What do you think a settlement is?

3/21/2007 1:59:10 PM

A settlement is an agreement or resolution of a dispute outside of the courts for the most part. This happens when you do something wrong and someone threatens to sue or does sue you. You know they have a case so you decide to settle without the long legal battle. The settlement is usually for something less than the court would of rewarded to the person sueing.

They didn't set the money aside for that because they don't think anyone has a case against them and they are going to go to court and fight anyone who sues them. The money was set aside to pay for their elite team of copyright lawyers to fight the case for them.

Big difference. What do you think a settlement is?

3/21/2007 2:06:32 PM

Sorry, let me ask you more directly the difference between these items

From Cubans

Quote :

"to pay for settlements and/or hire attorneys to fight claims"

Google

Quote :

"a financial cushion to cover losses or possible legal bills"

3/21/2007 2:11:55 PM

Cuban's source included settlements as something the money could be used for. I admit this is small thing but several people (yourself included possibly, I'm too lazy to look back) were using the idea of the money being set aside for settlements as the focal point of many of their posts.

It's seems like a minor technicality when just looking at the two quotes but when the whole point of the people in this thread mentioning this huge stash of money is that it would be used to pay Viacom its a HUGE difference.

I'll grab a few posts just for reference (maybe I'm not too lazy):

Quote :

"Google knew what was going to happen, they set aside 500 million specifically for this."

The discussion at the time was how much Viacom was sueing for. You said they set apart 500 million specifically to settle or pay the damages Viacom is sueing for.

and random other people:

Quote :

"First of all, Youtube has a $500 million holdback for IP lawsuits. So you can bet that Viacom is going for, ummmm ... at least $500 million."

Once again refering to the money for payouts.

Quote :

"why does Google specifically set aside 500 million dollars if it thinks it will just settle anyway? "

Quote :

"That has nothing to do with 500 million dollars. Jesus. They have lawyers on retainer that will earn their money whether they get sued or not. The 500 million is for settelments, etc."

yawn... you see the only difference between the two quotes you showed is small..... but its the MAIN PART referenced everytime = BIG DEAL.

3/21/2007 2:26:35 PM

10/10

threads like this are when tech talk delivers

3/21/2007 3:14:18 PM

Here's the difference:

"to pay for settlements and/or hire attorneys to fight claims"

implies Google did wrong and is going to settle up with anyone and everyone using this holdback.

"a financial cushion to cover losses or possible legal bills"

implies that they will use the money to fight for their position, and the legality of their service.

and those, btw are the words of MSNBC and not Google. Google officially is holding the money (for 1 year) for "certain indemnification obligations". Which means they are covering their ass. Instead of fending off lawsuits with their own cash, they are pulling it from the profits of the buyout. I don't see how this is evil or anything but good business practice.

They are saying IF anything happens, youtube's sale profits should pay out, not Google proper. Hence why it's in escrow and wasn't just eaten permanently by Google. They had to anticipate that the buyout would bring out the lawsuits, since it took Youtube from a company with almost no holdings, to part of a behemoth with substantial assets.

3/21/2007 4:49:53 PM

Quote :

"I'm pretty sure Viacom is using this lawsuit to bring that idea out and hope the supreme court/congress/whoever agrees and changes things."

No chance. Google will probably settle. It's just easier. Lawsuits are incredibly invasive, and they drag out a lot of dirty laundry -- up to and including putting the founders/executives on the stand to answer tough questions without a friendly audience.

One of the key dynamics of Google as a public company is simply that they have cachet. They have a great brand in their mysterious "Google-ness." A highly visible, highly public lawsuit puts that at risk. It's a serious image problem for both their core business and their stock price.

Quote :

"By Youtube's own terms & conditions, it's guaranteed to be removed when flagged, if found to be inappropriate or illegal."

So how is Viacom flagging the content easier than sending the takedown notices exactly? Their main complaint was that Youtube makes it hard for them to search comprehensively for all the infringing content by limiting search results to 1000 entries.

Speaking of their Terms and Conditions, I am curious about revisiting them in the context of a previous statement. Something about Youtube being a service provider and not a content provider:

Quote :

"For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successor's) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels."

That's a Hell of a contract -- if a proper copyright owner uploads video to Youtube, then they effectively lose all control of it for any real purpose.

Now, I hate to ask simple, logical questions, but -- if Youtube is really just a service provider; a platform if you will -- then why do they require such broad-based rights just to display videos in connections with their service? Hmmm?

Per this "contract," Youtube could turn your user submission into a Superbowl commercial and display it to 100 million people for their own profit and they would never owe you a cent because you granted them a "royalty-free" and "transferable" license.

How many "service providers" do you know of that take total legal control of the content while they host it?

Quote :

"They are saying IF anything happens, youtube's sale profits should pay out, not Google proper. Hence why it's in escrow and wasn't just eaten permanently by Google. They had to anticipate that the buyout would bring out the lawsuits, since it took Youtube from a company with almost no holdings, to part of a behemoth with substantial assets."

In a literal, cash-flow sense -- yes. That is what they're saying. In terms of the principles of the buyout deal and where Google stands vis a vis the copyright infringement issue -- no.

In a business sense, there was no "profit" from the sale of Youtube. A profit is something you make in the course of ordinary business -- income minus expenses, and so on. A capital gain, on the other hand, is something you make by selling an asset for more than what you paid for it.

