litigating each and every "properly prepared" takedown notice.

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[truthsearch]

I find this response to the YouTube purchase hilarious. As if Google didn't think about this at all before the purchase. You don't think Google's legal department did their research and gave the go-ahead?

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[that_xmas]

If any company could come up with a comprehensive way to filter out material on YouTube that is clearly a copyright violation, Google would be it.

Google is certainly buying eyeballs here. Google's income model is based on simple, non-invasive, content relevant advertising. YouTube is the fasting growing web service on the Internet, where the average viewer is staring at the page from minutes and minutes.

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[geekoid]

or they arepreparing to change copyright and bring it to the 21st century.

Copyright is a privledge enacted by congress, as such it can change.
Personally replaying pieces of media for no cost should be allowed under copyright.

Showing a clip of John Stewart interviewing the ruler of hungary in no way harms the copyright holder financially. Since the arguement for allowing copyrights is to allow the single mother to make money from her works.(referes to an arguement when the contitution was being drafted.)

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you actually read the DMCA's title 2?

If you had, you'd have noticed that if from *any* "facts or circumstances" there is appearant infringement, Google/Youtube are legally required to remove it.

Hard, of course, for Google/Youtube to argue that something was not noticed if it's being downloaded very much at all. That's to say that any content seen by a population of consequence will need to be squeaky-clean on IP. It's certainly not the case today, which is the point you fail to grasp.

Your claim that "it's your fault and not theirs" is at best willful ignorance - and regardless of your motivations - wholly incorrect.

(A)
(i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing;
(ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or
(iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material;

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[tkrotchko]

People keep saying this like Google was some sort of neophyte company that is just getting started in the internet.

Don't you think Google knows exactly what it's getting? I'm not saying that they'll be successful, but the criticism that YouTube has all this hidden video that is illegal is essentially saying "Google is run by a bunch of idiots". But yet, Balmer says in the article that he would have bought it too.

It seems like the only people who are deeply worried are the people at MS and Yahoo.

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[aztektum]

So it's like the OP said. If someone says "Whats my shit doing on your internets!" Google removes it. His point is they aren't going to be automatically litigated into oblivion because somone put 2 minutes of an NFL game on GooTube. *That's* the "protection" afforded by Title 2 of DMCA.

The idea is it saves your ass from being drug into court without any notice you're infringing. OTOH, it also doesn't seem like it requires much more than a "TAKE THIS DOWN!" warning which could easily be abused by some.

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[asuffield]

Hard, of course, for Google/Youtube to argue that something was not noticed if it's being downloaded very much at all.

I'm sorry, did you just claim that anything which is being downloaded by many people must be illicit material? You, sir, are an MPAA schill.

(A)
(i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing;
(ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or
(iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material;

Nothing in here says that Google are required to search for infringing material themselves. They merely have to respond when they notice it.

Oddly enough, Google have been doing this for years - it's something that appears in just about every other one of their products in more or less the same manner. And yet, strangely, they have not been sued into oblivion yet, despite the large amount of 'infringing' material which is present both in the Google search engine and its caching service. Despite all the media cartels making noises about this a few years back, nobody has successfully sued Google about this at all. It's a safe bet that they know what they're doing by now.

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[NexusTw1n]

Weird how no US based P2P site has managed to use the safe harbour defence.

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[lophan]

Between this and the Google book search IP lawsuits, Google is gambling big time and geek opinions on the legitimacy of IP law and how it should apply won't mean crap in a court of law WRT Google.

But I thought that Congress just passed a law that made internet gambling illegal?...

runs and hides...

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[asuffield]

Weird how no US based P2P site has managed to use the safe harbour defence.

All of the lawsuits in the US have been based on the P2P site refusing or failing to terminate specific cases of infringement. That explicitly excludes them from the safe harbour defence, which requires that they do anything within their power to take down the offending material. The courts have ruled that because they *could* have blocked the specific files on their servers, but did not do so, the safe harbour defence does not apply and they are liable for "contributory infringement".

Google merely has to not do that.

Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube

[asuffield]

it's hard for Google/Youtube to say they had no knowledge of any infringing material that becomes wildly popular

The courts only consider actual knowledge that Google/YouTube had, not knowledge that they might have had. The plaintiff has to demonstrate that they did know this and failed to act on it. The courts do not acknowledge claims that they "should have" known this, unless the plaintiff can prove negligence (failing to read your email is negligent; failing to read slashdot or fark is not, so "wildly popular" has no relevance here).

Furthermore, if the plaintiff had knowledge of the infringement, but did not tell Google about it, then that's an affirmative defence for Google - so this scenario will never occur. Anybody who finds infringing material on YouTube is obliged to first inform Google of this fact, and if Google then promptly takes it down, the matter is considered closed. You can't just take somebody to court without first asking them to rectify the problem, and attempting to do so will severely prejudice the case against you, particularly since judges are not fond of people who waste their time with matters that could have been resolved out of court.

(The rest of your post appears to be a rant without any relevant content - a series of insults does not constitute a point, nor does anything which just says "you're wrong" without any further detail)

GooTube: Legal Spew For You

[smittyoneeach]

Dunno who marked this offtopic.

This blog post http://battellemedia.com/archives/002973.php
Has this thoughtful closing:

So I think the YouTube acquisition may well represent a legal opportunity for Google (and the Internet industry generally), rather than a vulnerability. After all, litigation to define the copyright rules for new online services are inevitable -- better to choose your battles and plan for them, rather than fleeing the fight and letting some other company create bad precedents that will haunt you later.

It's about managing the debate, it seems.

Re:GooTube: Legal Spew For You

[kisielk]

Exactly. If anyone has the power to fight for change in copyright law, it's Google. I'm sure they're not afraid of going to court.

YouTube has a lot posibilities

[jackharrer]

Think in this way: How many people visit YouTube every day? Millions.
What happens it you put Google adverts there? Yes, you guessed. You will have damn a lot of clicks.
Does it sound like a business model? Yep, I think so.
Is it highly overpriced? Up to Google, they had cash - they need to invest it. It gave them about 80% of downloaded videos. Is it good? For them, for a while, for sure. What happens next is up to them, and RIAA, MPIA and so. If they can struck some kind of deal, who knows. With their cash, influences.
That's exactly what Ballmer said. He 'wouldn't pay that much cash.' He MIGHT. Because it's very risky - but we all know that risky actions are most profitable. Time will show.

Re:YouTube has a lot posibilities

[mcwop]

Bingo, you are right. YouTube can sell ads. If the ad revenue exceeds costs to run the site, then they profit.

Re:YouTube has a lot posibilities

[whyloginwhysubscribe]

Yeah - and they didn't even pay with cash (they paid with shares)

Re:YouTube has a lot posibilities

[Lux]

> Does it sound like a business model? Yep, I think so.
> Is it highly overpriced? Up to Google,
> Is it good? For them, for a while, for sure.

When did you get a Slashdot account, Secretary Rumsfeld?

Re:YouTube has a lot posibilities

[drew]

Is it highly overpriced? Up to Google, they had cash

Actually, since it was a 100% stock transaction, they didn't even need cash. What they needed (and have, in spades) is highly valued stock...

Ballmer Ignoring Reality Of Xbox 360 Mess

[RichardMarks]

The Xbox 360 is selling worse than the first Xbox.
The 360 is completely dead in Japan.
The 360 hasn't even broke a million sold in Europe.
And in what is supposed to be the strongest market for the Xbox, the US,

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=3978&Itemid=2

The 360 has sold less units in its first year compared to the first Xbox.

And all of this during a time where their only competition was the six year old PS2 that has been beating the 360 almost every single month this year.

There was talk of Microsoft using profits from the 360 to fund the Zune going up against Apple, but the massive 360 losses keep getting pushed out into the future. Right now best case scenario is 2008. Although the massive money they must be spending on fixing the huge numbers of defective 360s for free will certainly push that date ever more.

Microsoft talked of having 10 million 360s in consumer hands by the end of 2006, but right now they have only sold 3.4 million worldwide. ~2.4 in NA, 0.14 in Japan, and 1 million in Europe.

And the Wii and PS3 are one month from hitting the shelves. It is hard to imagine that 360 sales will pick up when faced with the two biggest names in console gaming arriving in the market with their new consoles.

Re:Ballmer Ignoring Reality Of Xbox 360 Mess

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been waiting on Halo 3 before I buy an xbox360. Why buy an xbox360 when all I ever play is Halo 2? Unless you'd like to mail me a copy of DOA.

