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Speculation on Google / YouTube "Hardball"
An anonymous reader writes, "Interesting speculation on the 'GooTube' deal, oozing with corporate intrigue. Based on Mark Cuban's blog and a subsequent ZDNet blog posting, it seems as though there might have been some dodgy goings-on just prior to the deal. In short, YouTube may have handed the major labels approximately $50M so that the labels would turn a blind eye to the copyright infringements AND go after the competition to cement YouTube's position in the market. Universal started the ball rolling a week after the deal by suing Bolt and Grouper." Cuban's blog does not identify the author of the speculation, who calls himself "an experienced veteran in the digital media business." Cuban writes that this is someone he "respects and trusts."
...as in record labels? There isn't all that much music on YouTube, last time I checked...
"an experienced veteran in the digital media business."
Oh my god, it's Prince!
How we know is more important than what we know.
is fucking obnoxious.
that is all
"In short, YouTube may have handed the major labels approximately $50M so that the labels would turn a blind eye to the copyright infringements AND go after the competition to cement YouTube's position in the market."
You mean... like... pay licensing fees? And encourage them to prosecute those who don't?
If there was a web site where you could download free clips of your favorite shows, movies, videos, etc, and that the copyright holders would recieve free advertising and same basic control over content of the site?
That bit about the lawsuits aimed at YouTube competitors is especially tasty. I don't know if Cuban has an axe to grind here, but if true it just confirms that Google is now simply interested in what all publicly traded companies do: maximizing shareholder value. Everything else is secondary.
Ah well. It was fun while it lasted.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
But it would have been helpful if his informant had distinguished a little between what part is secondhand gossip and what is pure fantasy.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
For example, there's one show that can't be found on YouTube by typing in its name. All you get is the odd clip. However, if you type in the first initials of the words that make up the shows name, you find a load of full episode. It'll be like the creators of Doctor Who's revival series who used 'Torchwood' to label tapes so no-one would nick and pirate them. All people will do is to give each show an alias name and put that up.
How about Goob ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Heh.. GooTube.. Heh..
why would youtube shell out a dime when the DMCA protects them?
cuban's take on youtube has been insane from day one
-- lol pwned
No source then? Just rumour? $50,000,000 isn't much to pirate anything you want. I mean, if that's all it takes, www.piratebay.org could probably get every user to stick in a £1 each and make the site legal.
That being said, maybe that's why I'm not a billionaire, millionaire, and why I'm fucking broke.
He's still an arogant prick, though!
How is this be a scandal anyways? It was in the open press just before the acquisition that youtube had negotiated a license with the copyright holders to publish music videos. Of course, that would not cover other video sharing sites, so they would continue to get sued, giving youtube an advantage in the market. How is that backhanded? Is it a conspiracy when Microsoft gives me preferential treatment by allowing me to use Windows XP because I bribed them with $199, whereas those who use XP without paying get sued? Well, you could put it that way, but it's just business as usual.
And as long as that remains a secret, the networks won't much care. Yeah, it represents lost money to them, but it's lost in the same noise that swallows up commercials that go unwatched because you're in the bathroom. Effectively, it's like sharing the video with a few of your friends: not the network's favorite solution, but not intolerable.
When any alias convention becomes well-known enough that anybody can download any TV show they want to, then it becomes big enough for them to issue a blanket request to YouTube/Google to take the video off. By the time it becomes public knowledge to you, it's public knowledge to them.
Their goal is to make it easier for you to watch the show their way than via YouTube. If they can take away the current system, where one guy records and posts it and everybody in the universe downloads it, they'll consider that a pretty big win. You can keep shifting, but if they're right behind you, many people would find it more aggravating than just watching it their way.
What the hell happened to the vaunted 'Do No Evil' of Google a few years back? The past year or two have seen Google become more and more evil, all probably due to the IPO a couple of years ago - Google is now owned by the shareholders, and the only pragmatic thing for corporations to do is to be evil, as being nice makes no money so the shareholders start complaining.
Google will become the next Microsoft before too long...
95% of all computer errors occur between chair and keyboard (TM)
Well according to this study:8 .html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061004-790
The daily show is just as good a source of news as some major networks.
Sad? Maybe, but it makes ya think (about your comparison).
You're supposed to pay license fees or whatever you want to call it because it gives you legitmacy, and it's supposed to be an advantage. If only you have to pay the said fees while other pirates are allowed to ignore it, then you're simply losing money for nothing. It is perfectly acceptable that if Google/YouTube paid the copyright holders a bunch of money to establish legitmacy that it'd be in their interest to get rid of other illegitmate sources. Otherwise they'd have wasted all that money for nothing.
How you do you know he's NOT doing all of that plus the BLOG... After all, he OWNS a pro basketball team amongst other things... I'm pretty sure if he's not married, he's definitely not without in the nookie department either.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Pretty much what I was going for. But I'm apparently trolling, so ah well. Don't criticize those who choose which stories to post! Even if they are being idiots! Whoohoo!
I wouldn't agree that Mark Cuban is an idiot I will say that he is a tool. He used to be on the side of consumers that are getting fake HD from Directv and Dish Network then one day its like no big deal.
Fake HD being 1920x1080i transcoded to 1280x1080i or 1440x1080i and reduced bit rate beyond what the lowering of resolutions would provide for. Sometimes the "HD" that they send looks like a bad xvid encode.
How is this evil on Google's part? As it sounds, they took a small part of their massive advertising income, paid it as a licensing fee to record labels, and can now offer a web site where their customers can freely and legally post content containing copyrighted music and video clips. That's a tremendous legal service offered to their customers at no charge. It should protect a large number of people from lawsuit who might have otherwise been at risk.