When Google valued the Youtube asset -- the company -- they in effect appraised it and put a price on it, about $1.65 billion in stock.

By putting the holdback money into escrow, they aren't just hedging -- they're discounting the value of the asset by some 13%. Google stated, up front, that Youtube is potentially liable enough because of activity on their site, that as an asset it might be worth much less than what they agreed to pay.

The whole point of a holdback is that it's part of the appraisal of the company's value. It's not just money stuck in a sock somewhere.

Putting a holdback into place is a strong statement about the fundamental value of a business. You might be sitting there saying that $200 million isn't a lot of money, and it's standard, and so on -- but for the shareholders in Youtube who sold, individually, that's still a lot of damned money, and it's taken out of their shares pre-tax.

If Google really believed, up front, that Youtube was fundamentally not liable for copyright infringement, then they had no place taking the holdback. Period. And the investors in Youtube should never have accepted such a raw deal, because even an idiot (like one of those dumb MBAs) can see that if you aren't reasonably liable for something, you shouldn't have to pay for it! And surely it shouldn't affect the fundamental valuation of the company!

Yes, the money is held in escrow for a year and can in theory be paid out. Somehow I think the arrival of a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit will keep that money there for a while.

But again -- if Youtube is really the darling lovechild of the DMCA they claim to be, why on Earth should its investors have to pay out of their pockets? Clearly, if the issue here is proving out the viability of the law, that should have come out of Google's pockets.

Noone can reasonably know up front, without a trial, how a judge will interpret the fundamental basis of a law -- so how can you factor that into the value of an asset? If that were the case, Google's MBAs may as well have put the probability of an Earthquake in there, too.

But they can know if they're really fucking close to -- or are -- breaking the law.

The presence of the holdback implies a real probability of losing a DMCA case. Otherwise I feel bad for their shareholders; Yahoo was pretty hungry for Youtube, too.

[Edited on March 22, 2007 at 3:15 AM. Reason : foo]

3/22/2007 2:55:35 AM

Quote :

"but its the MAIN PART referenced everytime = BIG DEAL."

Well, being the "other random person" on this thread -- the amount was never particularly the issue for me, it was the principle of the withholding. Actually you quoted me out of context, I also said:

Quote :

"The $500 million dollar number isn't unreasonable -- regardless of its source. At any rate, if it's even in the double-digit percentage points, that's a huge discount that Google has taken right out of the company's market value -- just for copyright infringement."

Again, the issue of the holdback is what its mere presence implies about how Google assessed Youtube as a company and its prospects for winning the DMCA battle.

Unfortunately, we didn't get around to discussing that particular point because a certain individual felt it was their calling to name me a "fucking retard" for discussing what's now obviously a plain fact. That same individual will also breeze right through the longer, more carefully-edited post I just made, and reply with another bout of name-calling and solipsism.

And to that certain individual, I'd like to say the following: I'm posting here because my net enjoyment of this thread is positive so far. I like the chance to debate these issues in this format -- for the most part, I know whom I'm dealing with. Namely, smart NCSU students and alumni who are technical and follow the issues, not the random crowd of Slashdotters or the various bloggers.

I think I have a valuable perspective on this matter, as someone who works in Silicon Valley and who deals with issues of intellectual property rights in content distribution daily. I think you have a valuable perspective too, as someone who obviously gives a shit about the future of Youtube and the net (and I assume you deal with the net in a professional context as well).

You could do worse than to tone it down. As far as this particular debate is concerned, there's a lot of "there" there.

[Edited on March 22, 2007 at 3:49 AM. Reason : foo]

3/22/2007 3:45:34 AM

Quote :

"No chance. Google will probably settle. It's just easier. Lawsuits are incredibly invasive, and they drag out a lot of dirty laundry -- up to and including putting the founders/executives on the stand to answer tough questions without a friendly audience."

While I agree that this may not make it to the courts there is no chance that YouTube will settle in the sense that they are admitting they owe compensatory damages. If YouTube/Google were to admit this it would have huge huge ramifications not only to YouTube and Google video, but many of but many of googles own search features.

What I think is likely is that they agree to a licensing agreement the lawsuit is dropped. Viacom allows the videos to be posted and stay on YouTube and YouTube pays them some royalties. I guess in the loose sense of the term this could be viewed as a settlement but not in the way settlements are normally refered to.

Google/YouTube can absolutely not afford to lose this lawsuit. The result of losing this lawsuit and the precedent it would set dwarfs any negatives that would come from a invasive and drawn out lawsuit. That blog article posted earlier is well thought out about what losing this lawsuit would mean for Google. The writer seems to know alot about the topic and while his overall conclusion about Google actually wanting this lawsuit could be considered a stretch his research and information is well thought out.

Quote :

"That's a Hell of a contract -- if a proper copyright owner uploads video to Youtube, then they effectively lose all control of it for any real purpose."

That is one hell of a contract. Alot of it is understandable but it does seem to go above and beyond. I wondered myself about YouTube just being a service provider. They show ads on these videos that are posted and make revenue off of this. If it is a copyrighted video then they are in fact making revenue off of copyrighted material. You have to put this in perspective though. If I get a hosting service and upload a season of 24 and then post around the link for people to download... the same result happens. The hosting service is gaining revenue (my $X.XX a month) off of copyrighted material. The main thing to prove (atleast what I remember from Napster and the likes) is that their business model isn't based around the copyrighted material. I think everyone can agree that the majority of videos on YouTube are legal (user created or licensed NBA etc).