Re:Ballmer Ignoring Reality Of Xbox 360 Mess

[MSFanBoi2]

Q1 2006, 1.7 million units sold world wide
Q2 2006, 1.8 million units sold world wide
Q3 2006, 1.75 million units sold world wide.
For those lacking basic math skills, thats 5.25 million, which is a far cry from 3.4 million. Mind you this doesn't include Q3 of 2006.

Adding to those numbers Q4 of 2005 brings that total rather close to 7.0 Million units.

Re:Ballmer Ignoring Reality Of Xbox 360 Mess

[markov_chain]

Remember the first Xboxes or PS2s getting resold on eBay for 4-digit sums? It really makes perfect sense for PS3 to launch at $600. I bet it will go down once the initial early adopter wave passes by.

Gross oversimplification

[ben there...]

The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google.

Less than half of the popular videos when I just checked were from TV. Of those that were, 3/4 of them were news clips or Jon Stewart/Colbert Report. Even then, it is short clips.

What this quote is missing is that the majority of the content on YouTube is produced by the "You" in YouTube. That's what the new phenomenon of these video sites is really about. People producing and distributing their own content.

In fact, I wish people would just stop posting copyrighted videos. There's BitTorrent and a wide variety of other means to share that, if that's your thing. Why bother using YouTube for it, when you know that already having a popular video is enough to get it seeded?

Re:Gross oversimplification

[Anonymous Coward]

Youtube is about the masses. Most people want to get a simple link from their friends or funny website that says "this is funny check this out" and click and view. Torrents, although not complicated considered alone, is 100 times more complicated than this.

Re:Gross oversimplification

[Rob T Firefly]

Notably, most of the Stewart and Colbert stuff is already streamed for free on Comedy Central's own site. Adult Swim has been streaming entire seasons of their shows over their own site. More networks and production companies are following suit every day, with either free streams or cheap downloads on iTunes and the like.

The one thing filesharing in general and Youtube in particular have really helped to jumpstart, is letting progressive rights-holders like these know that demand for streaming their stuff online is there, and people are even willing to sit in front of an ad-peppered site to see them. If you're some TV honcho and you see people taking it upon themselves to upload and share your content, you'll probably have to take steps to protect your content, and stop the service provider from profiting from your work. However, you can take the popularity and success of the format to realize how you can do what they do even better and still profit, either by streaming it yourself for free, or selling downloads. Remember how much the entertainment industry bitched about people taping their stuff from television, spreading FUD about how it would kill the industry? Eventually they woke up and realized they could sell their own tapes, and later DVDs, which are now a major part of their business model. This industry has a history of initially freaking out about any change of circumstances, before actually evolving to suit them and realizing it's not so bad.

Re:Gross oversimplification

[SuseLover]

If they are just "clips", don't those fall under fair use? WTF??

Re:Gross oversimplification

[gnalre]

I wonder whether the people complaining about IP infingement have ever seen youtube. We are not talking watching the latest movie on HD TV here. If there is IP infringment it is done in such a way to be of little value to the the infringer.

It comes down again to those companies who embrace and understand the future and those who are scared of it because they realise they will be losing some of their control. For example while some companies such as universal are threating lawsuits others are making deals to use this new outlet. For example the makers of lost have used channels like this to maintain interest between seasons. Has this hurt lost viewing figures?

If I was a record company boss rather than complaining about infringement I would make a deal with google to download every music video we have sitting on our dusty shelves onto youtube then make sure that they are combined with adverts and clicks to a distribution channel such as amazon.

And if i was google I make sure that any request to remove copyrighted material was carried out promptly. And in a year time when they come back asking for it to be put back on because they were missing out on all this free publicity I would charge them triple.

Re:Gross oversimplification

[ben there...]

...you can take the popularity and success of the format to realize how you can do what they do even better and still profit, either by streaming it yourself for free, or selling downloads.

Yeah, Eureka gave away their Pilot for free for a while on iTunes. It was one of the most popular downloads, and it turns out that the show's premiere on TV was "the highest-rated series telecast in SCI FI Channel history."

Similarly, the pilot for Heroes was leaked on BitTorrent* prior to airing, and now each Heroes episode makes the top ten TV Shows on iTMS every week. This week, 2 episodes are within the top ten.

*I didn't download the pilot, instead I bought it from iTMS, but noticed it had hundreds of seeders.

Re:Gross oversimplification

[ben there...]

For example the makers of lost have used channels like this to maintain interest between seasons. Has this hurt lost viewing figures?

Funny you should mention that. I actually saw a large ad for Lost on torrentspy.com. That blew me away. They must recognize they have a good opportunity to pick up additional viewers from it.

Re:Gross oversimplification

[vertinox]

Why bother using YouTube for it, when you know that already having a popular video is enough to get it seeded?

1st Reason - Most content on YouTube is good enough to watch, but doesn't warrent a download to watch it a second time.
2nd Reason - It is hard to run bit torrent at work. *coughs*

Re:Gross oversimplification

[geekoid]

"Why bother using YouTube for it, when you know that already having a popular video is enough to get it seeded?"

Youtube is easier to get to, easier to see small speific bits of a larger show.

Mostly it's easier to get to, and THATs where internet money has always been. Giving people what they want in a few clicks.

Re:Gross oversimplification

[Jedi Alec]

Youtube introduced me(I'm from the Old Country) to Stewart and I had a couple of good laughs, even though the res and size of the window were abhorrent. I'd be more than happy to go to a website to watch a better quality excerpt or even full show in exchange for eye-balling some ads. Now if the ads were actually in tune with the contents of the video things could get interesting. One of the youtube clips I ran across featured an interview with Denis Leary who at some point came up with a DVD of Blackadder. Toss in an ad for said DVD and voila, you're in business.

Venture Capitol

[codepunk]

I bet Microsoft is calling around today asking if by chance somebody was to back them up financially would they invest in this cool company they know about that is tossing around the idea of a lawsuit
against google for infringement....you know wink, wink we got your back bro!

Balmer needs a cooler name

[it0]

Like

Steve "The Chair" Balmer
or
Steve Tripple D Balmer
or
Steve "Killing you softly" Balmer

I would take him more seriously, wouldn't you?

Re:Balmer needs a cooler name

[Opportunist]

It sure would up his street credibility, dude.

But why stop there? I can even see a comic book, where Steve "Da D Man" Balmer and Billy "640k" Gates save the day from such dreaded terrorist ideas like open source or free enterprise.

Re:Balmer needs a cooler name

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Angry Angry Balmer?

Re:Balmer needs a cooler name

[Phu5ion]

If I had mod points I'd mod you "funny" bro.

But I don't, sorry.

Re:Balmer needs a cooler name

[Anonymous Coward]

Hows about "Squirtmaster B"?

Re:Balmer needs a cooler name

[SanityInAnarchy]

We already call him "The Chair". And then laugh at him.

I would take him more seriously if he would stop his stupid monkey dances and actually get a fucking clue once in awhile.

Ballmer's Like that Girl from the Exorcist...

[Greyfox]

Every time he opens his mouth, pea green crap spews out. Microsoft should invest in 3M and keep that thing duct-taped closed.

Anyway, he's only pissed off because Microsoft wants all that money and Google's proving to be a better player of the game of Monopoly. And they don't charge you $400 when you land on Park Avenue. It's kind of interesting to watch a company with the motto of "Don't be Evil" running circles around a company whose motto has to be "Be Evil" based on everything the've done in the past couple of decades. Microsoft used every dirty, underhanded trick in the book to protect their monopoly status and Google waltzes in and beats their pants off just by making cool things and pretty much ignoring their competition.

Re:Ballmer's Like that Girl from the Exorcist...

[RAMMS EIN]

``Google waltzes in and beats their pants off just by making cool things and pretty much ignoring their competition.''

I guess that's why they just _bought_ their competitor.

Our grandkids will hate us

[TheWoozle]

The question is: What's the value of an eyeball?

That really is the question, isn't it. Today advertising is where a large portion of the money is being made on the web.

It makes me want to go back in time and find and then murder the "clever" person who thought "I know, since we can't charge each listener for our radio program, we'll charge companies to advertise on our show!"

Advertising is a blight on our society. I can't even watch a frickin' movie that I paid to see without having advertising shoved down my throat...even in the damned movie!

Hasn't any business been paying attention?! People will actually spend money to avoid advertising. PVRs, DVD collections of TV shows, movie and music downloads...to a lot of people, it's not about "convenience", it's about not having to put up with commercials.

So to all the advertisers out there: FUCK OFF. When I want to find the best product for my money, I'll grab the nearest advertsing executive and beat it out of them.

My eyeballs are not for sale!

