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Viacom Turns to Joost, Spurns YouTube
Vincenzo writes "Viacom has signed a deal with Joost that will see content from MTVI, Comedy Central, and CBS distributed on the new P2P distribution service. The move comes just two weeks after demanding YouTube pull over 100,000 videos offline. 'Joost's promise to protect their copyrights was a major factor in Viacom's decision, and also a stumbling block in their discussions with YouTube/Google. At the moment is it quite easy to download and store video content from YouTube, but no such exploit for Joost is known to exist.' It's also a 'secure' distribution medium in the eyes of many in the entertainment industry, since users can't upload content themselves.'"
The lack of executive foresight never ceases to amaze me. Did they ever consider that no exploits exist for Joost because:
1. Joost isn't yet available to the public at large. (You need to sign up for a beta.)
2. No one cares about Joost?
If Viacom signs a contract with Joost, the "security" of their distribution method will change in a hurry.
The amazing part is that a simple trip down the hall to the IT department would have told these executives this. It's just too bad that execs never trust their own technology staff. As far as they're concerned, we're just a bunch of whiners and worry-warts.
Besides, someone might save that 2 minute Craig Ferguson clip to their hard drive. OMG, OMG, OMG! The world will end! What will they do?!? (Shh! No one tell them about VCRs!)
That being said, I'm sure this move is actually more political than technical. Which only makes Viacoms position that much worse. Do they really want to cover over their political maneuvering by making themselves look uneducated?
From the Joost website:
And that would make us, YourJoost(TM)! Which you can watch on a tube. Sort of like a... YourTube(TM). Or something.
Who writes this stuff?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Enough to make one. If there's content people want, they'll break joost too.
It's as if they never learn...
You have to wonder what Viacom is thinking here. Joost's market share is much smaller than the other video services (Google, YouTube, Yahoo, etc). Is copyright protection such an issue that they would shun the market leaders?
I'm still not sure why there is such a big deal about copyrighted video on YouTube. The advertising you get for your show being uploaded to the site is probably worth much more than the marginal lost you may have incurred from it being uploaded. I don't anyone is interested in archiving the lower quality flash video files from their site. Pirates will always get the shows from bittorent or other P2P services. The only thing I can think of is they are worried about loosing web traffic from each shows website. Why not cross link to the videos on YouTube from their websites?
The entertainment industry really needs to start getting creative. They need to learn to work with these new technologies and trends, rather than against them.
"I'll see you next time." - LeVar Burton
My guess is Google is betting on real user content. If they get enough high quality "home-made videos" they believe they'll still get a huge viewership without any copyright infringement issues. And some shows will still put up some limited content to get people interested in tuning in on traditional TV.
Developers: We can use your help.
Um.... A little publicity, a little goodwill, ads next to the YouTube content, good programmers, and a method of distribution they consider the future. Not so good on a cash-on-a-barrel level, but quite good for a company with some vision....
My little site.
Regardless of your position on the fair-use/control of content (by fair-use I mean being able to play content you legally on whatever device, etc. you wish), this statement smells of "monopolistic" activity. Unlawful activities do not start at users uploading content. They start with users uploading content they don't own (or even before that). The idea that an organization would believe it is appropriate to say a service is only 'secure' because we're the only ones who can submit content to it goes against everything that a free-market society believes. That one single quote does not say that users can't pirate content; rather, it says that we're the only organization with the rights to create and distribute our content.
In my opinion, that is the big story here. Not the decision to choose one delivery method over another.
Comparing joost and youtube is a bit of a apples and oranges scenario.
IIRC, Joost is the diametric opposite of YouTube. The user experience in YouTube is P2P, but the technology is B2C. For Joost, the user experience is (I am guessing) B2C, but the technology is P2P.
Again , I don't know a lot about Joost (I'm not a TV watcher), but it sounds to me like something that would be attractive to content providers because it offers a familiar business model. It's like Joost is a cable network that delivers over the Internet.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So many people here are comparing Joost to YouTube. They're not the same. They're not *meant* to be the same. Joost is about high-quality (video and audio) content. Stuff that I can watch on my 70" HDTV with Bose surround sound. Not stuff to be played through my crappy laptop speakers. Do you all honestly think that the guys behind both Kazaa and Skype *don't* know what they're doing?
I just don't seen the interest in commercial content on sites like YouTube. The quality is so sucky and/or the time to download is, one or the other. Plus, I would prefer to watch higher quality content on my TV, not my computer, but I ain't gonna buy some kind of YouTube->Tivo box, because my VCR/DVD player does fine in that regard as far as I'm concerned. I go to YouTube 100% for user generated content, because it's quirky, funny and/or amateurish, which I have been known to find quite entertaining. Better than the commercial versions of "Reality" TV which are pure crap equiv. to Phil Donohue, "let's see how stupid we can get people to act," and which are not entertaining to me in the slightest. If I want good commercial stuff (IMHO mostly 10yrs old or more, anyway) I'll either tune in the TV and/or time-delay VCR, or buy it on DVD. When I want to see what odd things people are doing in their living rooms on their own that's when I go to YouTube...
I have two thoughts. First, if an online show (on YouTube or elsewhere) is popular enough, maybe viewers would want to (try to) produce their own online shows (remember, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery)? If so, you might argue that the show implicitly advertises whatever equipment is used to produce it, and assuming the imitators would want to have the same equipment as is used by the original show (to achieve the same level of technical quality), the company that makes the equipment would benefit by supporting the show financially.
Second, I seem to remember listening to a few old radio shows (circa 1950) were able to run with only a singular sponsor. The Burns and Allen Show, for example, was sponsored by Maxwell House (the coffee brand), and every so often the characters would talk about why they drink Maxwell House coffee, how it's "good to the last drop", etc. No other advertisements or product placements Perhaps in this age of multi-million dollar TV shows, where fully 1/3 of your average TV show is commercials, the public has forgotten that it used to be possible to produce quality entertainment for much less, even when inflation is accounted for.
Disclaimer: I am not an MBA, I am not in the Entertainment industry, and I am not old enough to have listened to Burns and Allen when they were new.
when google announced their intention to purchase YouTube (including the cost), GOOG was at about $426. by the time the acquisition closed, GOOG was a $489; most of that jump was in the two weeks after the announcement, around the middle of october - a period during which there was no other significant news. granted, things have slowed down a bit since then, but the trend still remains significantly positive.
i don't understand what google intends to do with YouTube, but if they want to use their ridiculously over-valued stock to buy ridiculously over-priced companies, i'm willing to give them a chance to show me that they've got something in mind i can't see.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Here's a link backing it up.
Frankly, I think CBS has the right idea with youtube; Short clips are a great way to advertise your TV shows, and also people will sit through 5-10 seconds ads in order to get the known quality of a specific uploader (i.e. CBS in this case). Right now, the only thing hurting them is that you can't do a youtube search limited to a specific user, and any random Joe can put "CBS" in his tags. I would expect google to fix that eventually.
Others will jump on the bandwagon when they realize CBS is benefiting from youtube. Joost is actually orthogonal, since it is about full-length shows rather than clips. Smart TV channels would likely post on both, using youtube clips to advertise shows on TV as well as Joost. Of course with the inevitable cracking of Joost's DRM, that will likely cause the channels to pull any new content, and doom joost's entire business model.