Some people may think it is different than a hosting service because its an ad based website just trying to get pageviews. I don't think this matters. No one would argue that the old Juno wasn't a service provider or Gmail/Hotmail nowadays. Give service for free, gain revenue from ads. It's an alternative business model but still a service provider none the less.

Back to the TOS point you've made I'm no expert on copyright law so I can't tell you exactly why some of that stuff would be in there. I know you can post YouTube clips on websites. Is a sublicense technically required for this?

Quote :

"If Google really believed, up front, that Youtube was fundamentally not liable for copyright infringement, then they had no place taking the holdback. Period. "

I disagree. For one thing I was under the impression the YouTube was almost going bankrupt when google bought it and needed more capital to continue. Some of this money set aside would be used to keep it afloat. Secondly even if you really believed, up front, that Youtube was fundamentally not liable for copyright infringement, you would still set aside money for lawsuit defense because everyone believed and knew these were coming.

Quote :

"The presence of the holdback implies a real probability of losing a DMCA case. "

Well as an engineer I agree, there is always a real probability of failure , but if Google thought there was a good chance of losing it I'm pretty sure they would have discounted the price more than 10% as the first lawsuit has sued for over 50% of the value. And if this lawsuit did win you can bet your ass hundreds more would follow.

grr back to work... I'll post a few more things later.

[Edited on March 22, 2007 at 9:26 AM. Reason : capitOl lol I'm dumb]

3/22/2007 9:22:22 AM

Quote :

"And to that certain individual, "

Smoker4, if I've been a dickhead to you, I apologize. When State409 gets involved he pretty much always brings out the penis gun which puts me into retaliation mode.

Quote :

"That's a Hell of a contract -- if a proper copyright owner uploads video to Youtube, then they effectively lose all control of it for any real purpose."

No, they don't lose any REAL control. That contract gives youtube and google rights to use your video within the scope of youtube. They can't pull your video and do anything to it outside the context of the site (other than to potentially use it in a commercial for the site itself).

First it's non-exclusive, so you still retain all of your rights to the content outside the scope of youtube, which includes broadcast television and stored media (dvd, vhs et al).

Second, it has to be sublicenseable and transferable to "use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions" in order for people to provide embedded videos on their own sites without someone getting pissed and suing gootube.

What part of the contract do you think causes the author to lose all control? youtube still remains the host, as you don't actually download the videos, so they aren't ever really "distributed" or "reproduced" in the physical or digital sense (although I am aware of slightly nefarious tools to allow this, it's far from the mainstream).

Quote :

"Now, I hate to ask simple, logical questions, but -- if Youtube is really just a service provider; a platform if you will -- then why do they require such broad-based rights just to display videos in connections with their service? Hmmm? Per this "contract," Youtube could turn your user submission into a Superbowl commercial and display it to 100 million people for their own profit and they would never owe you a cent because you granted them a "royalty-free" and "transferable" license."

The simple, logical answer is to cover their asses. That contract allows youtube users to create mashups of videos, allows them to embed the videos on their own sites, send them to friends, and show them to as wide an audience as they choose to (which is kind of the point).

As for the superbowl commercial, yes, they could do that, so long as it's advertising youtube and only youtube. If they used youtube's content for a superbowl commercial for budweiser, then we'd have some legal problems.

And speaking of this very issue, it's already happened, and had a great outcome. A clip found on youtube/google video (the christmas nintendo64 kid) was used in a car commercial. And they were contacted by the car company, the content was purchased from them for the commercial, and everyone went home happy. Youtube still has the video that millions can view, the content creators got paid for a home movie, and the car company got compelling content for a commercial.
As soon as the content leaves the context of youtube, google loses all rights to it.

Quote :

"How many "service providers" do you know of that take total legal control of the content while they host it?"

None that I know of, youtube included. Total legal control would be an exclusive license, where a user could not put their content anywhere else or for any other use while it resides on youtube. And seeing as there aren't but a handful of other public video-service providers out there, and they all have pretty much the same TOS, I don't see this being fundamentally flawed.

Quote :

"By putting the holdback money into escrow, they aren't just hedging -- they're discounting the value of the asset by some 13%. Google stated, up front, that Youtube is potentially liable enough because of activity on their site, that as an asset it might be worth much less than what they agreed to pay. The whole point of a holdback is that it's part of the appraisal of the company's value. It's not just money stuck in a sock somewhere. "

I'd argue this point, because it's a temporary holdback. And in business time, one year is an extremely temporary holdback. It's only discounting the value of the asset for a small, predetermined period. I don't recall them stating the potential liability of youtube, only stating that there was potential for legal action to be brought against youtube.

Essentially it is money stuck in a sock, an escrow sock to be exact. If it had been a conditional holdback, or had been based on some static terms, I would be in complete agreement with you. But it is a pure-and-simple one year holdback, at least from what Google has released about it. Which means after one year, regardless of circumstances, any money not spent on litigation will be released.