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[pubjames]

Hasn't any business been paying attention?! People will actually spend money to avoid advertising.

Actually, that company exists. But you've probably never heard of it because they never advertise.

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[RAMMS EIN]

``My eyeballs are not for sale!'' ...yelled the poster who sold his eyeballs, rather than paying for a /. subscription.

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[TheWoozle]

No, I *have* heard of them, because they have a website. I found them on Google...maybe you've heard of it?

Anyway... I specifically prefer companies that have not gone out of their way to shove their products at me through advertising. I like to find small companies with good products on my own. Besides generally getting better quality products (because these companies don't spend a large portion of their revenue on advertising), I have more satisfaction in my purchases because of the fact that I researched them and discovered the best product *on my own*.

Because of my satifaction, I tell my friends about it. Gee, I guess those companies do advertise after all...they just don't (over)pay an advertising company to develop a stupid and annoying 30-second waste of space!

Admittedly, there are plenty of things that I buy that I don't research first...but I don't have to do any research to know that my local grocery store has fresh fruit. I just go in and, since I've taken the time to actually get to know the people that work there (*gasp* - what a concept!), I ask what the best, freshest stuff is.

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[Stanneh]

some of us just have rss feeds on our customised google home page we click directly to the article and hardly ever notice the adverts. its not like /. stops showing the article until we have watched 14 different food commercials.

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[ElephanTS]

Or as our Lord Bill Hicks said: "By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. No, this is not a joke: kill yourself . . . I know what the marketing people are thinking now too: 'Oh. He's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market.' Oh man, I am not doing that, you fucking evil scumbags."

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[Milton Waddams]

I hear ya buddy. It was just the other day when I went to see a film. 10 minutes after the time it was supposed to start, they were still showing ads. I remember when I was younger (maybe 10 years ago?) when there were no ads at all before a movie. There were trailers which are kinds of ads but they're much more bearable than watching shitty ads that are on tv.

Ads really piss me off. So much so that I can't stand to watch TV anymore. I download TV episodes illegally now.

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[silentounce]

no advertising = end of free media and increase in cost of all media

quick fact: over 50% of the cost of nearly all consumer goods is from marketing

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[lawnsprinkler]

"Sure, centuries from now our great-great-great-grandchildren will look back at us with amazement at how we could allow such a precious achievement of human culture as the telling of a story to be shattered into smithereens by commercials, the same amazement we feel today when we look at our ancestors for whom slavery, capital punishment, burning of witches, and the inquisition were acceptable everyday events." - Werner Herzog

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[Life2Short]

"It makes me want to go back in time and find and then murder the 'clever' person who thought 'I know, since we can't charge each listener for our radio program, we'll charge companies to advertise on our show!'"

I'm feeling your pain, but we need to remember that it wasn't always as bad as it is now. Ever listen to those old radio shows? There's a brief (30-60 second) spot at the beginning of the show, and then a brief minute or two at the end. It's very unobtrustive by today's standards. Go check out old TV shows on internet archives. They have commercials, but the programming/commercial ratio is very different from today. Even some of the younger people on Slashdot can probably remember the early days of cable, when there were NO commercials on many channels. AMC is a great example. Started out with no commercials, period. Then they introduced commercials in between movies. Now...

My favorite example is Merekat Manor on Animal Planet. Holy craptastic advertising!!! The narrator barely finishes a sentence and they're off to another commercial break. They show the same commercials over and over again, sometimes during the same commercial break!

I don't fault the advertising model. It just seems like old-fashioned greed to me.

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[Kumagoro]

I completely agree that there is too much advertising out there, and alot of it is crap, and many advertisers like to use underhanded techniques to get their product in our minds. However, to suggest that all (or even most) advertising needs to be abolished is absolutely insane. I think you (and everyone like you -- that is to say the ad haters) need to sit down and take a look at how vital advertising is.

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[Prof.Phreak]

It's also kind of ironic that the advertising industry can be bigger than all the industries it advertises for combined :-/

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[An ominous Cow art]

You're not alone.

Re:Our grandkids will hate us

[Toon Moene]

> My eyeballs are not for sale!

I tell you what - I *have* only one eyeball (the other one is a glass prothese).

Hey, that means I'm pirating this stuff, because I'm only half worth what they think I am !

ARRR, Matey !

well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

of *course* he's blunt -- he's Google's biggest competitor. and since when has /. become a haven for M$ mouthpieces?

I've been using Google since '97, and I for one hope they do take over the world -- they're a damn sight better than the current US regime. :)

Really interesting thing...

[JustNiz]

Ballmer let slip at the end, (regarding European vista launch date):

"...we'll have to push the button because our partners--hardware makers and retail chains--need time to ramp up supply chains, marketing, and demand generation."

Demand generation. Vista itself has no demand (meaning no extra benefit over XP), so they have to artificially create demand now.

Re:Really interesting thing...

[chroot_james]

Demand generation. Vista itself has no demand (meaning no extra benefit over XP), so they have to artificially create demand now.

Companies have done this forever. It's nothing new with Vista. When you get a free sample, that's a combination of marketing and demand generation. They convince you you need the product and won't be happy without it. Fight Club covered this long before Vista was being talked about...

Re:Really interesting thing...

[smallpaul]

Imagine if 70% of all computer-users wanted Vista. Wouldn't it make sense to nevertheless try to generate a demand from the other 30%? It's just standard business talk. Windows 95 was wildly successful but it still had a huge marketing campaign with a demand generation component. This is just business 101 not a smoking gun.

Re:Really interesting thing...

[Artifakt]

No demand normally doesn't equate to no extra benefits - sometimes, all it means is the potential buyers don't know about the benefits yet, even though the benefits are very real. (Of course, this is the Duke Nukem Forever of OS's we're talkng about here - I'll believe any part of it is real when it actually ships with that feature). Still, there was no demand for "Mr. Fusion" until Doc Brown amd Marty endorsed it.

Re:Really interesting thing...

[mgblst]

That is irrelevant. They just stop selling XP, instant demand. This is what is going to happen, and what happened to 2k. Get over it. Running around talking about no demand just makes you look silly. There isn't going to be a huge jump away from Windows, as much as we wish it would happen.

Re:Really interesting thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there's demand. MS can force demand through bundling of their huge software portfolio. Take games:

  - Gamers want the next generation games.

  - Next generation games require DirectX 10.

  - DirectX 10 will only be released with Vista, not as an addon for XP.

Ergo gamers must upgrade. Something similar will happen with all the other bundles.

Re:Really interesting thing...

[nine-times]

Creepy, isn't it? It seems like this is happening more and more-- instead of finding a demand and figuring out how to fill it, companies are finding out what they can make and then figuring out how to generate demand.

Re:Really interesting thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to play the devil's advocate...

Maybe what he means is that Vista offers no extra benefit over XP on existing hardware running existing software. But Vista may enable next-gen software to do some really desirable things when running on next-gen hardware. In that case, the partners would need time to co-ordinate their offering with the release of Vista or there will be no reason to buy Vista when it comes out.

Does he answer the important questions though!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does he answer the important questions though!

Which brand(s) of chair fly best?
Do you find accuracy, distance, size or weight to be a more important feature of your chairs?
Is it better when the chair shatters on the target or bounces off?

Re:Does he answer the important questions though!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I can answer one of those: Is it better when the chair shatters on the target or bounces off?

It depends on whether you want to inflict actual damage, or simply make a loud noise so you can pound you chest like a baboon. If you want to inflict damage (say, a 1d6+2 magical Chair of Throwing), it is better if the chair bounces, because then the greatest amount of momentum will transfer into the poor, helpless permatemp who has no medical insurance to cover the treatment he will now need. If you simply want to be a baboon, then the chair needs to be such that it will break on impact, converting a sizable portion of the kinetic energy into sound energy.

Okay, maybe I should actually do some work now... :-)

Oh come on...

[Rik Sweeney]

Everyone knows that You Tube has loads of copyrighted material that shouldn't be there. With this in mind, why would Google buy it and risk having their ass sued off? I wouldn't have bought it if I'd had the money for this one reason, but for some reason Google have done. Maybe they'll just remove all the copyrighted material or just charge a subscription for it?

Basically all it boils down to is that You Tube is the biggest video site on the net which Google now control and Microsoft are just pissed because they've just lost out on the biggest multimedia opportunity of this decade.

Re:Oh come on...

[SpinyNorman]

Google's entire business (web search, book search, news, Google Video) is based around fair use and media agreements, so YouTube doesn't really present any different issues than Google and their laywers are familiar with, and they've also been very busy forging better reltions and deals with the media industry.

