Slashdot Mirror
YouTube AntiPiracy Policy Likened to 'Mafia Shakedown'
A C|Net article discusses reactions to YouTube's newly proposed antipiracy software policy. The company is now offering assistance for IP holders, allowing them to keep track of their content on the YouTube service ... if they sign up with the company for licensing agreements. A spokesman for Viacom (already in a fight with YouTube to take down numerous video clips) called this policy 'unacceptable', and another industry analyst likened it to a 'mafia shakedown.' YouTubes cites the challenges of determining ownership of a given video clip as the reason for this policy, and hopes that IP owners will cooperate in resolving these issues. Some onlookers also feel that these protestations are simply saber-rattling before an eventual deal: "'The debates are about negotiations more than anything else--who's going to pay whom and how much,' said Saul Berman, IBM's global media and entertainment strategy leader."
Another important feature of our culture is property rights: the idea that you can get rich by being smart in what you own. Laws ensure that if others want to use what they own they have to pay you, and because you're certain of that you'll invest in making and acquiring stuff. It's the essence of capitalism, and that investment in both intellectual and physical resources makes people rich.
The term "intellectual property" incorporates both aspects of the culture and gets to the crux of the conflict: we share our intellect but do not share our property. But as intellectual property can be shared without rivalry, the process is upended.
That's the answer to your question "What's the point?" We have two traditions in our culture: building on each other's work, and owning (and getting rich from) property. The easy sharing of information brings those two cultural values into conflict.
Those who claim that the argument has already been settled in favor of sharing over property are (IMO) missing the fact that property has always been a crucial driver of innovation and investment. Many intellectual things are expensive to create, movies most obvious among them, because they incorporate physical elements (sets, cameras, lights) before they become mere bits to be shared. The movie industry continues to believe that they can make money off their "intellectual property" on the basis of selling it like traditional property. If you manage to convince them that they're wrong, it's more likely that they'll stop making movies than that they'll produce them and expect to be unable to recoup their expenses.
The conflict of the two values will eventually produce a shift to a new order, and I don't know what that's going to look like.