Quote :

"If Google really believed, up front, that Youtube was fundamentally not liable for copyright infringement, then they had no place taking the holdback. Period. And the investors in Youtube should never have accepted such a raw deal, because even an idiot (like one of those dumb MBAs) can see that if you aren't reasonably liable for something, you shouldn't have to pay for it! And surely it shouldn't affect the fundamental valuation of the company! "

As plaisted, Stein and myself have reiterated time and time again, this has nothing to do with what Google believes is right and wrong. They OBVIOUSLY believe youtube is acting within the laws and making a faithful attempt to keep the site running legally and efficiently.

The holdback is due to the litigious nature of our country and the inherent probability that a controversial service being taken over by a company with large assets will bring out the lawsuits, ones with basis or not.

Quote :

"Yes, the money is held in escrow for a year and can in theory be paid out. Somehow I think the arrival of a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit will keep that money there for a while. But again -- if Youtube is really the darling lovechild of the DMCA they claim to be, why on Earth should its investors have to pay out of their pockets? Clearly, if the issue here is proving out the viability of the law, that should have come out of Google's pockets."

Unless there is some clause we all were not privy to, that's just conjecture.

It's investors aren't paying anything, which is exactly why there is a holdback. If the money gets spent, the valuation drops and Google (and its investors) pay less for the service. They are protecting the company's assets and their investors with the holdback.

Quote :

"Noone can reasonably know up front, without a trial, how a judge will interpret the fundamental basis of a law -- so how can you factor that into the value of an asset? If that were the case, Google's MBAs may as well have put the probability of an Earthquake in there, too. But they can know if they're really fucking close to -- or are -- breaking the law. The presence of the holdback implies a real probability of losing a DMCA case. Otherwise I feel bad for their shareholders; Yahoo was pretty hungry for Youtube, too."

A team of dozens of the best IP and copyright lawyers sure can make an educated guess. And Google has been breeding their law team ever since there was a whiff of buying youtube. I don't know how an MBA applies to this at all.

Half of Americans are "really fucking close to" breaking the law every day. You can't judge anything's viability based on that. I can sneeze while driving, hit my gas pedal and break the law speeding. That doesn't make me unfit to drive, or make all cars unfit to be driven.

The presence of a holdback implies a real probability of someone suing to get a piece of the pie, before it's too late. It has little bearing on the viability of any such suit.

3/22/2007 11:47:06 AM

Quote :

"No chance. Google will probably settle. It's just easier. Lawsuits are incredibly invasive, and they drag out a lot of dirty laundry -- up to and including putting the founders/executives on the stand to answer tough questions without a friendly audience. One of the key dynamics of Google as a public company is simply that they have cachet. They have a great brand in their mysterious "Google-ness." A highly visible, highly public lawsuit puts that at risk. It's a serious image problem for both their core business and their stock price. "

Google will not settle. They have already made it clear they will drag any suit out to the bitter end. Google is one of the few companies who has no problem dragging out laundry, because they have little of it to air.

I don't agree with this at all. Their mysterious appeal lies not in their actions, but in their future plans. The company itself is pretty highly transparent. You can track it back from the Stanford days and pretty well document from the public space the moves, aquisitions and blunders they've made. The employee's have been treated well along the ride and the IPO itself was one of the first in history to break the veil of the brokerage houses.

I think the problem that would come is people would see that there isn't some magic egg at the center of Google that no one is allowed to see, rather that they just make good decisions and run a well thought out company. It's the classic case of "if it looks to good to be true, it is". Occasionally a good thing happens.

Quote :

"So how is Viacom flagging the content easier than sending the takedown notices exactly? Their main complaint was that Youtube makes it hard for them to search comprehensively for all the infringing content by limiting search results to 1000 entries."

Well this brings about an interesting point. If Viacom knows there's infringing content, then logically they would have to be seeing the videos, meaning they could be easily flagged and removed. If they can't see any infringement, how can they claim it's there? Viacom could easily run keyword searches for a couple of hours on every piece of content they have, and it would probably weed out 99.999% of their content.

Does this 1000 entry limitation exist in the API, or on the site itself? Because my guess is (and it's just a guess), that one could write their own data interface and pull as much as they pleased.

3/22/2007 11:47:28 AM

Quote :

"What I think is likely is that they agree to a licensing agreement the lawsuit is dropped. Viacom allows the videos to be posted and stay on YouTube and YouTube pays them some royalties. I guess in the loose sense of the term this could be viewed as a settlement but not in the way settlements are normally refered to."

viacom is part of the new NewsCorp and NBC online video venture - may affect how much they will want to strike a deal with YouTube now

3/22/2007 12:18:40 PM

Quote :

"a controversial service "

I don't get it. Why is it controversial. And why would a "don't be evil" company tread on ground like this, especially when much of what makes it controversial is the copy written content of other media houses in the same market?

3/22/2007 12:30:51 PM

Nearly every market Google has entered has been considered controversial. Mainly because they tend to tread on uncharted ground. When they started Google Books and Google Scholar, everybody said the same things they are now, that it would be the end of IP and Google was aggregating copyritten content.

Kind of like the original arguments against search engines.

It's controversial because it changes the paradigm of the industry involved, which worries the big guys every time.

3/22/2007 1:43:19 PM

news-corp-and-nbc-announce-partnership-to-create-youtube-competitor

http://tinyurl.com/2xpd3p

3/22/2007 1:47:05 PM

^sounds like just another corporate video site to me.

Quote :

"And for the first time, consumers will get what they want—professionally produced video delivered on the sites where they live. We're excited about the potential for this alliance and we’re looking forward to working with any content provider or distributor who wants to take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity"

Consumers have been offered this for years already, and they apparently don't really care.