I can see why many companies might shy away from YouTube (although I doubt the sincerity of Ballmer & Mark Cuban's opinions), but for Google this is their turf - negotiating content rights is what they do.

The fact that they got YouTube for free considering their share price increase since the announcement doesn't hurt either. It seems to have been a pretty savvy purchase, but time will tell.

Re:Oh come on...

[Anonymous Coward]

You Tube is the biggest video site on the net

I thought it was MySpace

Re:Oh come on...

[kilgortrout]

Asset purchase agreements of this magnitude typically contain broad indemnification agreements from seller(YouTube) to buyer(Google) to protect the buyer if they are sued because of some acts of the seller before the closing date and usually part of the purchased price is escrowed for a set time period to cover potential indemnification liability of the seller. I haven't seen the asset purchase agreement but I wouldn't be surprised if there are these types of indemnification provisions in there. I can assure you that Google was represented by top tier counsel in this acquisition and that all potential liabilities and risks were carefully considered by experts in their field. I think their opinions/judgments should carry a little more weight than posters on slashdot that have to preface their opinions with IANAL.

Re:Oh come on...

[nine-times]

I also wonder if there's more going on. Right around the same time that Google buys YouTube, this quote comes out of Disney:

So we understand piracy now as a business model. It exists to serve a need in the marketplace specifically for consumers who want TV content on demand and it competes for consumers the same way we do, through high-quality, price and availability and we don't like the model. But we realize it's effective enough to make piracy a key competitor going forward. And we've created a strategy to address this threat with attractive, easy to use ways to for viewers to get the content they want from us legally; in other words, keeping honest people honest.

Could it be that "rights holders" are starting to change their perspective on these things? Might Google have been in contact with some of these people, enough to know that they'll be working on ways to make the YouTube content legal? Warner has already struck a deal with YouTube. Maybe there are more deals in the works?

Talk About Horrible Slang

[aplusjimages]

I was giggling to myself when I read this. "Squirt". Is m$ serious about trying to make this their word, like "Rip" or "Podcast". This is a horrible catch phrase that I believe is trademarked by the porn industry.

Re:Talk About Horrible Slang

[Farmer Tim]

So if Ballmer was into midget porn, would he ask to be "Squirted a squirting squirt"?

"Plays anywhere"

[betelgeuse68]

"Apple is refusing to give its users choice. With Windows Media Player you can play the music you buy on the device of your choosing."

That's a paraphrase but essentially Ballmer delivered that message. Then sometime later MS decides to release its Zune player and to say to its former music partners. I guess I could fill in the blanks here, "Sorry that you didn't realize MS+'Anyone' = MS." Namely that your interests are not ever really a consideration.

MS actually started its down video site. So if Mr. Ballmer feels so strongly, the question is, why? I know the answer by and large.

Ballmer simply has no tact whatsoever. He gets all emotional and contradicts himself later making him look like a capricious idiot.

-M

Re:"Plays anywhere"

[Osty]

That's a paraphrase but essentially Ballmer delivered that message. Then sometime later MS decides to release its Zune player and to say to its former music partners. I guess I could fill in the blanks here, "Sorry that you didn't realize MS+'Anyone' = MS." Namely that your interests are not ever really a consideration.

Apple allowed other companies to build Mac clones for a short while. Then they pulled the rug out from under their white box partners. Sometimes you have to be willing to sacrifice a partnership if it's just not working out.

MS actually started its down video site. So if Mr. Ballmer feels so strongly, the question is, why? I know the answer by and large.

As I understood from the article, Ballmer's two main concerns are that YouTube may not be worth $1.6B, and that Google's in for a copyright fight of epic proportions. That's not to say that there's no business in shared video downloads. Building their own (MSN Soapbox) makes sense if they can do it for significantly less than $1.6B while mitigating copyright issues. Of course, that $1.6B buys 80% of the market as well as the company, so in that respect it may be worth every penny. Time will tell, and maybe Steve's wrong.

Re:"Plays anywhere"

[dangitman]

As I understood from the article, Ballmer's two main concerns are that YouTube may not be worth $1.6B, and that Google's in for a copyright fight of epic proportions.

But why would Ballmer be concerned about that? If it's true, then that's good news for Microsoft. I think his concerns may be that it is actually a successful deal which may affect Microsoft's plans for video.

Re:"Plays anywhere"

[Osty]

But why would Ballmer be concerned about that? If it's true, then that's good news for Microsoft. I think his concerns may be that it is actually a successful deal which may affect Microsoft's plans for video.

Because he was talking in terms of why Microsoft didn't try to buy YouTube (too expensive, not worth the legal troubles) and/or as a generic point of view on Google's purchase. From Microsoft's point of view bad for Google is good, but from a more generic point of view he's just pointing out what may be bad. Besides, bad for Google could end up also being bad for Microsoft, depending on the circumstances. In this case, "concerns" means "items of interest" rather than "items causing anxiousness".

Third competitor

[UnknowingFool]

A third model I could sit here and write down on this list is that there are cases where software gets monetized through hardware. That's what an iPod is. iPod is a software thing. You just happen to collect the money on the hardware. You could say in China and India, it's unclear whether classic software will get paid for as much as advertising, hardware, subscriptions, etc.

I thought the iPod model was where content get monetized through hardware. Unless Ballmer is equating content with software. Maybe I'm looking at this differently but in my world view content is faciliated by software but not an integral part of it. A novel is more than the word processor used to create it.

Re:Third competitor

[businessnerd]

I think Ballmer is referring more to the early beginnings of the iPod, before there were widespread legit downloadable music stores (Such as iTunes). Essentially, all the iPod is, is a mini hard drive with a display on it. What makes it an iPod is the software on this hard drive that gives you the ability to play mp3's, and now video. However, since this is a current interview, Ballmer is completely behind the curve in his thinking. You are absolutely correct in that it is all about content these days. It's why iTunes is so profitable and it is what cable companies and telecom companies are fighting about with internet tv. He who controls the content controls everything.

Enforcement

[lsm2006]

The most frightening scenario is Google positioning itself as the uber-enforcement agent of copyright on the Internet, in exchange for a piece of the action. With the data it is accumulating, Google more than any other single firm can identify people, and tag them with the creation of violating derivative works or the consumption of violating works. The statute of limitations for criminal prosecution is years.

Re:Enforcement

[Anonymous Coward]

And not just for copyright enforcement, either. Google is positioned to be able to get the goods on just about any illegal online activity...gambling, kiddie pron, copyright violations, stalkers, spoofers, pirates, etc.

Your basic one-stop data-mining shop, for anything illegal...whew, it's a good thing they're not evil...

Now, now...

[Opportunist]

Hey, they just invented the mobile MP3 player, which was all new and never done before, cut them a little slack. I'm pretty sure they'll invent a service where you can upload your videos in due time. Like, 3 or 4 years.

There's no bussines model but....

[diegocgteleline.es]

Right now, there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion

Why is that I suspect that Microsoft also tried to buy youtube?

Re:There's no bussines model but....

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, it's ignoring the fact that the Google share price increase since the deal was announced has added more than $1.6B to the value of the company... they got YouTube for free.

Obligatory comment referring to Balmer video...

[zarozarozaro]

of him stomping and screaming about how much he loves Microsoft. I'm pretty sure its on you tube.

Maybe he just wants residuals...

the link, as if anyone has not seen it...

[zarozarozaro]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diSFa1bNPk0

I just hate to admit

[crodrigu1]

The guy is right, google made a mistake, and about web 2.0, just decided to be a web 2.0 consultant, make a lot of money and when people realize that the darn thing do not work I will be rich (so will not care).

this whole msft vs goog thing

[Glog]

is so reminiscent of the years when Microsoft was snatching deals from under IBM's nose. I just hope that for the sake of all users Microsoft can reinvent and save itself from extinction.

Re:this whole msft vs goog thing

[bealzabobs_youruncle]

Maybe I should hit refresh, surely this is Score 4 Funny???

MS redefines the meaning of Open Source

[rs232]

"[Take open source.] Open source is not a new technology area. It was a new business model", SB

First RFC April 1969 for the ARPANET. The Open Source Initiative originated in Feb 1998.

"In the last three or four years, we have competed very well by extending our value", SB

"Microsoft has proposed a licencing agreement blatantly tailored to exclude free software from accessing it.", FSF Europe

" RealNetworks .. sued .. Microsoft on antitrust charges .. Our case is based on .. failure to disclose interface information and imposing restrictions on PC makers"

"Open source never goes away as a business model or competitor. We have learned how to compete with open source", SB

"Microsoft is claiming some form of IP rights over .. a total of 130 protocols which Microsoft is offering for license .. Many of the listed protocols are [IETF] RFC to the core TCP/IP v4 and TCP/IP v6 protocol specifications"

"competing with open source will have to be something that's burned bright on the foreheads of our senior people", SB

"OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects' entry into the market."

