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YouTube Was Evil, and Google Knew It
pcause writes "Silicon Alley Insider has the most damning evidence released in the Viacom/YouTube suit. It seems clear from these snippets that YouTube knew it was pirating content, and did it to grow fast and sell for a lot of money. It also seems clear that Google knew the site contained pirated content and bought it and continued the pirating."
404: Evil Not Found
AnimePapers.org: Anime Wallpapers Handled With Care
Google simply believes that it's above the law
I believe this about myself too, but I prefer to say that the law, in its current state, is beneath me..
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
I find it unlikely that Google considers this evil.
I suggest you RTFA. There is a quotation there, of one of Google's executives, which specifically says that infringing on someone's copyright, or knowingly aiding in such an infringement, is a violation of the "don't be evil" policy.
So, yes, the title of the story is spot on.
The word "evil" is actually used (as in the context of "I don't care how evil we have to be, just do it") in the emails and instant messaging transcripts disclosed in TFA. Other choice expressions include "fucking copyright assholes" and "we don't actually care, we're just doing this to avoid being sued." I'm an open source software author myself (reference rpush.org, among other things), and I choose to license my stuff quite liberally. However, I absolutely demand that others respect the licensing terms I distribute my materials under, and I respect the licenses chosen by others. Violating that is absolutely inexcusable. It irritates me to no end that the open source community will frequently scream bloody murder over a GPL violation, then turn around and say stuff like this "isn't evil."
If ever there were a case for RTFA, this is surely it. I would have modded you down, but felt it was better to respond in full. Other mods, please mod parent down.
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I think if they search harder, they may find that as a search engine, google indexed pages about piracy, hate speech, and terrorism. How evil is that?
Don't get me started about the PHONE COMPANY. They carry all sorts of damnable content. I've heard copyrighted music over a phone, before.
it is unamerican, because it is feudal. it gives control of the intellectual life over to a few. the needs of the few coming before the needs of the many, is contrary to american revolutionary ideas. leaving all of those aside, those interests are controlling your own government through the candidates and senators they sponsor. currently it is 'by the corporations, by the corporations. it should be 'by the people, for the people'.
despite the illusion that is 'you can also own a copyright', a very tiny minority of population owns the bulk of copyrights and patents and profits from them, preventing others from getting anything. in a way, situation is no similar than a peasant having a chance at being a baron in middle ages.
Read radical news here
Given the nature of YouTube's content over the years, and the fact that all these emails and IM transcripts are coming out now, don't you think there might have been a need for just a little more due diligence prior to acquiring YouTube? Holy cow, thoroughly research a company before you buy it for over a billion dollars. What a concept.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I find it unlikely that Google considers this evil. After all, given their stance toward books and other literature ... Google simply believes that it's above the law, and 'evil' can be conveniently redefined ...
That has to be the single most abhorrent abuse of the word "evil" I've ever seen. Google believes that the contents of libraries should be made available of the Web. They have a strong point, and I think I actually agree with them, though I realize that the increased ease of access will cause problems for the current publishing business model. What you appear to be saying is that any attempt to increase the public's access to content that would damage an existing business model is inherently evil. I believe that to be nonsensical (though if you simply disagree, I take no exception to that... it's the demonization of the concept of an electronic library that I think is wrong).
Now, on to YouTube: YouTube is a tough nut, and I think we'll be doing the world a disservice if we resolve it as if it were a single issue in a vacuum. The core question reverses the library/business model issue. It is suggested by Viacom et al. that the ready access to information creates an environment in which the standard protections afforded to those who provide physical space for information (e.g. cork boards) are not acceptable online and that carriers of that information must be held liable for the use of those spaces. We're not arguing that Google is evil, we're arguing that they knew they were getting themselves into a legal morass which would likely result in Google defending their side of the case in court and shaping the laws of our land with respect to the Internet. That is actually quite the opposite of evil.
In both cases, I'm cheering for an outcome that happens to coincide with Google's interests, but I would be (grudgingly) rooting for the same outcome were it Microsoft or Monsanto being attacked for the same reasons.