3/22/2007 2:22:42 PM

http://www.blogmaverick.com/2007/03/22/why-the-nbc-newscorp-video-venture-is-a-great-idea/

3/22/2007 3:20:47 PM

http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/Y/YOUTUBE_VIACOM?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

VIACOM SUED OVER FAIR-USE

haha, it's kind of dumb, but at least some people are standing up to their bullying

3/22/2007 3:44:40 PM

^^

Quote :

"Its a unique opportunity to set the rules of how video advertising is sold. Something Google thought they had wrapped up when they bought Youtube. "

Except there won't be anything unique about it. They will either have sponsored content, commercials, or banner advertising. Bet the farm on that.

Quote :

"Whether Newco can live up to Google in terms of performance and innovation is another question, but they are going to have every opportunity to do so. Hiring some folks away at Google for stupid money would seem to make a lot of sense at this point."

Won't happen in any regard. Google's turnover rate is miniscule, and their employees are, by and large, personally behind the company. It's a bit cultish, but pretty good for them keeping their folks.

Quote :

"Youtube's 10 minute limitation will put it at a disadvantage. Newco's distributors will have access to full episodes in addition to clips and user generated content beyond 10 minutes. This will give viewers much greater choice and could steal users from Youtube for this reason alone. It may force Google to combine Google Video and Youtube. It also will provide more options and flexibility for advertisers. "

More Cuban stupid comments. The 10 minute limit can be lifted at any time, it's not some magical barrier. And corporate partners can upload video at whatever length they choose. And users can get special exemptions already: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHjbVWNN_cU there's a 30 minute clip, GASP!

Google is already in process of combining youtube and google video. And there won't be any more options other than a different website for advertisers. Once again, who leads the way in advertising methods online? Who brought back the clickthrough ad from the grave? It sure as hell wasn't viacom.

3/22/2007 5:04:41 PM

If they would only bring back impression based banner advertising, I'd be the happiest man alive.

3/22/2007 5:09:09 PM

The Daily Show on the Viacom and YouTube Lawsuit
http://aj.digitalfocus.org/?p=4

3/23/2007 3:26:00 AM

bad link above

The Daily Show take on the Viacom and YouTube Lawsuit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9CRD1COCAY

3/23/2007 6:03:36 AM

aha, "check it out, i'm buffering..... 37%...."
wonder how long that one will last

3/23/2007 7:22:33 AM

^no clue, but yea, that whole bit had me rolling last night when I watched TDS

3/23/2007 9:02:25 AM

http://tinyurl.com/2y3flq

This is generally the point I have been making all along

Quote :

"Google isn't blameless here, either. It does make money, at least indirectly, from other companies' copyright material, for which it didn't pay, even though it has negotiated some paid deals and says it is willing to negotiate others. And while Google says it diligently removes all copyright clips for which it hasn't secured paid rights, every YouTube visitor knows that this system is, at best, imperfect."

To me, a company with a slogan that is "Don't be evil" wouldn't be swimming in trepid waters. Thats all. It's like, they are playing dumb about the whole DMCA, meanwhile, they are holding back a lot of money because they know everything isn't kosher. So at the end of the day, they can say "We weren't being evil, we honestly thought what we were doing was fine and dandy...umm, the money we set aside...ummm, well...we don't know why we did that."

3/23/2007 12:50:46 PM

They aren't playing dumb. They are following the law.

They set the money aside to protect themselves from retards, not because they think they did anything wrong or "evil".

This country is founded on the principle of individual freedoms, and individual responsibility. If a PERSON does something illegal, THEY bear the responsibility, not the system that enabled them to perform the act.

Hence, Google is not evil. Some of their USERS might be, but not them.

3/23/2007 12:58:22 PM

I guess I just don't explain myself very well. That, or you just like seeing your posts in here.

3/23/2007 1:37:22 PM

^I feel like that criticism is quite a bit of a stretch, regarding the "don't be evil" mantra. I feel like you've consistently used the concept out of context. Every doc I've seen regarding that piece of their philosophy is alluding to the use of discrete/targeted advertising, and avoiding the manipulation of search ratings explicitly for financial or anticompetitive purposes.

The company's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. That concept, which is highly inline with the purpose of youtube, should certainly trump your loose interpretation of what level of liability makes a service provider 'evil'.


[Edited on March 23, 2007 at 2:20 PM. Reason : .]

3/23/2007 1:51:51 PM

Speaking of Mark Cuban, youtube an idiocy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eezqu68XVqE

Mark Cuban is going to distribute Loose Change, "the documentary"? HaHahahAhaHahahAhahA

HAhahahAHahAH.

Oh and I hope Oreilly burns in hell, but it sure is fitting.

3/24/2007 12:49:24 AM

Quote :

"Every doc I've seen regarding that piece of their philosophy is alluding to the use of discrete/targeted advertising, and avoiding the manipulation of search ratings explicitly for financial or anticompetitive purposes."

What about the Google Code of Conduct?

Quote :

" Our informal corporate motto is "Don't be evil." We Googlers generally relate those words to the way we serve our users—as well we should. But being "a different kind of company" encompasses more than the products we make and the business we're building; it means making sure that our core values inform our conduct in all aspects of our lives as Google employees."

