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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."
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?
"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...
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make install -not war
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.
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?
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.
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?
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!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising. " (Check out the link, some quotes there are so timely it's scary).
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.
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.
The Farewell Tour II
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.
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.
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.
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.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I also wonder if there's more going on. Right around the same time that Google buys YouTube, this quote comes out of Disney:
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?
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?
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
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.
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.