we will start another youtube if you take this one down. that is all.

3/13/2007 1:20:47 PM

thanks for this [new] thread

3/13/2007 1:27:01 PM

yw

ibt(p)l

3/13/2007 1:32:56 PM

They can keep people from profiting from it though.

3/13/2007 1:35:06 PM

true

[Edited on March 13, 2007 at 1:40 PM. Reason : .]

3/13/2007 1:39:58 PM

pretty much google is fucked cause they now own youtube

3/13/2007 7:49:35 PM

google is fucked? haha, i don't think so.

3/13/2007 8:40:15 PM

Slashdot has had some pretty witty comments on this one, better than the usual lot of crap. Highly recommend, AAAA+++++

3/13/2007 8:56:28 PM

oh, i'm a bit behind on the news today, what with trying to buy a new house and all

but yeah, fuck 'em.
$1 Billion? Give me a break - they probably don't expect to get 10% of that. $100M to Google is chump change. Either that, or they'll just enter into a revenue sharing deal where youtube will host viacom videos instead of crap video sites on comedycentral.com and mtv.com

Viacom is really missing the big picture, though.
I really wish Jon Stewart and Colbert would speak out and make a stand against their "parents". Both of them have embraced online video sharing in the past, and Colbert has encouraged it with his various Green Screen Challenges.


1 billion dollars

3/13/2007 10:06:20 PM

oh god i hate all these network tv's video playing sites like the motherload and all that

3/13/2007 10:12:52 PM

Quote :

"but yeah, fuck 'em. $1 Billion? Give me a break - they probably don't expect to get 10% of that. $100M to Google is chump change. Either that, or they'll just enter into a revenue sharing deal where youtube will host viacom videos instead of crap video sites on comedycentral.com and mtv.com"

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.

And for another thing, if Viacom doesn't get _at least_ a billion dollars out of this lawsuit, then something is seriously wrong with American justice.

Mark Cuban said it best:

Quote :

"My hope is that this lawsuit is not a negotiating ploy. I dont think it is. Why ? Because there is no downside to Viacom to run this one out to the end. If they win the suit, they make their Billion Dollars, which given this lawsuit could take years, could grow to 10s of Billions in damages if Gootube doesn't take any action to stop the ongoing infringing uploaders. If Viacom loses, they lose legal fees of course, but Google still has to negotiate to get their content. The only real hassle is that Viacom must continue to send takedown notices. Thats such an easy choice, 10mm in legal fees vs the potential for BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars. Its so easy, that I expect many suits to follow this one."

(from Blog Maverick, tonight)

And for another thing -- Google has shown their inexperience, arrogance, and general inability to do deals. It's one thing to market a horizontal product where you charge a little to a lot of people. It's quite another to make deals with an industry that is in aggregate many, many times bigger than you are.

Regardless of the outcome of this lawsuit -- and I suspect it will be deeply negative -- Google has shown that they're more interested in being a part of the incestuous Web 2.0 Circle with their anti-copyright DNA, than in building a sustainable business. I hope Wall Street is listening.

3/14/2007 1:50:02 AM

yeah someone just go ahead and send the WSJ a link to this thread, they need to hear what some guy on the internet has to say

3/14/2007 7:14:23 AM

I'm with Smoker4 on this one. I was a big google fan in the early days because of search and gmail.

But here lately, I kinda get pissed at the arrogance they are possessing and the fact that they are hiding under the bogus DMCA and probably making a killing off of it.

Then there is the fact that they jerked the good folks of Caldwell Country around over petty cash to google. Honestly, why is there a need for a "do no evil" multi billion dollar PER YEAR company to strong arm Caldwell county over less than 10 million a year ($260 mill in incentives paid over 30 years).

http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2007/02/paper_blasts_go.php

Quote :

" North Carolina taxpayers could give $260 million to Google over 30 years - more than twice as much as first revealed. We'd pay more than $1 million apiece for 210 jobs, many of them offering middling pay at best. They'd be at a facility somewhat comparable to a power company substation: a bunch of equipment tended by a relatively few humans. This super-secret giveaway "negotiated" by local officials and the Easley administration basically means that an international corporation that made $1 billion-plus in the last quarter of 2006 will never pay more than a fraction of its share of state and local taxes ... Playing the role of gullible yokels to Google's slick arm twisters, local officials did exactly what they were told - and kept it secret for months. Meanwhile, Google was bullying state officials, who also caved, though marginally less cravenly. We still may not know the full extent of this secret giveaway. Prudent parents may want to lock up their daughters."