(http://investor.google.com/conduct.html)

The context seems pretty unambiguous to me: "everything we do."

3/26/2007 12:24:02 AM

Quote :

"Mike Moritz To Leave Google Board Of Directors http://tinyurl.com/287vmu Michael Moritz, a Sequoia Capital general partner and Google board member since 1999, is leaving Google’s board by not seeking re-election on May 10, 2007. There are many reasons being passed around (http://tinyurl.com/yp66dh) for why Moritz is leaving, including that he is being blamed for the “YouTube nightmare” (Sequoia was the lead investor in YouTube, and Mike may have been influential in the deal), that he has too much of a conflict of interest between other Sequoia investments Google might acquire or compete with, but ultimately, it seems like his time had just come, and that was that."

3/26/2007 1:17:41 AM

Quote :

"Viacom Says "YouTube Depends On Us" via slashdot: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/26/0333243 Our Case Against YouTube http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301451.html By Michael Fricklas Saturday, March 24, 2007; Page A17 Viacom initiated litigation against YouTube and Google this month for their long-standing infringement of Viacom's copyrights. Our action has stirred discussion about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and quite a lot of confusion. First, let's narrow the debate. YouTube defends itself from copyright infringement based on one narrow slice of the DMCA: protecting service providers who store copyrighted material solely and simply "at the direction of a user." This defense is available only to users who do not have "knowledge" of infringement or who "expeditiously" take down material when they find out they are infringing a copyright. The defense is not available to someone who "derives a financial benefit" from copyrighted material he stores if he has the "right and ability to control" it. The DMCA strikes a logical compromise among competing interests and is one of many sound policies that have allowed the Web to develop and flourish. Under the act, Web hosting companies have been able to develop with no obligation to monitor every file loaded and downloaded by their users. E-mail operators have been able to safely maintain their facilities without reading every message that passes through their systems. File storage Web sites allow users to back up their hard drives without needing to patrol every file and without fear of copyright liability. What the DMCA doesn't do is protect YouTube. YouTube has described itself as the place to go for video. It is far more than the kind of passive Web host or e-mail service the DMCA protects -- it is an entertainment destination. The public at large is not attracted to YouTube's storage facility or technical functionality -- people are attracted to the entertainment value of what's on the site. And YouTube reaps financial benefits from that attraction through selling the traffic to advertisers. While an e-mail provider is paid to facilitate and manage the exchange of e-mail traffic, and competes in that fashion, YouTube lures consumers and competes by having great content -- a resoundingly substantial part of which it did not create or pay for. Does YouTube have "knowledge" of copyrighted material on its site? Does it have the "right and ability to control" the content? Yes and yes. If the public knows what's there, then YouTube's management surely does. YouTube's own terms of use give it clear rights, notably the right to take anything down. YouTube actively monitors its content. For example, its managers remove pornography and hate content and, as was recently reported, claim they can detect and remove "spam." Without knowledge and control, how could YouTube create "channels" and "featured videos" sections on its site? YouTube has even offered to find infringing content for copyright owners -- but only if they do a licensing deal first. Is it fair to burden YouTube with finding content on its site that infringes others' copyright? Putting the burden on the owners of creative works would require every copyright owner, big and small, to patrol the Web continually on an ever-burgeoning number of sites. That's hardly a workable or equitable solution. And it would tend to disadvantage ventures such as the one recently announced by NBC Universal and News Corp. that are built on respect for copyright. Under the law, the obligation is right where it belongs: on the people who derive a benefit from the creative works and are in the position to keep infringement out of their businesses. Will forcing Google and YouTube to obey the law stifle innovation? Quite the opposite. Intellectual property is worth $650 billion a year to the U.S. economy. Not only does intellectual property drive our exports, it's a key part of what distinguishes developed economies from developing ones. Protecting intellectual property spurs investment and thereby the creation of new technologies and creative entertainment. This creates jobs and benefits consumers. Google and YouTube wouldn't be here if not for investment in software and technologies spurred by patent and copyright laws. It's time they respected them. The writer is general counsel of Viacom."

someone needs to send him a link to this thread and an explanation of US laws where you have to get caught first and someone has to press charges against you for anyone to give a damn about your crime

3/26/2007 9:14:08 AM

wow, what an unbiased and informed article.

oh wait, it was from a general counsel for VIACOM. HMM.

Quote :

"Does YouTube have "knowledge" of copyrighted material on its site? Does it have the "right and ability to control" the content? Yes and yes. If the public knows what's there, then YouTube's management surely does. YouTube's own terms of use give it clear rights, notably the right to take anything down. YouTube actively monitors its content. For example, its managers remove pornography and hate content "

Worst argument ever. Apparently he can't read their terms of service either, since they only take down content at the explicit request of users, pornography and hate content included.

Quote :

"and, as was recently reported, claim they can detect and remove "spam.""

This is HILARIOUS, since their spam prevention is for COMMENTS and not videos, a completely different aspect of the site, and has nothing to do with the suit or the arguments in question.

Quote :

"Is it fair to burden YouTube with finding content on its site that infringes others' copyright? Putting the burden on the owners of creative works would require every copyright owner, big and small, to patrol the Web continually on an ever-burgeoning number of sites. That's hardly a workable or equitable solution. And it would tend to disadvantage ventures such as the one recently announced by NBC Universal and News Corp. that are built on respect for copyright. Under the law, the obligation is right where it belongs: on the people who derive a benefit from the creative works and are in the position to keep infringement out of their businesses. "

Fair, yes. Does the law allow them to do this, no.

