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."

Comments

Tilting at windmills

[Buran]

Every time I see a story like this, it just upsets me. It's going against our culture, which values sharing and building upon others' work, and making use of what we already have to create new things. What's the point of this? It's just tilting at windmills -- those values are so ingrained in us that they're not going to go away.

Re:Tilting at windmills

[jfengel]

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.

Re:Tilting at windmills

[neax]

I guess the confusion here lies in the distinction between physically property and intellectual property. Is is really fair that someone can have exclusive rights to an 'idea' or should they just just be able to make money out of the application of this idea? Copyrights inhibit growth. They discourage people from reusing good ideas and building on top of them. They encourage people to rebuild their own type of wheel. so where does this fit with IP? People need to be able to make money out of the work that they do, but perhaps the current system is flawed. No matter how much they fight piracy and sharing it will always exist, it is the nature of humans to share things. "hey John have you heard this great new album by band X? its great, ..no.... you can't listen to mine go buy your own".

There will always be free riders looking for a free lunch.....as i have been in the past...and sometimes i still am. But i believe that ultimatley it is only good for the artist / producer or whatever it is that is getting ripped off. If you were a band, that made an album or a video clip, would you rather sell 10,000 albums and have 10,000 fans with no one sharing your material, or sell 10,000 albums and have them sharing your work and have 1 million fans? what is better for your music and your future in the industry? I think that being know and getting noticed counts more than actual sales. It will always eventually lead back to sales, ticket sales for concerts etc. Even if only 5,000 people bought the album because the rest copied it, if they share it they are promoting your band which is basically free marketing. That will always lead to sales.

So they bemoan having to pay for their enforcement

[plasmacutter]

Funny, everyone else has to pay for their own enforcement.

The public has to pay for police work in taxes, the government has to pay employees for studies, every major corporation has to pay their security guards and in most cases security system contractors to keep their buildings secure.

The media industries should be no different. If they want others to be looking out for their interests, they should be paying those people for their troubles.

Re:Doesn't YouTube know

[tomhudson]

Tony Soprano called ... he wants the media companies to know they're infringing on his "Intellectual Property" when they use his tactics ... a couple of the boys will be by later to discuss how they can "purchase protection" or "insurance" ... you knw ... "would be a real shame if something bad were to happen ..."

So let me get this right?

[zappepcs]

YouTube is arguably one of the largest video sites on the Internet and people are upset when they want to charge for the service of policing the world's multimedia efforts?

Sure, they host them, and perhaps can or do check them, but the law doesn't say that people need to check for IP rights before using something (IIRC) and that it is the IP holder's job to request the violator change their use of the IP or take it down.

If YouTube did this free, they would become IP policemen, and that can't be cheap. Why wouldn't they charge for this service? To me, this doesn't sound like mafia tactics so much as it sounds like business tactics. Offer a service and charge for it. I am thinking that Google et al haven't figured out how to generate ad revenue from this service so they want to charge for it.

Sounds like simple business practice to me. I might be wrong though.

Screw YouTube...

[MsGeek]

...there are other places to post video. I hope they don't wind up the iTunes of online video.

A friend of mine's Daria fan animations (no they aren't hentai) got taken off of YouTube. Viacom has been approving of fan films in the past, the most elaborate of which being the Star Trek: The Original Series continuation "The New Voyages," hosted at http://www.newvoyages.com/ . The fan films got swept up in the Viacom/YouTube dragnet. This pissed me off because quite a few people from the Daria fandom were involved, and they really were nicely done.

Hopefully an appeal to have the fan films reinstated will be successful.

The screwed thing is that unless you take a lot of trouble with 3rd party apps you cannot download a YouTube .FLV. And the resulting file is pretty crappy looking no matter what you do, because .FLVs are so intensely compressed and lose so much in the lossy compression process. I mean WTF? Big Media is getting FREE PUBLICITY even with the copyrighted stuff. They are using YouTube as a promotional tool on the one hand, then on the other they are screwing the fans.

There are alternatives. Metacafe, Ning, Revver...all excellent choices for showing your stuff. And there is always BIT TORRENT for something a bit higher quality and a bit more permanent.

Big media needs to grow a brain. YouTube needs to grow a spine. Everyone wins when content is up on YouTube. Everyone loses when these silly fights start up.

Or more likely, with translation

[DrYak]

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.

Daring fire-style translation :

No, we won't let you just pipe the results of your auto-suit-bots into our database.
Identifying actual copyright infrigment, from fair use, from complete false-positive is a very difficult job and if we botch it, people are going to make fun of all of us including YouTube, like it hapened before with the tutorials. So please now pay for the actual work force needed to perform what you ask.