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.'"

Comments

Great thinking guys

[AKAImBatman]

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.

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:

Yesterday, we were The Venice Project(TM). Today, we're Joost(TM). Tomorrow, we're yours!

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?

Re:Great thinking guys

[truthsearch]

One of the nice things we see in music these days is the little guy creating and distributing high-quality audio. I'd like to see the same for video. The problem so far is that only these behemoth companies own the current content and can afford large production and distribution. If finally we'd see some significant competition from startups then Viacom and others might be forced to let go a little. If some hot new show distributed freely over the internet took eyeballs away from Viacom content maybe they'd be forced to come to their senses. Maybe.

Re:Great thinking guys

[Philip K Dickhead]

The idea here, is to block Google as the emerging media powerhouse.

I know it is probably ill-conceived, and the touted 'intellectual property' reasons are more secondary cover - than they are prime motivator.

Everyone is afraid of GOOG - telcos, TV and Cable channels, Hollywood and Microsoft. Watch them position and align to marginalize and even criminalize them. It is pretty pathetic. The 'content providers' especially. They want a 'pay at the gate' scenario, and will compromise/misunderstand every technology to get there.

Re:Great thinking guys

[HTH NE1]

Many video cards include an S-Video output. Coupled with an available audio output, it is a simple matter to run the pair through an external digital video encoder to get it into DV, then crop it to get an unencumbered copy. I've done it for my employer (I was assured we had permission for the purpose for which it was used).

The video was below SD quality, but if it was greater I could have done multiple captures and stitched the frames together given enough overlap. You don't even need timecodes when you have jump cuts.

Re:Great thinking guys

[gEvil (beta)]

(Shh! No one tell them about VCRs!)

You're forgetting that their response was almost identical when VCRs first came out.

Re:Great thinking guys

[morgan_greywolf]

As you know, it's not about copyrights or money. It's about control. The media industry doesn't want to lose control of content. If anyone can upload, then anyone can upload content -- it doesn't even matter who's it is. They've been calling the shots, deciding what people should see and how the pairs of eyeballs should be divided up amongst them. Google/YouTube creates anarchy and chaos where they no longer have control over what people see and what people do with what they see.

Mass media isn't so profitable if everyone can participate. That's what it's all about and that's what it's always been all about. Everything else is misdirection.

There's no known exploit 'cause nobody's cared

[HarryCaul]

Enough to make one. If there's content people want, they'll break joost too.

It's as if they never learn...

Is the smaller audience more beneficial?

[rizzo320]

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.

Re:Is the smaller audience more beneficial?

[AKAImBatman]

You have to wonder what Viacom is thinking here. Is copyright protection such an issue that they would shun the market leaders?

Realisticly, it's an attempt by Viacom to place pressure on GooTube to do what they want. What they want is for Google to offer ultra-restrictive access to their... [my] precious... video content. Furthermore, they want Google to invent a foolproof copyright checker (as if such a thing is possible) to prevent average users from uploading Daily Show and Stephen Colbert clips. They're using the Joost deal as a bargaining chip to make Google do what they want.

In reality, this will end one of two ways:

1. Google will reply with a big, "So what?" and Viacom will only pay lip service to their Joost contract. A year down the road, Viacom will come back to YouTube with a cry of "me too!" when they notice how well the advertising is working for their competitors.

2. Google will appease Viacom with special features like: Prominent display of their content on the YouTube front page. Viacom will gruffly agree (when that's really one of the outcomes they were hoping for), but "only if you guys crack down harder on copyright violations!" Joost will get dropped like a rock.

Now if this was the Google of old, I'd say they will go with the first option. But given the slow progress of Google toward becoming Just Another Big Business(TM), I'd say it's just as likely that they'll take door #2.