EVERY copyright holder has had this problem as long as copyrights have existed. It's only gotten exponentially worse over time. I don't think the solution lies in stopping mediums of communication entirely, or subjecting the populace to using 100 different offerings. The whole issues comes back to the problem of free markets, versus regulated markets, and this type of issue is exactly the problem that arises when there's a conflict.

3/26/2007 12:02:13 PM

Quote :

"I don't think the solution lies in stopping mediums of communication entirely, or subjecting the populace to using 100 different offerings."

Oh god, talk about KoolAid Neon, please tell me why the public shouldn't have 100 different choices when GooTube is obviously the best out there.

WHY SHOULD WE SUBJECT THE POOR CONSUMER TO DIFFERENT CHOICES

Also, what are you talking about "stopping mediums of communication"?

3/26/2007 12:21:36 PM

i never said we shouldn't offer the consumer different choices. Good job twisting words as usual.

It's pretty apparent people WANT to use Youtube and Myspace, in favor of the other offerings. There are already DOZENS of other competing services, none of which have near the appeal or traffic.

If Joost is really going to be the hotshit being claimed, and Viacom seems to think it will be, wouldn't their money and time be better spent making a better alternative service? Then the consumers (according to you at least) should leave youtube in droves, causing the service to fall apart.

What is going to SUCK is if youtube gets shut down and spells the end of aggregated commercial content. It would put the web back almost a decade in terms of content presentation. I dare say the number of users who will put up with going to 5 or 6 different sites everyday to get their fix is pretty small these days. Damn near everything on the web has been going toward unifying content, from ebay to amazon to google, yahoo, et al.

3/26/2007 1:33:42 PM

Quote :

"Cuban, EFF president spar over YouTube and the DMCA at EFF Pioneer Awards Ars source: http://tinyurl.com/ynrtaa Wearing jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt that read "I'd rather be fighting the man," Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban last night defended his view that YouTube is eroding support for copyrights and that its actions should not qualify for "safe harbor" under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Calling it the "cockroach in the kitchen," Cuban argued forcefully that YouTube, like Napster before it, is training up an entire generation to think that "anything goes" in the realm of copyright, and that Google's recent purchase of the company only gives their actions more legitimacy. The occasion for the remarks was the EFF's annual "Pioneer Awards," which were this year handed out at the ETech conference in San Diego, where I'm on location. Cuban squared off for a friendly debate with the EFF's Fred von Lohmann on the YouTube issue. von Lohmann made his own impassioned case for the importance of DMCA safe harbors to companies like YouTube, and said he worried that if the recent court case with Viacom goes against YouTube, the entire concept of the safe harbor could be weakened dramatically. Cuban, who was involved in negotiations around the DMCA when it was first drafted, countered that the law was never meant to apply to a company like YouTube that offered anonymous access to its hosting. It was designed, he said, for ISPs that know their customers and don't derive large portions of their traffic from infringing content. Von Lohmann countered that anonymous Internet speech is an important principle; there's no reason to require a company like YouTube to require name and address information simply to let users participate. Besides, the DMCA already gives companies an easy way to address the problem—the takedown notice. The debate then shifted to "red flag knowledge," or the level of knowledge that a company must have about infringing uses of its services before it is no longer liable for DMCA safe harbor protections. von Lohmann pointed out that "general knowledge" that infringement does occur simply cannot be the standard, or every Web company from Amazon to eBay would be in serious jeopardy. The question then becomes: how much infringement is too much? According to Cuban, "everyone knows" that YouTube is stuffed with infringing content, and that level of knowledge should be good enough to revoke their claimed DMCA exemption. Should YouTube start filtering content before it goes up, Cuban claimed he would have no problem with the company, even if infringing material made it through the screen. "At least they would be trying," he said. Cuban is an interesting spokesman for copyright concerns since he has a broad perspective; as the owner of HDNet, he worries about having his content given away for free without his consent, but he's also someone who has funded EFF campaigns in the past, especially when the group defended Grokster's claim to legality. But it wasn't Cuban who was cutting the big checks this time around. Mitch Kapor, who made his money designing Lotus 1-2-3, was an EFF cofounder, and he has just agreed to endow the group with another million dollars out of his personal piggybank. That kind of money should keep the EFF litigating (and debating the DMCA) for decades to come. One of the strangest aspects of the debate was seeing an EFF lawyer defend the DMCA, which usually comes in for a drubbing due to its anticircumvention provision. But von Lohmann told Ars Technica after the debate that the safe harbor section has actually allowed plenty of businesses to flourish that might otherwise have been mired in legal problems, and that it has generally worked well. If that protection is yanked away from YouTube, though, the scope of the safe harbor rules would be dramatically limited. With several cases against YouTube pending (and several of them due to be decided by the end of the summer), we may know sooner rather than later how the courts choose to interpret this section of the law, and that guidance will condition how tech companies behave."