So in summary, fuck Google.

3/14/2007 9:18:48 AM

fine, fuck google. But to what end? To benefit Viacom? if this is turning into a lesser-of-two-evils situation, you seriously would rather support Viacom, who has continuously showed that they will blindly follow the money regardless of who they step on to benefit solely themselves, or google, who at least has shown in the past to put the needs and wants of their customers as a high priority.

3/14/2007 10:48:22 AM

thank god for the DMCA, and fuck viacom.

3/14/2007 12:35:18 PM

mark cuban called this.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,216714,00.html

3/14/2007 12:38:15 PM

Quote :

"fine, fuck google. But to what end? To benefit Viacom? if this is turning into a lesser-of-two-evils situation, you seriously would rather support Viacom, who has continuously showed that they will blindly follow the money regardless of who they step on to benefit solely themselves, or google, who at least has shown in the past to put the needs and wants of their customers as a high priority."

Two steps forward, one step back?

For me, this is about playing ball fairly. I don't like the big media pimps such as Viacom for their draconian MPAA and RIAA-like practices, but that is a completely different argument.

What this is about is Google hiding behind the DMCA, while they rake in ad money on the backs of copywritten content. They have enough money in their coffers, the only prudent thing to do is either put proper filtering in place, or hire monkeys such that their only job all day is to remove infringing content. Cuban even pointed out there is no concept of "who is who" in regards to user IDs. Google knew what was going to happen, they set aside 500 million specifically for this.

[Edited on March 14, 2007 at 12:50 PM. Reason : a]

3/14/2007 12:49:52 PM

How the FUCK can you be mad at Google for accepting the retardo tax breaks?

If you are going to be mad at anyone, be mad at Caldwell County and the state. This whole tax-incentive bullshit is THE FAULT OF STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, NOT PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Google is doing what ANY good company should do, find the best deal to make their shareholders the most money. It's not unethical or immoral for them to accept a deal like this. The ethics violations come from the imcompetent and idiotic policy makers who make the proposals in the first place.

Fuck all this "waaahh waahhh they twisted the arms of some local small time politician". No they didn't. You think GOOGLE SOUGHT OUT CALDWELL COUNTY? Hell no they didn't .


#2 - Youtube, much like ANY community content site, is only a TOOL. Bittorrent is also a tool. Guns are tools. Paint brushes are tools. You can't fucking sue a paint-brush manufacturer because people all of a sudden start killing people with paint brushes.

There is no way in hell Google should bear the brunt of monitoring their own content. The community monitors itself. And if someone does something illegal, the INDIVIDUAL bears the responsbility and consquences of THEIR OWN actions.

Quote :

"What this is about is Google hiding behind the DMCA, while they rake in ad money on the backs of copywritten content. "

They rake in AD money from their own LICENSED copywritten content. From NBC/Universal to Sony, to CBS to the BBC. I don't know what the fuck you are talking about otherwise. There are no non-sponsored ads on youtube, and even the partners aren't intrusive. I fail to see how this is anything other than an extremely intelligent idea, damn good business strategy and a win-win for everyone who is involved in it.

Viacom is pissed because THEIR OWN AUDIENCE doesn't want to use their product. Rather than fighting what their own customers want to use, they should probably listen to the damn people who pay them.

3/14/2007 6:32:00 PM

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2007/tc20070314_729711.htm

Quote :

"Perhaps the greatest difference between the RIAA's case and Viacom's is that Viacom doesn't want to stop YouTube from operating. If it did, says Rutchik, Viacom would have asked the courts to shut Google down to ensure that its copyrighted material was not uploaded, or in some cases slightly changed and re-uploaded after being removed. Instead, Viacom asked for damages, a "declaration that defendants' conduct willfully infringes Plaintiffs' copyrights," and an injunction requiring YouTube and Google to, in essence, adopt better technology to prevent or limit their copyrighted material from uploading. One reason for this could be that Viacom, owner of youth brand MTV Networks as well as Comedy Central, may not want to anger its key demographic in the same way that the RIAA did when it began to sue users of peer-to-peer sites. Another reason, says Rutchik, is that the whole suit is simply a negotiating tactic to make Google more willing to pay Viacom for its content. "No one pays any money or does much of anything unless they are staring down the barrel of a gun," says Rutchik. "This litigation sets the clock moving." Google has 30 days to file a response. Rutchik guesses that there will be some legal posturing from both sides, but ultimately they will return to the negotiating table and work out a compromise rather than risk losing outright before a judge. Negotiating tactic or not, there are other possible consequences to Viacom's legal action aside from whatever happens with Google or YouTube. The case could give other startup sharing sites pause and, as a result, "chill innovation," says EFF's von Lohmann. And that's an ending few want. "

3/14/2007 7:07:46 PM

Quote :

"There is no way in hell Google should bear the brunt of monitoring their own content."