"In the case of open source, we couldn't adopt the business model. We adopted a competitive approach that so far has worked very well", SB

Under NO circumstances lose against Linux"

"Microsoft also indicated there was a lot more money out there and they would clearly rather use Baystar "like" entities to help us get signifigantly more money if we want to grow further or do acquisitions"

"Microsoft and Sun .. announced the antitrust settlement/technology pact between the two on Friday"

"Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) has signed a deal to license SCO Group's Unix intellectual property"

"Microsoft will license the rights to Unix technology from SCO"

"there are cases where software gets monetized through hardware", SB

Like years ago when you bought hardware and the software was included for free.

Re:MS redefines the meaning of Open Source

[petrus4]

"[Take open source.] Open source is not a new technology area. It was a new business model", SB

First RFC April 1969 for the ARPANET. The Open Source Initiative originated in Feb 1998.

1969 is not "new." The OSI is also all about business. ESR and crew have cared more about corporate evangelism than anything else. (And yes, that is easy to verify)

"In the last three or four years, we have competed very well by extending our value", SB

Propoganda, sure.

"Microsoft has proposed a licencing agreement blatantly tailored to exclude free software from accessing it.", FSF Europe

Right...sure. Just like Stallman having warned people off the BSD license, telling people not to use the CC licenses, insisting that every other FOSS license on the planet be "harmonised" with the GPL, etc. The FSF complaining about *anyone* else using exclusionary licensing is about the degree of consistency I've come to expect from them...which is also why I no longer listen to a word they say. I wish I understood why I seem to be the only one who's seeing that Stallman wants his own monoculture just as badly as Gates/Ballmer want theirs...and neither are a good thing.

The rest is the usual propoganda and doublespeak BS, admittedly...but I actually did agree with him to a degree about the YouTube acquisition. Google have sunk a lot of money into buying an operation that is essentially a net-based hybrid of Funniest Home Videos and MTV, whose first profit was also actually the money Google paid for it...it's going to be interesting to see if they can create something profitable out of it.

Who could have guessed

[krinkelkrok]

"We're excited about Facebook. We're selling all the advertising for it. We're more excited now that we're selling ads for it than we were before." - Ballmer
Now that's a surprise!

Battle Royal

[Opportunist]

Well, my guess is that one of his fears is that the litigation game is now being played on equal footing. Usually, it's content industry vs. Mr. Nobody, i.e. deep pockets on one, no money on the other side. A trial against someone who can't afford to go to court for lenghty periods is already won.

It's a very different problem if your opponent has as much or even more money than you are. Google can afford lawsuits, and they might even want to dish it out on one occasion or another, which could set some rather interesting precedent. Certainly they won't overturn the DMCA (if they did, it would be awesome but you can't expect wonders), but even going to court means to tie up a considerable amount of legal resources from the content industry.

Not to mention the good PR Google will get for it from the average internet user, sitting at home in front of his torrent leeching tool and fearing every knock on the door is the FBI.

Stock up on popcorn, folks, we're in for some interesting trials!

Hurray

[Drakin020]

Time for a bunch of redundant posts about Chair Throwings. *sigh*

$Google$

[danwesnor]

Google can afford to spend more than us

From a company that's used to buying its competitors out of business, that's a pretty revealing statement...

Re:$Google$

[PreacherTom]

I think that's more of an issue of timing. Yes, M$ has some serious cash. They are also at a quite vulnerable (relatively speaking) time: the pre-game for Vista. They are focused in that (and some other) directions. Doing a few multi-billion deals at the moment would pull their focus in different directions.

Re:$Google$

[hackCoder]

Google can afford to spend more money on it because they will make more money out of it with their already established ad based revenue. Microsoft have no where near the advertising clout that google do and hence can't afford to spend as much on it. This comment by SB doesn't indicate google have more money but more potential.

Isn't that just like any other business?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

"Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising. " (Check out the link, some quotes there are so timely it's scary).

YouTube *can't* determine the rights upfront

[elrous0]

And if you want to get even more technical, even DETERMINING who exactly owns the "rights" of a work is often impossible.

It's fine if you have a single person making a video. But what if you have several people working to produce that video? Technically they all own a piece of the rights, unless it's a "work for hire" for a single company. And how would you know that if you were an individual buying it from just one of them? Until you got a "cease and desist" letter from one of the other guys, there is no way you COULD know.

It's more than just *hard* for YouTube to determine the rights holder(s) of every piece of video submitted to their service, it's quite literally IMPOSSIBLE. Basically, with the exception of OBIVIOUS rights violations (i.e. last night's episode of Battlestar Galactica), they just have to take people at their word until they get a cease and desist letter to indicate otherwise.

-Eric

final post

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the "series of youtubes" joke been done yet, chaps?

Smart Move, Managible Risk

[Khammurabi]

If I were a shareholder, I'd be deeply worried that Google has opened themselves up to a potentially fatal IP battle. Between this and the Google book search IP lawsuits, Google is gambling big time and geek opinions on the legitimacy of IP law and how it should apply won't mean crap in a court of law WRT Google.

Google stock went up on the news, so I think the shareholders are fine with the deal. YouTube has been cozying up with the media companies over the past few months to prevent IP battles from erupting. I'd say they've been rather successful, as they are striking deals with Time Warner and others, instead of firing shots of litigation.

Google Video was doing so-so, but it lacked the brand recognition that YouTube garnered (yeah, you heard that right). Since Google is in the advertising business, and it needs to be #1 in the emerging market of online video advertising. Now it can.

A larger risk than the IP battles is probably Ma Bell and the ISP's putting the squeeze on Google's bandwidth. In all likelihood YouTube would be quashed in the next year or two by the communications industry since video eats up so much of the bandwidth. Google's also been at risk from this, but Google's also been buying up dark fiber as an insurance policy. Google buying YouTube insures that video streaming will not be leaving the web anytime soon, and opens a more lucrative market for Google.

Television as we know it will most likely evolve dramatically over the next decade. Google just wants to make sure that they have a decent sized foot in the door.

Must scrub mental image from my brain...

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

I want to squirt you a picture of my kids.
-Steve Ballmer

Blind As Mole Rats

[wolff000]

You can not sue someone for posting a clip of a movie, song, or TV show if you first don't give them the chance to remove it. You have to first notify the individual in this case Youtube/Google that it's copyrighted and they don't have permission to use it. Then if they don't remove it you can sue. That's the way it works. I don't know what world you all live in that you think they are going to be sued constantly. That would only be the fact if they refused to remove the offending content. Which Youtube already does and Google has stated they will continue to do. Why on Earth people can't understand that is beyond me. Then again so are half of the inane comments that are posted every 10 seconds. Slashdot: News For People That Have No Understing Of What Is Going On.

Re:Blind As Mole Rats

[Anonymous Coward]

"You can not sue someone for posting a clip of a movie, song, or TV show if you first don't give them the chance to remove it."

Sure you can. And you get TREBLE DAMAGES if they keep it up after being informed.

1. is there a wrong? yes, copyright infringement
2. is there damage? yes, lost profits
3. is there someone with deep pockets? yes, Google!
4. whammo!

It gets better when multiple clips belong to the same rights holder. The issue comes down to this: is it worth the litigation costs to bash someone for infringement X? The answer becomes yes when infringement X costs more than litigation or when you want to make an example out of someone.

Video of the interview?

[Rik Sweeney]

(Yes, I know this is a setup)

Is there a video of the interview anywhere?

Re:Video of the interview?

[WilliamSChips]

A chair was thrown at the camera, the tape was broken.

YouTube is better than Google Video?

[Attis_The_Bunneh]

What real product does YouTube provide? The last time I checked, YouTube has no premium service with any perks.

And with the amount of money Google soaked into this deal, I think they've over-reached themselves considering the same amount of money could have been invested in their current Google Video service to provide similar, if not superior, applications. In fact, I prefer Google Video considering I can access many physics lectures [Theory of Acoustic Blackholes, clips of Feynman interviews, and much more], and other academic material that's often buried in the university webpage directories. I can also grab clips of Bloomberg, and other news sites [Spore Demo, Al-jaazera's latest English telecast, BBC telecast, etc...] through Google Video, not through YouTube. Frankly, I wonder if Google was more into buying YouTube to make sure they don't copy Google's model of searching for already existing videos. I see no value in YouTube, it's just MySpace set to low frame rate, low detail motion. :-P

-- Bridget

He DID say...