3/28/2007 10:01:10 AM

Quote :

"YouTube Leashed: "Claim Your Content" Is On Its Way http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/press/youtube-leashed-claim-your-content-is-on-its-way-253113.php It may sound like a game show for accountants, but Claim Your Content is actually the name of YouTube's new content monitoring tool. As near as we can figure, it's an automated feature that accompanies every user-uploaded video. Content owners, including such publicly announced Claim Your Content charter members as the NHL and the NBA, will have the right to log in and yank any content that they feel is an infringement of copyright. Now, we will be eager to see exactly how this yanking process works, and if there is any room in it for protest, deliberation or out-and-out legal confrontation. Frankly, an automated censoring product seems a little bit scary. What is clear at this point is that this is Google's way of appeasing some of the angrier content owners who have already taken action. According to a wire report, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said today that the tool may at least help play down the allegation that YouTube encourages copyright infringement. "As that product rolls out, the issue becomes moot," said Schmidt. "

4/19/2007 5:04:58 PM

I dunno why google would undertake such measures if they were so certain they were in the free in clear.

Gonna be interested to see noen spin this as "see google isn't evil" when that was only 1/2 the debate.

4/19/2007 8:58:11 PM

How is them making it idiot-proof easy for everyone to kill their content = evil?

They released a new application to make it absolutely trivial to immediately remove offending content. They are doing because it's the right thing to do, not because they are doing anything "wrong".

4/19/2007 9:28:07 PM

Obviously, doing something to benefit others is the equivalent to admitting guilt.

I mean, that's really the only way to interpret that.

4/19/2007 11:06:42 PM

Quote :

"I assume that the real goal of the lawsuit is to get the DMCA altered or get a judge to order YouTube to include some sort of process that allows copyright owners to quickly remove content from the site."

4/20/2007 8:01:04 AM

Quote :

"How is them making it idiot-proof easy for everyone to kill their content = evil?"

Sigh. That doesn't make them evil at all, it makes them the opposite of evil. The point I was making, and I guess it went over your head, is that you were contending google was free and clear of any responsibility regarding the content flowing on YouTube, so why would they need to do something like this?

Quote :

"They released a new application to make it absolutely trivial to immediately remove offending content. They are doing because it's the right thing to do, not because they are doing anything "wrong"."

The right thing to do? But, but you said the DMCA put the responsibility on the content owner to send take down notices, etc. Stop wavering on your stance.

Quote :

"Obviously, doing something to benefit others is the equivalent to admitting guilt. I mean, that's really the only way to interpret that."

"Guilt"? You're starting to sound like a certain pothead that won't leave the Soap Box. It has nothing to do with guilt. It has everything to do with google knowing the law is pretty shaky and that they can't hide behind it playing "dumb" forever.

4/20/2007 9:03:58 AM

Quote :

"The point I was making, and I guess it went over your head, is that you were contending google was free and clear of any responsibility regarding the content flowing on YouTube, so why would they need to do something like this? "

They didn't NEED to do anything. That's my point. They did it because it's an easy implemented solution that keeps Google within the law and empowers the content owners even more.

Quote :

"The right thing to do? But, but you said the DMCA put the responsibility on the content owner to send take down notices, etc. Stop wavering on your stance"

EXACTLY. They created a tool FOR THE CONTENT OWNERS to more efficiently take down offending content.

They are going above and beyond their DMCA responsibilities, plain and simple. This is not admitting guilt to anything. Or did Google break some law when they added Google Chat to gmail too

[Edited on April 20, 2007 at 10:23 AM. Reason : .]

4/20/2007 10:20:58 AM

Quote :

"did Google break some law when they added Google Chat to gmail too"

i think you're on to something. i'm thinking a thewolfweb class-action lawsuit, who's with me!?

[Edited on April 20, 2007 at 10:39 AM. Reason : so easy, state409c can do it]

4/20/2007 10:39:19 AM

bump

6/8/2010 11:33:48 AM

Talk about necropost.

6/8/2010 11:50:50 AM

^ Agreed

Then again its been in the news a bit lately. Lemme see if I can find some recent articles.

6/8/2010 12:13:04 PM

Found it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1PIICmNlH0

Quote :

"June 07, 2010 Ask Viacom where Jonathan Coulton's 37 dollars is: http://www.viacom.com/contact/Pages/default.aspx Jonathan Coulton's Flickr video: http://www.jonathancoulton.com/primer/flickr/ Where Is Jonathan Coulton's 37 dollars? In which John Green examines the complicated relationship between Viacom and piracy: Viacom has filed a lawsuit against YouTube seeking more than a billion dollars in damages for the copyright infringement that was rife in the early days of YouTube. But John proves that spike.com, which is owned by Viacom, has been placing ads against content that doesn't belong to them for years, including Jonathan Coulton's brilliant music video "Flickr." This video includes a snippet of "Flickr," which is--like this video--released under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike Creative Commons license. All of which is to say: Viacom, if you steal my video like you stole Coulton's, I will sue you."

So who requested the bump?


[Edited on June 8, 2010 at 2:25 PM. Reason : .]

6/8/2010 2:25:00 PM

oh darn you posted the youtube link before i could

gs7 wins

6/8/2010 3:34:26 PM

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/youtube-wins-case-against-viacom.html

Quote :

"Today, the court granted our motion for summary judgment in Viacom’s lawsuit with YouTube. This means that the court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online. This is an important victory not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other. We’re excited about this decision and look forward to renewing our focus on supporting the incredible variety of ideas and expression that billions of people post and watch on YouTube every day around the world."

w00t!

3 years and 3 months later...

6/23/2010 4:54:51 PM