HAHAHAHAH. Are you kidding Neon? Stop being such a fanboy.

Quote :

"How the FUCK can you be mad at Google for accepting the retardo tax breaks?"

I'm not mad at Google for doing what any publicly traded company should do, that is, maximize profit for their shareholders. I'm mad at Google for trying to kool aid people into thinking they "do no evil". They are profiting on the copywritten content of other media houses. They should be subject to the same cost any network interested in syndicating a show has to pay. If TNT paid 1 million per show for CSI, then Google should be subject to same every time someone uploads the video.

Quote :

"Fuck all this "waaahh waahhh they twisted the arms of some local small time politician". No they didn't. You think GOOGLE SOUGHT OUT CALDWELL COUNTY? Hell no they didn't ."

Yea, Google didn't look around the country at where virtually unlimited supplies of cheap cheap cheap quality electricity could be found and decide to approach those municipalities.

Quote :

"#2 - Youtube, much like ANY community content site, is only a TOOL. Bittorrent is also a tool. Guns are tools. Paint brushes are tools. You can't fucking sue a paint-brush manufacturer because people all of a sudden start killing people with paint brushes."

I mean, I guess if you want to define Youtube in this ultra simplistic way to make a poor analogy work, then I'll respond only this.

Quote :

"They rake in AD money from their own LICENSED copywritten content. From NBC/Universal to Sony, to CBS to the BBC. I don't know what the fuck you are talking about otherwise."

It isn't just direct ad sales revenue (btw, I see a verizonwireless ad on there at the moment), it's driving eyeballs to their site which no doubt ends up as money in their pocket some way or the other.

But, back to this comment

Quote :

" There is no way in hell Google should bear the brunt of monitoring their own content. The community monitors itself. And if someone does something illegal, the INDIVIDUAL bears the responsbility and consquences of THEIR OWN actions."

Seriously, this is absurd. You're also the same guy that used to preach about the wolf web owners not wanting people discussing hacks, cracks, serials, etc because they could be held responsible.

And "the community monitors itself"? What does this even mean? If Google weren't monetizing off of this site, then sure, the individual should bear the brunt. As such, Google should bear the cost of doing this business by hiring enough monkeys to screen uploaded content, or get some darn good filters to do some of the work as well.

and it looks like the businessweek commentary is thinking like me

Quote :

"a "declaration that defendants' conduct willfully infringes Plaintiffs' copyrights," and an injunction requiring YouTube and Google to, in essence, adopt better technology to prevent or limit their copyrighted material from uploading."

3/14/2007 8:16:48 PM

Quote :

"HAHAHAHAH. Are you kidding Neon? Stop being such a fanboy."

Not a fanboy. It's not the responsibility of the creator of a platform to police it's content, plain and simple.

Quote :

"I'm mad at Google for trying to kool aid people into thinking they "do no evil". They are profiting on the copywritten content of other media houses. They should be subject to the same cost any network interested in syndicating a show has to pay. If TNT paid 1 million per show for CSI, then Google should be subject to same every time someone uploads the video."

Where do they say they "do no evil"? They offer fairly open platforms for people to use and develop on. That's it. They create services and products people WANT to use. Where does Google claim to be this happy-hippy company you seem to claim they are passing themselves off as?

WHERE IS THIS MYSTERIOUS REVENUE COMING FROM? Seriously, how in the hell can you justify this? The ONLY argument I could see to support this is the whole "page views equals indirect ad revenue". But this makes no sense, because the viacom content in question isn't related to any advertiser, and the clips don't stay online long enought to generate any significant amount of views. This simply is NOT true.

Quote :

"Yea, Google didn't look around the country at where virtually unlimited supplies of cheap cheap cheap quality electricity could be found and decide to approach those municipalities."