[Neovanglist]

That he was "going to fucking kill Google." Do strong words count as "fucking burying" them?

Yes they are.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now sit down and say hello to mr. surgical blade.

Ballmer on Google

[Angelwrath]

Asking company executives about the products of their competitors, like this interview does, is utterly pointless. You never get an objective opinion - all they see is a chance to communicate their brand, their marketing, and their FUD to the general public to try to sway opinions. Big Business is no more serious in an interview than politicians are - they will lie, cheat, and steal their way to get you to throw your bucks their way. Trashing Google's decision - Google is eating Microsoft's Internet lunch. You think Microsoft is going to applaud them for it?

Ask someone not employed by Microsoft what they think of YouTube. Don't ask competitors, ask outsiders.

Microsoft stands at the Ganges.

[Kadin2048]

It's not whether they're "relevant" or not, it's that they're only the leader in marketshare. In everything else, they're followers.

And frankly, it's hard to see where they'll go from here. Sure, they can keep flogging the installed base of Windows PCs and turn out a new version every few years, but for how long?

Microsoft has been the Alexander of the IT world; they've pillaged and they've conquered, and now they pretty much own it all. What do you do then, when your forward momentum has been the thing sustaining you for so long?

Vast corporate empires like the one they're now sitting on have always, in the past, fallen eventually. So it's not a question of 'will Microsoft blow it?,' it's a question of when it'll happen. Particularly given the way that today's stock markets are focused on short-term gains and profitability (which Microsoft has delivered admirably, during its expansion), any slowdown puts them in a somewhat precarious position.

IBM hung onto the top dog mantle in technology for almost a generation, so I think it's entirely possible that Microsoft will last longer than that. But right now, they have to realize that they're at the very top -- meaning there's nowhere to go but down.

Re:Microsoft stands at the Ganges.

[geekoid]

"- meaning there's nowhere to go but down."
of course, they can still go up as well.

It's not a damn mountain.
I believe the 'regime' change in 2008 is exactly because of this issue. New blood that knows how to maintain a stable base on existing models may change MS precarious position, to an entrenched position. Some of the technicall reason for IBM's demise are not likly to happen again do to the draconian laws around software.

Re:Microsoft stands at the Ganges.

[Anonymous Coward]

does that mean you're buying stock (or options,... with assumption of a stock price increase)?

          [likewise for the gp..., it's one thing to suggest or imagine,... it's another to go and *bet $$$* -- that said,... they've closed my poker table]

except

[geekoid]

everone is aware of vista.

This isn't some new food for the general masses. Vista market is aware of vista, and has been followeing.
Don't kid yourself, the home user is not the needed base, the corporate desktop is. Once there in there, the home market will follow. Espcially after all the tools they need to do work no longer works, and the have to upgrade for 'security' and 'digital rights'.

My opinion

[guruevi]

Google is going to get in a battle with *AA over the legality of content on their websites. But now one of those small innovative company's (like Napster was) doesn't have to worry anymore about being strong-armed by the *AA because they don't have money. I don't think the *AA hasn't won a single case against a cash-giant like Google, they always go after the smaller IPO's, single mom's, 15yo girls and other "poor" people/companies which finally have to give up because of the cash drain and either settle or file for bankrupcy.

The good thing is that Google has a steady income of more cash which they can throw against the case if need be and they are thus going to be less likely to settle for a lump-sum and give up. They can also afford better lawyers and finally open the IP box of pandora and set an example/precedent.

Duct-tape is passé... dare I even say, Web 1.

[Dystopian Rebel]

Because now we can apply a protein gel to Ballmer's mouth to cover it up.

"Some surgeons are already excited about the material. 'I see great potential in the eye field, the gastro-intestinal field, in neurosurgery, and in stopping Steve Ballmer's fat gob,' says Dimitri Azyuar, head of maunderology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, US."

Remember what "Wealth" means

[Anonymous Coward]

Ballmer wasn't using wealth to mean "money in the bank account." He was using it in a more technical sense of the word. "Wealth," economically speaking, is stuff that has economic value. Cars and potatoes and the like. Money is just a means of quantifying wealth and facilitating the process of bartering for it.

Information (music, videos, etc.) has economic value, and is therefore wealth. That is what Ballmer was talking about, the transfer of that economically-valuable information from the copyright holders to google.

Now, this statement is still absurd, because of some "have your cake and eat it too" mentalities at work behind the concept of intellectual property.

If I take raw materials and use them to build a car, I have created wealth. I am now wealthier because of it. I also own the wealth I created, which means I control it. I can give it to you if I want, in which case you are more wealthy and I am less wealthy. Obviously I can't keep doing this endlessly without running myself dry, so I will need you to give me something back. Hence we barter. But what's important is that once I give that item to you, I don't have it anymore.

With information it is different. I can give you a copy of it without giving up my copy of it, and without having to expend resources in its creation. So, that means, I can give it to you and still keep it! Thus I get to make money by claiming your wealth (in the form of the money you pay me) without actually giving up any of the wealth I already have (the music/video/whatever).

Of course this is absurd, and demonstrates where common information-as-property metaphors fall short. It doesn't make sense for me to sell you a car and then claim that I still own it, so why does it make sense for me to sell you a digital file and then claim that I still own it? In the real world, I wouldn't have that car anymore, so does that mean that I am obligated to delete my copy of the song once I sell it to you? Of course not. Treating information as property leads to these sorts of contradictions because information is not property, and doesn't work the same way.

"Intellectual property" is basically a game of pretending like information works like property in some ways, but insisting that it does not work like property in other ways. We pretend it works like property when individual consumers are concerned (they can't make copies of cars without resources, so they shouldn't be able to make copies of information without resources either), but we insist that it does not work like property when rich businesses are concerned (sure, I sold you a COPY of the data, but really I still own the data). This is not only logically inconsistent, but economically harmful (it results in lots of money flowing upwards without any real wealth flowing downwards).

We should instead treat information as information, and rethink copyright laws. They should not arbitrarily restrict the zero-cost duplication and distribution of information (which is a great benefit to humanity in and of itself). We must also recognize that money not spent on electronic information is not money lost to the economy, but rather, money that can be spent in an economically healthy way (used to buy food or cars or any other traditional exchange in which the wealth flows in both directions).

I have already written more than anyone will read, so I won't bother to get into the false claims that intellectual property laws protect content providers (which they do not) and that giving them up will result in no new creations and cultural starvation (which it will not). I just hope that the next generation will be able to see through these hypocritical fallacies of "intellectual property law" and act more intelligently than the current generation is acting.

Re:Remember what "Wealth" means

[Anonymous Coward]

I enjoyed reading your comments and would like to read more of your thoughts.

Re:Remember what "Wealth" means

[Andrewkov]

You're missing a big point. You designed your car. You can sell cars you make, but you retain the rights to the design. You can make more cars from that design and continue to make money. Other people can't make your car, since you own the rights to the design. In fact, you could probably sell your design for much more than you could sell 1 car. Same thing with IP. You can sell a copy of a song for cheap, but you can also sell the rights to that song (for much more money), which gives the buyer the right to make money from the song.

Re:Remember what "Wealth" means

[batmore]

Actually I think you've missed his point... The design (the creative part) is the information, and hence should be treated as information. In other words the design (creative part) for the car is very much like the design of art/music/movie which he's stating can not take part in the wealth transaction the same way a physical artifact can. In his example the car is the part of the equation that can participate in the two way wealth transaction.

I think you've fallen into the same mind trap that he's trying to illustrate.

bat

Re:Remember what "Wealth" means

[netnuevo]

In a way, you are buying a copy of a car. I'm sure the manufacturer still has the rights to the design/brandname/any patents.

Both points backwards

[SuperKendall]

Uh. Surely if YouTube is the ticking time bomb of copyright infringement that it's claimed to be, then what's happening is Google transferring money from the hands of Google investors into a holding tank for eventual litigants.

No, because Google can spend huge volumes of cash defending itself - and as long as the service remains timley in removing copyrighted material, there is no problem. Basically, they have a lot of money to sue for but they can make sure you spend a lot as well. The are a larger, but a hardened, target.

I mean, if you were Ballmer, wouldn't you be thrilled that Google had bought YouTube?