The only potentially "evil" thing is if the record labels are only suing competitors because Google paid them to. Do you actually think the RIAA and similar groups had decided to be benevolent to online video traders and mixers, and it was the evil, tainted money from Google that swayed them to sue? I'd be much more ready to believe that the RIAA/etc. have been drooling over the idea of more lawsuits to file, and simply needed to staff up their legal departments to handle video and derived uses as well as audio trading, and it's taken the last 9-12 months for the staffing budgets to be approved. (They are a bureaucracy, after all.)
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
To continue the above quote: "A few savvy agents might complain about receiving nothing and get a token amount, but most will be unaware of what transpired."
Copyright here is being used as a weapon by the big companies (Google and the entertainment conglomerates) to crush their competition while doing nothing for artists. The conglomorates get more money while cutting off the air supply to YouTube's competitors (the article mentions how suits against other sharing sites will scare off venture capital). Any anti-piracy controls instituted by YouTube will only increase the costs of entry for potential competitors. Having YouTube on side may come in handy for the entertainment companies if artists start trying to cut out the middle man. The upshot for artists is no more money and fewer avenues to release their works.
Just read his blog and try to think otherwise. He hasn't managed to lose his fortune yet, but give him a few years or ten.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
They really should avoid that nickname...
Well, it's better than "sticky wicket", eh, what?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Or they'd have to pay the artists a cut.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Mod up! Good point.
From TFA:
The media companies had their typical challenges. Specifically, how to get money from Youtube without being required to give any to the talent (musicians and actors)? If monies were received as part of a license to Youtube then they would contractually obligated to share a substantial portion of the proceeds with others. For example most record label contracts call for artists to get 50% of all license deals. It was decided the media companies would receive an equity position as an investor in Youtube which Google would buy from them. This shelters all the up front monies from any royalty demands by allowing them to classify it as gains from an investment position. A few savvy agents might complain about receiving nothing and get a token amount, but most will be unaware of what transpired.
If true, Google is firmly outside the "do no evil" camp to me.
If YouTube gave the labels only $50 million, and Google gave YouTube $1.6 BILLION, no matter what the relative value, rights, or agreements, the labels are going to renege on the agreement.
They might not get away with it. Whatever happened to their attempts to wrestle out of their <$0.99 deal with Jobs on iTunes?
They're dumb, but they're strong. $50M is a drop in the bucket, even with the CD sales biz down to something like $10-12B a year.
It will be interesting to see how much Google eventually winds up paying these vultures, and how much unrestricted distribution results. And how much blood is spilled along the way.
--
make install -not war
I actually think you're right here. Universal/NBC = owned by GE. NBC has several legit things on YouTube right now and they seem to be working with YouTube, not against them. I don't see how them going after sites that they're NOT working with is a surprise.
Hmm that's what I used to call my Johnson.. GooTube(tm)
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
To continue the above quote: "A few savvy agents might complain about receiving nothing and get a token amount, but most will be unaware of what transpired.
They'd do a class action if they have any sense.
If you read Mark Cuban's blog. This makes it more believable, by the way.
-------------------------------------------------
Interesting enough to maybe be true. Certainly paints Google in a far worse light than anything else I've heard of, though, so that makes it a bit suspicious.
And I'm not exactly a Google fan...
Let's not forget, this is the same guy who, approx 1 month ago, said "only a moron would buy youtube"
"i stand on the edge of destruction" -shai hulud
The single main reason why I felt so ambivalent about Google's digestion of YouTube is because I knew it'd kill it. Barely 12 hours after the initial news of the acquisition hit, we were also hearing reports of how Universal and the other usual parasites were already circling.
Time to go back to the BT darknets or Kad, guys. "Mainstream," means "chewed up, with anything even remotely resembling worthwhile or genuinely meaningful material filtered, and spat out," where this type of thing is concerned.
I hope the two founders of YouTube enjoy their money. I'm also trying not to blame them for selling out...I would have done the same in their situation, as would anyone else. I just wish there'd been a way for them to still make a couple of billion dollars while still ensuring that YouTube wasn't going to end up being destroyed in the process.
But like I said, there's still p2p.
The NYT reported the week of the deal that the music labels got shares ahead of the buy to compensate their music video libraries being online as well as future revenue sharing on ads.
Some rumor.
What - did it have to be on the front page to qualify as reported?
dat's a nice website (shop) you've got der... you wouldn't want anything to happen to it now would you... I mean, copyright suits (fires) are happening all over da place... who knows where it'll happen next...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
And soon artists will have to belong to RIAA etc to get any traction on utube at all - prominent placing, preferential search treatment etc. Then we're back to where we started.
Look ahead Go-MySpace-Youtube-ogle .com?
This is an interesting variation on greenmail and greymail. Nothing sinister gonig on.
Here's your tin foil hat.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I mean, how much income did their web service generate? None, as far as I can make out.
Was this an investment ploy used specifically to fleece Google or some other big buyer? The whole thing was a pump & dump? That was their business plan?
What the heck?
Stuff like this just makes my head spin. At least that big tech bubble of the mid to late nineties made sense in an irrational sort of way. People lost their shirts on a stupid invesetment; it was dumb and giddy, but logical after a fashion. You could see it coming. This kind of scheme is just screwy. I wish I had $100,000,000 to throw around on some half-baked plan contingent on totally random market factors.
How do you sell an idea like that?
-FL
it can't be being used by Google. Remember, Don't be evil.