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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.
although the summary focused on the "guarantee" of security joost represented for viacom, i think the one-sided distribution model is the big difference. i think, fundamentally, google's business plan revolves around letting end users become the content providers, and google just indexes all of the content -- they make it possible to navigate. this is a view orthogonal to what we're seeing with the media companies, of course. they want to create the content, own it, and control it. they don't want to sell it, but to license it.
the problem, of course, is a matter of generating quality content from the user side.
1/3 of the content i "consume" is probably user-generated. if it weren't for movies/netflix, and television bits on youtube, it would be much closer to 100%. i can certainly envision a future where it becomes more and more fragmented as the tools to generate content become cheaper and cheaper.
mr c
"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." - R. Feynman
"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.
You misunderstand - you don't get to upload anything, at least by the colloquial definition.
Joost is basically a locked down Bittorent with some big ass servers to provide data when there are no peers available with the content you want. Content is only placed there by commercial interests, NOT users - that's the bid draw to the Viacoms of the world. Joost is using it's users' bandwidth and disk space; users get free content with 1/100th the advertising as regular TV (so the creators say).
My opinion - it will be a success like Kazaa and Skype - make the originators a shitpot of money, and the buyer will be left with a product of questionable legality/profit potential.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
What about veoh? Where, by the way, you can see more original shows like The House Between.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
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.
I'm working on something that is exactly what you describe, but I need an answer to the question that will take this from hobby to Viacom-killing profession, and that question is "How do I see money?" Who pays for it? Sure, I can get investors once, but after they don't see their money back, I'm sunk. Is this the type of thing that I can pay for with Google ads? Only if people can't scrape the video and watch it offline. Only if they can't post it on YouTube.
Nope, the distribution model is fucked. All hail technology, making it easier and easier to distribute content for which there's no commercial incentive!
Let me start of by saying, I don't mind paying for watching programs. If they're reasonably short, I don't even mind the occasional ad. But I also don't have unlimited resources. Buying content from iTunes still seems too expensive to me. I'd like to get The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Battlestar Gallatica, Mythbusters, and possibly Psych. That very quickly comes close to just getting cable TV. Which I don't want for several reasons (one of them, is I'm unable to do a 1 year contract).
.. their sales model is based on the fact that with old-style TV, you have to watch the crap they want you to watch. You have to watch the ads, you have to watch a specific time, and if it's crap, you'll watch anyways.
So I've been waiting for IPTV. Technically, I don't understand why it would be so difficult to do. I mean, Comedy Central's Motherload already does it. Only crappily. You can't actualy get the full show, and the picture is *really* *really* small. But I guess there are other reasons that I may never fully understand. Though, in my naivate, I'm going to suggest greed as being on the top of the list.
And as the article pointed out, Youtube and Joost serve two different purposes. I mean, I guess it would be nice to get anything I wanted on Youtube, but the clips I've seen are never the full show, and once again, that is what I'd like. Watching short clips of a funny show just aggrevate me.
And so I'm actually excited about Joost. I mean, I still am not exactly sure how it will work, since the details seem to be a bit skimpy, but at least it has the potential. Then I skim over some of the shows that Viacom is releasing, and it all looks like crap. Especially since I don't see the Daily Show on their list. It's a 'will include' list, but that usually means what they don't list are only crappier crap.
Perhaps it's something as simple as them testing the market, and not wanting to release their 'prized possessions', but that seems stupid to me. The shows they have listed, I, nor do I suspect most people, care to see. So they'll run it for a while, claim low viewership, and end the program. And then they'll cite the stats as to why they'll never do anything with the interweb again. Assholes.
It's not that I think all their claims are invalid
It's not that it's impossible to come up with a new sales-model. They just have no interest in doing so.
Sure there is. Its just not as direct as they are thinking. Since its digital media being displayed on screen, all ya gotta do is dump the video memory of the screen area where its displayed to disk. Instant saved video. There are numerous software packages out there to do this, some free, some not, but all designed specifically for this. Similar to using a tape recorder to record the music from the radio, or a camcorder to record a TV show, but in pure digital fashion, since its pulling the direct digital image from ram. Just another tech developed to fuel the pr0n industry, mostly used for people to record webcams ;)
Tm
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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?
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.
Sure but that show would be lonelygirl15, and uh... all I'm saying is that because of what's catchy to males on the internet, the transition is going to be embarrassing.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
This distribution deal is a move that is good for the Internet media revolution. For one, it establishes a real competitor to YouTube with content people will actually want to watch. Without bundling that content with the network: Joost is just the distributor, owning no rights.
But more importantly, it puts copyrighted content into a YouTube competitor that can challenge YouTube if YouTube has the content. That means that YouTube's copyright enforcement doesn't happen in an vacuum of arbitrary claims and baseless decisions. When Joost complains, it will have a copy of the content and a copy of the contract with the content owner. The process to enforce copyright between the two corporations can take place in the well understood realm of corporate negotiations and lawsuits.
Of course, it would be better for everyone (including Viacom, and especially YouTube and Joost) if copyrights didn't slow down every media transaction. But until copyrights actually are peeled back to a legitimate scope, duration and enforcement regime, getting competitors with paper trails to manage it is the best we can do, and better than nothing.
--
make install -not war
Have you visited ABC.com or NBC.com lately? Actually, I wouldn't blame you for missing it, because they haven't exactly been sounding the trumpets about this. They've buried it under piles of throwaway interview clips and crapisodes, I mean webisodes. But if you click around for a while, you'll eventually come across the fabled Full-Episode player, where you can actually, really, right now watch the entire current season run of all of ABC and NBC shows, free with ads.
Ignoring the player app (a typical Flash monstrosity), ABC is actually doing everything right: There are 3-4 commercials per show, which you can choose to watch at any time (by skipping forward). Some commercials are longer than 30 seconds; if you're interested you can keep watching it, but if not you can skip the rest! Once you've watched a commercial, that part of the show is "unlocked", so you never have to watch the same commercial twice (Hallelujah!). It's actually possible to watch all the commercials upfront and then see the entire show with no breaks.
It's amazing to me that this made it through the corporate innovation-crushing machine. If ABC's player had a decent full-screen mode, and better quality video, it would basically be my perfect ad-supported-TV-watching experience.
Firebug. It will make your jaw hit the floor.
As long as it doesn't obstruct the actual presentation I believe product placements are the way to go for online content.
You mean like that part in Wayne's World?
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