You know what's evil? Copyright term of "70 years + life of the author".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_term
Almost every single thing creative that someone creates today will *never* enter the public domain within our lifetime. Nothing. The owner of the copyright must explicitly grant it to the public domain, or license it for other's use, distribution, sharing, mashing, basically anything more than fair use... Copyright is no longer about promotion of creativity, its a legal exclusivity and an effectively permanent lock on all creative output by business interests. Add WIPO and ACTA and soon within 10 years or so, it will be a global exclusive lock, again driven by business interests.
The current copyright laws are simply a denial of any sense of balance or social good in intellectual property.
And... you know, until the end Viacom was up to buy YouTube. They just lost to Google.
So Viacom also knew how evil YouTube was -- and they were still trying to buy it.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/18/viacom-may-be-misrepresenting-youtube-founders-call-to-steal-it/
Here is the source of the quote. It is a thread of several emails, but only from one side:
To me, when taken in context that sounds like a pretty reasonable half of a conversation. He does not advocate copyright infringement. He also states that they should not get all high and mighty against file sharers. He then sums up saying that they have a community who makes its own content which other sites do not.
All seems pretty reasonable to me.
http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-pirate
Really? Is this the most damning evidence? On a scale of 1 being least damning and 10 being most damning where does this fall when also considering that Viacom was uploading videos to YouTube in an effort to make YouTube look like it was infringing?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/18/youtube-viacom-would-demand-removal-of-videos-it-covertly-uploa/
Fuck the media conglomerates. I hope they all rot.
This is much, much worse than what you're describing. Please read through all the materials provided in the article (it'll take a while). These are records of intimate knowledge of, flagrant disregard for, and active encouragement of copyright violations on a massive scale, including documented specific instances where employees are aware that copyrighted materials were being posted and not only did absolutely nothing, they were laughing about it.
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The founding fathers supported the patent and copyright systems, to promote industrial and artistic creativity. They understood that without a way to protect the intellectual creations, such as books, music, architectural designs, inventions, et al, there would be less motivation for people to spend the time, and energy, to create them.
I could argue against you here, but I cannot hope to be more eloquant than a founding father. :P
England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.
- - Thomas Jefferson
13 Aug. 1813
People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
That is exactly my point.
Your point is exactly that there's basically no evil except where one guy chose to violate copyright on purpose and was bitched out by the others for it, demonstrating their lack of evilness?
I don't think so.
If they find nothing at all, it shows that Google failed at proper due diligence prior to buying YouTube.
The implication being that Google should have discovered this one instance of actual evil and based on that refused to buy Youtube. "Proper due diligence" is reading every internal email ever, and if you find one instance of something bad, no sale?
Makes no sense to me. Precious few purchases would ever be made if that was the case. Or, alternatively, practically every company ever fails your definition of due diligence.
But let's say they did see that email, and said to themselves "well that guy did this, but he stopped when told to, so no biggie." That's how I feel about it. And what would be the horrible crime here exactly?
Either way, it's bad.
I'm not seeing it. A few instances of actual copyright infringement would not be the end of the world for Google. It'd barely be anything.
The rest, hey maybe legally it's an issue, but I don't think it should be. I don't want every hosting service to have to act as copyright police as well. I think that's nuts, and bound to result in over-aggressive policies that stifle free speech.
The enemies of Democracy are
Another article:
Meanwhile, Google says, Viacom "regularly uses so-called 'stealth marketing' to get its content onto YouTube. The goal is to create the appearance of authentic grassroots interest in the content being promoted." Google cites a marketing executive at Viacom's Paramount studio who said that clips posted to YouTube "should definitely not be associated with the studio -- should appear as if a fan created and posted it." To accomplish that, Google says that "Viacom employees have made special trips away from the company's premises (to places like Kinko's) to upload videos to YouTube from computers not traceable to Viacom."
Also, "Viacom has altered its own videos to make them appear stolen." Indeed, Google says that a former president of MTV, not named, testified that Viacom didn't take down clips from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report because "we were concerned that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert believed that their presence on YouTube was important for their ratings as well as for their relationship with their audience."
So... who's evil here?
Help stamp out iliturcy.