Two billions down the tube ?
Now that Google has purchased YouTube for a cool billion and a half, the old copyright questions have emerged once more. Will the presence of that much cash attract the copyright vultures? Will YouTube filter out all infringing material, only to lose its audience? Some analysts are worried.
That's because YouTube has already committed publicly to developing and deploying technology that can sniff out copyrighted video clips and bits of music; this technology has figured prominently in its recent deals with content owners. But despite talking up the technology, it has yet to be publicly released. How YouTube eventually deploys it could affect their business operations significantly.
"There's very little that holds YouTube's audience to YouTube except the belief that whatever they want to see, there is a very good chance YouTube will have it," Joe Laszlo, an analyst with JupiterKagan, told the Associated Press. "If the video migrates to other places, I fear the audience will too, so YouTube needs to be really careful about how it does this."
This isn't a new concern. BusinessWeek pointed out the dilemma that the site faced months ago. "If they cater too much to their users, they risk getting sued for copyright violations and losing the support of content companies. If they're seen as favoring content companies, however, they could lose their millions of fans."
YouTube's compliance system apparently scans the entire database of clips for infringing material, which includes everything from user-posted music videos to clips from the Daily Show to dispatches from Iraq that feature unlicensed music as a soundtrack. The burden of using these tools and discovering infringing content falls to the content owners, who then can make a decision about what they want YouTube to do. They can ignore the clip, ask them to pull it, or, in the case of "official" content like music videos, have it replaced with the approved version.
YouTube has also inked several deals that allow users to incorporate major-label music into their own creations. Such videos would not be pulled from the site, but advertising revenue from the display of those clips would be shared with the content owner.
[Nate Anderson - Ars Technica - October 13, 2006]
Google, no stranger to lawsuits, may find a whole new class of complainers lining up for a check after the Web search leader buys video entertainment site YouTube for US$1.65 billion.
The acquisition will give Google a major foothold in the emerging market for video advertising, but it also stands to inherit court challenges from independent film makers, garage bands, television studios and others who may chafe at YouTube users uploading copyrighted material to the site without permission.
Legal experts and industry veterans said these artists and companies could look to YouTube's new deep-pocket backer for payment, either in business deals or courtroom battles.
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"For some of the bigger players in the industry, and given the amount of publicity that this deal has brought, it may be a perfect staging area for them to bring an infringement suit," said Kristin Achterhof, partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman, a law firm with Hollywood and music industry clientele.
Google has faced a battery of lawsuits, from trademark infringement suits from auto insurer GEICO and news agency Agence France Presse, to legal spats with the US government over privacy issues, to copyright suits from book publishers.
Although Google and YouTube seem to be on good terms with the media industry by announcing on Monday a spate of deals with music labels, analysts say the legal travails of the Web's most popular video service are just beginning.
YouTube, which serves some 100 million videos per day, has become the target of scorn among some rights owners as the site says it has no idea how many of the 70,000 videos uploaded each day by users are pirated.
Internet veteran and HDNet founder Mark Cuban last month famously called anyone willing to buy YouTube a "moron".
"I don't think you can sue Google into oblivion, but as others have mentioned, if Google gets nailed one single time for copyright violation, there are going to be more shareholder lawsuits than Doans has pills to go with the pile on copyright suits that follow," he wrote, referring to the backache medication, on his blog on Monday.
[Kenneth Li and Yinka Adegoke - ITNews Australia - October 11, 2006]
That's because YouTube has already committed publicly to developing and deploying technology that can sniff out copyrighted video clips and bits of music; this technology has figured prominently in its recent deals with content owners. But despite talking up the technology, it has yet to be publicly released. How YouTube eventually deploys it could affect their business operations significantly.
"There's very little that holds YouTube's audience to YouTube except the belief that whatever they want to see, there is a very good chance YouTube will have it," Joe Laszlo, an analyst with JupiterKagan, told the Associated Press. "If the video migrates to other places, I fear the audience will too, so YouTube needs to be really careful about how it does this."
This isn't a new concern. BusinessWeek pointed out the dilemma that the site faced months ago. "If they cater too much to their users, they risk getting sued for copyright violations and losing the support of content companies. If they're seen as favoring content companies, however, they could lose their millions of fans."
YouTube's compliance system apparently scans the entire database of clips for infringing material, which includes everything from user-posted music videos to clips from the Daily Show to dispatches from Iraq that feature unlicensed music as a soundtrack. The burden of using these tools and discovering infringing content falls to the content owners, who then can make a decision about what they want YouTube to do. They can ignore the clip, ask them to pull it, or, in the case of "official" content like music videos, have it replaced with the approved version.
YouTube has also inked several deals that allow users to incorporate major-label music into their own creations. Such videos would not be pulled from the site, but advertising revenue from the display of those clips would be shared with the content owner.
[Nate Anderson - Ars Technica - October 13, 2006]
Google, no stranger to lawsuits, may find a whole new class of complainers lining up for a check after the Web search leader buys video entertainment site YouTube for US$1.65 billion.
The acquisition will give Google a major foothold in the emerging market for video advertising, but it also stands to inherit court challenges from independent film makers, garage bands, television studios and others who may chafe at YouTube users uploading copyrighted material to the site without permission.
Legal experts and industry veterans said these artists and companies could look to YouTube's new deep-pocket backer for payment, either in business deals or courtroom battles.
advertisement
"For some of the bigger players in the industry, and given the amount of publicity that this deal has brought, it may be a perfect staging area for them to bring an infringement suit," said Kristin Achterhof, partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman, a law firm with Hollywood and music industry clientele.
Google has faced a battery of lawsuits, from trademark infringement suits from auto insurer GEICO and news agency Agence France Presse, to legal spats with the US government over privacy issues, to copyright suits from book publishers.
Although Google and YouTube seem to be on good terms with the media industry by announcing on Monday a spate of deals with music labels, analysts say the legal travails of the Web's most popular video service are just beginning.
YouTube, which serves some 100 million videos per day, has become the target of scorn among some rights owners as the site says it has no idea how many of the 70,000 videos uploaded each day by users are pirated.
Internet veteran and HDNet founder Mark Cuban last month famously called anyone willing to buy YouTube a "moron".
"I don't think you can sue Google into oblivion, but as others have mentioned, if Google gets nailed one single time for copyright violation, there are going to be more shareholder lawsuits than Doans has pills to go with the pile on copyright suits that follow," he wrote, referring to the backache medication, on his blog on Monday.
[Kenneth Li and Yinka Adegoke - ITNews Australia - October 11, 2006]
posted by F at 10:58 AM
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