I'm still waiting to see if Google's acquisition of YouTube will be one of the worst business decisions ever made.
I've ranted before about both the idiotic RIAA/MPAA and their absurd business practices. But I've also made it abundantly clear that just because they SUCK, that doesn't entitle people to steal their content. Enter YouTube - right smack-dab in the middle of idiocy and theft. It runs the gambit, from silly/hilarious home-made videos with 12 seconds of a Madonna song caught on the soundtrack from a boom-box in the background (which the RIAA would say constitutes a violation of their rights), to full-blown pirated copies of episodes of 24 before they EVEN make it to Television.
Marc Cuban blogged about how dumb Google was to buy YouTube... and caught some flack for it at the time. I think he made some GREAT points however. In fact, I think his arguments were VERY compelling. He also followed up a few days later with some unsubstantiated rumors about some secret deals that might have been in place to help Google cover themselves from lawyers. That said, those secret deals would really ONLY work out if lawyers and execs for the media companies felt that they couldn't find a better way to be compensated.
And with lawyers involved... courtrooms and lawsuits sure seem like an obvious option - especially if big cash settlements could be involved. Did I just mention big cash settlement? I did. Remember, copyright violations carry a maximum penalty of $150,000 PER VIOLATION.
Frankly, I just don't see how Google/YouTube will make it. Today Viacom announced that their arbitration with YouTube is over - and they've demanded that YouTube pull > 100K video clips that they claim violate their copyrights. That article doesn't mention what Viacom plans on doing next, but you can bet your sweet bippy that with over 100,000 pirated clips up on YouTube there's really NO WAY that YouTube can STOP oodles of those clips from being re-posted. Even if they can pull them down as soon as they're posted, it will be a revolving door of piracy - all of which can be very easily tracked and documented by Viacom as part of the mounting evidence that they'll bring forward in their case.
And at $150,000 per violation in court, Viacom could end up owning YouTube and Google outright. (Especially when you consider that the article linked above mentions that Viacom thinks that YouTube has generated 1.2 BILLION violations of their copyright.... I don't think my calculator goes high enough to calculate what Google/YouTube could end up owing at this point...)
Just a note on the 24 thing. A coworker had in on official DVD 4-5 days before it aired. His girlfriend works at Blockbuster and the employees get to "rent" the DVDs after they get them but before they're allowed to be put on shelves.
I do doubt that YouTube was the only place it got leaked. Fox was asking for it to release the DVDs of those episodes 2 days after it aired.
But I do agree, however, that there's now a huge can of worms ready to sue the heck out of Google now that they own YouTube.
Posted by: Adam | February 02, 2007 at 10:22 AM
Yeah - good point. YouTube is HARDLY the only source for pirated content out there.
That said, most other pirate-y distribution networks out there don't have a multi-billion dollar sugar-daddy bankrolling them (i.e. Google).
THE RIAA, of course, tried suing allofmp3.com... but we know that was a gesture only - they had no $$$. Google, on the other hand has oodles of $$$ - all located right here in the good ol US of A, where it could be seized.
The google chaps are obviously smart, but I really don't see how this story comes up with a happy ending at this point ;)
Posted by: Michael K. Campbell | February 02, 2007 at 10:27 AM