No. Read the interview again - where he says "Someone has to compete with them. Maybe us, maybe Yahoo" and that "there has to be two companies competing in the media space for media owners to see value". Notice the realization and admission in that statemnet is that Google is ONE of those two companies. That means only ONE spot is left - and by admission it may not be Microsoft! Do you think that makes Balmer feel cozy, that 50% of the opportunity to control the media market online is gone now? Look at how dizzy he was on the question about YouTube valuation. He can't see it, and it's killing him. He feels like he's missing some part of the picture. He's essentially saying "I would pay 1.6 billion if I knew what the hell was going on!". Even his staement about the need to get in and "milk" a service was classic Microsoft that misses the value of a social network, which is in expansion and not squeezing it to death.

On a side note Balmer is dead wrong on that score, YouTube even when sending no money directly to media is creating value for the media companies even with illegal content by increasing mindshare and viewership of a show so media companies can collect money via other channels.

Re:Both points backwards

[Raenex]

Even his staement about the need to get in and "milk" a service was classic Microsoft that misses the value of a social network, which is in expansion and not squeezing it to death.

That's taken out of context. He said it has to be milked if it is a hit-based phenomenon (fad). It's an open question of whether today's popular site will still be popular tomorrow.

Though it was funny to hear him completely bash the YouTube deal in one paragraph and then completely backpedal in the next.

Re:Both points backwards

[Spikeles]

YouTube even when sending no money directly to media is creating value for the media companies even with illegal content by increasing mindshare and viewership of a show so media companies can collect money via other channels I wish more media companies would sit up and take notice this point, both music and video. A good example is i found a song by Sarah McLachlan from a P2P network, i had never heard of her before and had no intention of buying her albums, but after hearing that song i went out and bought as many of her albums as i could. Now i'm a die hard fan.

Same goes for YouTube, you see a series you like, say Futurama, it makes you want to go out and buy the episodes so you can keep them for yourself. You may have never heard of it before and if it wasn't for YouTube you might never had.

1%

[ElephanTS]

Thing is if as Steve B says the 1.6bn is about 1% of Google market cap (I'm sure he's right - i'm too tired to look it up) then in relative terms it isn't a big thing. Even if the whole thing goes tits up Google will carry on and be ok. It looks like extraordinary money to normal people but to Google it's not - but they do get to nip a competitor in the bud.

Mod Parent Up

[El Torico]

Too bad I don't have mod points today; elrous0, yours is the best synopsis.

Re: Is m$ serious

[Dystopian Rebel]

It's hard to believe they are serious when they have Steve Ballboy representing them. He's embarrassing.

Brilliant article!

[Crash McBang]

I rate it... 4 out of 5 chairs!

I think he's got it backwards

[reifman]

If Steve's so sure, isn't Google essentially transferring its wealth to rights holders - or can no one find a good attorney? Or perhaps Steve needs to read the DMCA. I don't see Comedy Central complaining about South Park and Daily Show clips flying around on YouTube. Perhaps Steve is just upset that investing hundreds of millions in proprietary video playback technology only got him tossed into court at the E.U. rather than actually building a successful social video Web site that customers actually like - and that spreads virally.

Balmer is Lame

[Nom du Keyboard]

The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google."

Balmer is so lame. He's lucky to be with MS, since I doubt anyone else would have him.

Re: quote above, the so-called "rights holders" wouldn't have this money otherwise. There wouldn't be any money otherwise since no one would be doing anything with it. Balmer is trying to start a fire by telling the RH's that somehow they're entitled to this unearned money, and cause problems for the competition. Wish we could just shut him up entirely, but that's not likely.

Of course, if MS was doing this instead, Balmer would be calling it a victory for the RH's.

Alexander the Great

[rajafarian]

I guess that's why they just _bought_ their competitor.

I'm reminded of my view of Alexander the Great when he took over as compared to when the Muslims took over way back. Alexander (am I wrong???) came in and asked if the smaller kingdoms were interested in joining his Kingdom and many happily were since they got to keep their culture, etc. As compared to when the Muslims took over, when they killed and destroyed everything they didn't like.

Re:Alexander the Great

[WilliamSChips]

The Muslim invasion was nowhere near as bad as the Reconquista and the Inquisition.

In other news...

[albeit unknown]

Herman Miller stock is up 200%, due to an unprecedented surge in orders for office chairs.

they're cartels - another mafia

[rubycodez]

you obviously haven't had to deal with the goons of the thugs that run these cartels and have congressmen in their pockets to pass laws to take away the people's rights and further line their pockets.

Spam on the Zune?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the fine article:
"The truth is, though, if it makes money, it will be built into the gross margin on the hardware. We'll figure out how to make money on the community perhaps later though advertising or other means."

Sounds like M$ is already planning on the Zune being a spam platform.

reading too much into it

[everphilski]

Demand generation.

You mean like, posters/advertisements/mailers with an actual release date? You know, stuff they can't do now due to legal entanglements?

In order to advertize a release date you neeed ... a release date. Then you can generate media.

Ad hominem argument

[hummassa]

If it comes from Steve Ballmer, then it is a blatant lie and FUD.
Therefore, Google will never be sued by the *AA (because it entered agreements with the copyright holders) and GooTube is slated to be a huge success.

translation

[Tom]

there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion.

or, translated to normal english:

"We have no idea how they plan to make money on this, so it must be impossible."

The sounds of a man who can't accept that there might be people smarter than him on the planet.

Re:translation

[Neoprofin]

I got it as meaning something closer to "there are plenty of ways to make money off YouTube, but none of them are profitable enough to justify paying $1.6 billion", which is, generally speaking, a shitload of money.

Re:translation

[Tom]

It's a stock deal, so the actual cost to Google was a couple thousand bucks for paperwork. If it bumps up the Google stock by a few points, they've got it all back right then and there. Oh wait, it did...

Ballmer's insight on software competition

[General Muzak]

This one stuck out to me:

You give me any enterprise software company, O.K., and I'll say c'mon. We know how to go do that. We do do that. And we're really pretty good at it. We haven't gotten any worse at it. Boom. Boom. Boom. We know how to keep coming.

Too bad this excitable man doesn't seem to do videos anymore himself. If they put this interview up on MSN video I sure would like to see it.

MOD PARENT UP

[mrchaotica]

You're preaching to the choir, buddy -- I already know all that, and in fact make similar posts myself.

However, you did explain it really well, so I hope other people see your post.

So what you're saying is.....

[inKubus]

In Soviet Russia Google will Fucking Kill(tm) itself?

Yep, "serious" debate...

[Anonymous Coward]

...between one side that says a company is still relevant because it owns 90% of the OS market (which everyone has to write applications, games, drivers, and webpages for) and still has the entire PC industry entrenched in its OS after years.

And the other side that says that said company is not irrelevant because you can do anything and everything (like coding, photo/vid-editing, document processing, personal finances, high-end gaming) over the Internet, and this is clearly what people and businesses want to do. All you need is Ubuntu with Firefox installed.

Yeah, this debate is completely valid. In other news, I think the sky is falling. Discuss the interesting debate I've put forth.

Bluff

[GerardM]

When you are big and play poker, when you bet the company, you play for big stakes. In my opinion Microsoft cannot afford not to sell MsVista in Europe. Yes, it truly is Microsoft's option not to sell it in Europe. It will really quickly kill off their monopoly. It is one of those things where the only option left open to European governments and the European Union is to take it's business elsewhere. Without sales of the Vista software in Europe many organisations will not be able to have one platform everywhere. This in turn will kill Microsoft off. Thanks, GerardM

Did You Say Cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

google didn't pay in cash, they paid in stock.

it is kinda like trading two $1 billion cats for a $2 billion dog.

yes, the best and brightest in america do similar math every day as long as they get paid well to hawk this kinda crap.

Quote of the Interview

[Anonymous Coward]

"Guys who can touch us in multiple places probably matter more than guys who can touch us in any one place."

This would be very fun to take out of context.

Re:Insert Lame Ballmer Jokes Here

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Michael Moore?

Moderate -1, Wrong

[Blakey Rat]

Uh, wrong. Both YouTube and Google Video put up content within minutes of the upload. Probably the only lag time is the time it takes to encode the video into whatever codec that Flash player uses. It's also not true that people don't put "cool videos to show to their friends" on Google Video. Here's one of my uploads: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-754112759 2508664155&hl=en -- use the "From This User" link to find all of them. You'll see that all of them (except one movie trailer) were entirely impulsive and most of them were uploaded to answer the question, "where did that joke come from?"

In short, you're wrong.

We Interrupt This Thread ...

[Anonymous Coward]

HEAD ON, apply directly to the forehead!

HEAD ON, apply directly to the forehead!

HEAD ON, apply directly to the forehead!

I hate your commercials, but I LOVE your product!!!

(un)Visionary indeed

[unity100]

Yea, youtube can not make business that much. And its maybe never intended to make such business.

You tube is a political outlet, is a broadcasting medium baby. Google has one, microsoft doesnt.

One word: Shareholders

[MelloDawg]

The price of being shareholder-owned is that you have to live up to shareholder expectations. And their expectations focus around % growth. Now it's really hard for Microsoft to grow any larger in its core markets...so they have to follow the money. Who's the one making money (and buzz) now? Google, of course, so that's where Microsoft is (forced) to follow if it wants to grow.

Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview - Load o Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Puh-lease.

fsck -A that! (F*ck all that for the file-system challenged...)

A simple comparison:

I'm a musician, when I perform a cover, regardless of how much of my own blood sweat and tears I put into it, it's still a cover. The original author deserves a great deal, perhaps even a majority of the credit. Of course, I could do the same work, without starting from the cover, might even end up with a similar song, but that wouldn't be a cover, or derivative if you prefer. That's always been the bit copyright doesn't seem to be aware of, that the same work can result from two independent streams of effort. Public domain is a clumsy way of aknowledging that over time the need (and ability) to protect the original authorship diminishes.

But in over 20 years of writing and performing music, I've noticed a few trends:
1) I'll allways give credit where it is due. If I completely transform and Eddie Cochrane song, on the liner you'll see (E. Cochrane) as the author beside the song in question. So do the vast majority of performance musicians.
2) When I perform that song, more often than not, I'll announce or back-announce that the song was a cover of an Eddie Cochrane song. Likewise my peers.
3) When asked, I never try to pass it off as mine, but always give the credit due the original author, and further suggest the erstwhile questioner obtain a copy of their own. Again, likewise my peers.

Take the hypothetical WOW video poster:
1) Probably gives no credit in the performance to the software authors, nor the song authors, nor the authors of the sound bites used. This is the norm, not the exception in my experience.
2) Uploaded to a public forum/venue in their own name, (or screen name) further without giving due recognition to all the contributing parties. The implication is that this is the submitters property and work, without once aknowledging the significant contributions of the other author's involved. That this is done despite agreeing to the inevitable terms of service which say they won't do exactly this...
3) When asked, probably heatedly denies any wrong doing, legal or ethical, and generally carries on about their rights, without a whit of consideration for the rights they abrogated along the way. Little hint, typically, this goes along with someone whose never actually authored any creative effort on their own. Since they have no appreciation for the work which made their derivative work possible, they are incapable of seeing anything but the fact that they are being thwarted.

Hell folks, I've done more derivative work in my career as a musician than the most prolific you-tuber alive. But when I do derivative work, I have the common courtesy to aknowledge those whose contributions resulted in the finished product, I don't pretend that my part was more than it was, I don't take credit not due me.

If the person doing the editing for the hypothetical WOW video actually had done any serious creative work, I suspect their would be less of a problem, since that person might have had an inkling, and might have at least made the minimum good faith gestures of apportioning credit for work used.

It's just like writing papers for school folks, if you use someone else's work, you identify and aknowledge it. Hell, eveyone who gets through high school understands that you can't take fifteen encyclopedia entries, Brundlize (amemeber Doc Martin Brundle from "The Fly"?) them into one paper and call it your own work. So, why would you think you could do so with three pieces of media and the Tucows shareware video editor of the month?

The extraordinary thing about common courtesy is just how uncommon it really is.

Aha, but...

[SuperKendall]

You are right I should have added more context as it makes the statement sound more reasoned.

But what I was thinking as I read that, and the reason why I brought that quote to light is that I think it's hard to tell when something is a fad or not, and I think Microsoft does see YouTube as a fad at heart - which is why they cannot understand the valuation. One companies fad could well be another companies growth market, it all depends on how you treat the customers...

Re:Aha, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from out of town,...

              what isn't a fad?

money through advertising

[ldcroberts]

all google has to do is put advertising on the pages and pay a share to whoever owns the copyright for a video. The people posting are legally bound to make sure it is copyright, and that they are the copyright owners. sample scenario. a CSI episode gets posted of someones tivo. people watch it. it gets a big rating. the producers sue the person who posted it for the advertising revenue and post a better quality one and rake it in off that with a share of all further advertising. then its just the suckers that post funny home video's for free that lose out - presumably they could tick a "no advertising" clause to interrupt people watching it. bring it on i say.

Yeah...

[jgoemat]

Ever heard of MSNBC? Where's GOOTV?

Re:Yeah...

[unity100]

they who watch msnbc are in majority people who drink beer and do nothing, whereas internet is filled with active people.

Proof, here is one such company

[Anonymous Coward]

If you live in California, consider getting insurance through Wawanesa. You haven't heard of them because they don't advertise. But their rates are better than anyone else because they don't have to pay for advertisements.

I'm sure they're not the only one out there.

Since when has Ballmer, or MS cared about rights?!

[XNine]

How many companies have the squandered just to make a few more bucks? Hmmm. Netscape, Apple, Sun, Lotus, REAL, Roxio, Napster, Creative and I think you get the point. Ballmer is about the largest hypocrite in the industry. He cares SO much about DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS that his new Zune service just screwed several companies out of their money for interfacing with WMP. Not that any of it was worth a damn to the end user. Not to mention he's jealous of Google for completely OWNING them in the Search wars. "I WILL KILL GOOGLE!" (throws chair and does monkey dance)

Touch them?

[AnimeDTA]

Guys who can touch us in multiple places probably matter more than guys who can touch us in any one place

... show us on the doll where they touched you...

Guys who can touch us ... WTF?

[definate]

Guys who can touch us in multiple places probably matter more than guys who can touch us in any one place.

Is Balmer running a brothel or Microsoft? I think he has gone a little bit off topic here. Although, I know where he's coming from. I love it when my girlfriend touches me in multiple places too.

Disclaimer: Please note that since I am an avid slashdot reader, I do not actually have a girlfriend besides in WoW.

The reason why corporations were created ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations were created because partnerships couldn't raise sufficient capital to take on large projects.

The first corporation ever created was the Hudson Bay Company in either the late 1500's or early 1600's. It required an enormous amount of capital because it had to build/buy boats, staff them with people willing to risk their lives sailing to the "New World", and set up infrastructure that would allow them to survive the winters and secure outposts and supply lines from natives and foreign competition.

At that time, there was no way to raise that kind of money from a small group of private investors. It required thousands of investors to pool their capital. But none of them wanted to assume individual liability for an enterprise over which each of them would have little individual control. So a partnership was out of the question.

As a legal entity for conducting business, partnerships don't scale well past the point where sufficient capitalization requires many investors. That's why corporations were created.

I don't get it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care what YouTube is, there is one thing it isn't: unique!

YouTube is a website for displaying/swapping posting short videos and
certainly not the only site in the world to do so.

What could possibly make this worth $1.65 bill as an aquisition for Google ??

(And just to remind people... the difference between 1.5 bill and 1.65 bill is
still $150 million dollars !!)

That's 1650 companies at a mill. a piece, or 16500 software developers for a year on $100k pa,
1650 million dollar advertising campaigns for Google Video to kill the competition, or 55 million Big Macs!

Sorry... just can't see the ROI here. Same for Myspace too really..

Anyone got an answer ??

Simpler terms - YouTube is radio for TV

[SuperKendall]

I agree with what you are saying that more media companies need to get this point, I have thought and simplified this concept even further into the metaphor that "YouTube is like radio for TV". That is to say, it's where someone can catch a glimpse of something they like and then go to the primary provider to look for more.

Like you say, if you see some Futurama on YouTube you may well decide you like it enough to go out and buy the season for the episode you watched.

There is already so much video in the world, it cannot hurt to have more people see and like it. There's always money to be made somewhere when people enjoy your creative output.

Somebody tell Vernor Vinge that quick!

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

because a top-notch sci-fi author needs this sort of breaking slang news as fast as possible!

here's a solid use of it: http://www.verminary.com/cyberpunk/primer.html

actually, it is also used in the Wikipedia article for the Cray-2 as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-2 ..."Cray solved this by adding ten smaller computers to the system, allowing them to deal with the slower external storage (disks and tapes) and "squirt" data into memory when the main processor was busy. This solution no longer offered any advantages; memory was large enough that entire data sets could be read into it, but the"....

not defending balmer, but i don't mind the usage. But you guys, you just uh.. keep on squirtin if that's what your thinking about :)

Obligatory

[dch24]

I read that as:

"Nothing except mint can make money without advertising."

Sorry, I'll go eat some B&J Mint Chocolate Cookie ... :-P