Again, this is business. If it hadn't been for the fucking retards'o'Caldwell county, google wouldn't be here and this wouldn't be a talking point. As it stands, we continue the stupid process of government incentives to lure companies to shithole towns.

Quote :

"I mean, I guess if you want to define Youtube in this ultra simplistic way to make a poor analogy work, then I'll respond only this."

When you respond with this kind of baseless statement: "no doubt ends up as money in their pocket some way or the other." it's not any more simplistic, and it's an entirely valid analogy.

It's the responsibility of the copyright holder to protect their copyright. USERS are infringing, not google.

Quote :

"It isn't just direct ad sales revenue (btw, I see a verizonwireless ad on there at the moment), it's driving eyeballs to their site which no doubt ends up as money in their pocket some way or the other."

It's a combination of paid "partners" (which is exactly the same kind of relationship seen on broadcast television) along with google's direct ad sales through traditional banner ads.

And if you know anything about banner advertising, even with google, the clickthrough and margins are pretty damn low. They aren't running adwords (yet at least), which is their much higher margin product.

"driving eyeballs" is only really relevent to their partner adverts, which are actual videos, not correlary to the content being viewed, which means viacom content has no impact on those revenues.

Quote :

"Seriously, this is absurd. You're also the same guy that used to preach about the wolf web owners not wanting people discussing hacks, cracks, serials, etc because they could be held responsible. And "the community monitors itself"? What does this even mean? If Google weren't monetizing off of this site, then sure, the individual should bear the brunt. As such, Google should bear the cost of doing this business by hiring enough monkeys to screen uploaded content, or get some darn good filters to do some of the work as well. "

I still preach about it. And guess who I preach should enforce this? USER MODERATORS, aka THE COMMUNITY. If you haven't noticed, there's a little link under EVERY video on youtube to flag it. That's how the VAST majority of videos are pulled for inappropriate content, spam and infringement.

And seriously, there aren't enough monkeys on earth to screen every video before posting, or to filter them. There are thousands of videos a day, if not tens-of-thousands, and for a paid staff to have to screen ALL OF EVERY ONE is completely unreasonable and impossible.

Computers can't even tell the fucking difference between a picture of a cat or a dog, how in the fuck are you supposed to write an intelligent copyright filter?

Google monetizing off this site means they should insure the INTEGRITY OF THE SITE. They should be insuring the users have a good experience, the partners have a good experience, and the advertisers get what they pay for.

Businessweek is a bunch of fucking retards half the time. Mass Media doesn't even understand what the company does, much less the technical feasability of anything they are suggesting.

3/14/2007 8:44:36 PM

And i think the fucking US JUDICIAL SYSTEM supports my opinion, based on this recent ruling:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-21-court-blogs_x.htm

It ruled that blog sites and community websites are NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENT OF IT'S USERS in cases of libel and defamatory remarks. While this doesn't directly correlate to copyright law, it damn sure sets a predicent for the users reponsibility for their content, NOT the service provider.

3/14/2007 8:48:08 PM

Quote :

"As such, Google should bear the cost of doing this business by hiring enough monkeys to screen uploaded content, or get some darn good filters to do some of the work as well."

Neither of those solutions will ever work- ever.

You're kidding yourself if you don't see that the internet- and mass communication in general- is on a perpetual trend towards decentralization. Business models will change accordingly.

I wholeheartedly agree with Noen, despite the analogy.

3/14/2007 8:58:02 PM

Quote :

"It's not the responsibility of the creator of a platform to police it's content, plain and simple."

Under the current DMCA, durr. Which is specifically what I have a problem with. Please don't restate the obvious.

Quote :

"Where do they say they "do no evil"? They offer fairly open platforms for people to use and develop on. That's it. They create services and products people WANT to use. Where does Google claim to be this happy-hippy company you seem to claim they are passing themselves off as?"

Chirst Neon, did you even pay attention to their IPO?

Quote :

"WHERE IS THIS MYSTERIOUS REVENUE COMING FROM? Seriously, how in the hell can you justify this? The ONLY argument I could see to support this is the whole "page views equals indirect ad revenue". But this makes no sense, because the viacom content in question isn't related to any advertiser, and the clips don't stay online long enought to generate any significant amount of views. This simply is NOT true."

How hard a concept is this? If people weren't emailing around links to copy written content, YouTube wouldn't get a nice chunk of the traffic it does.

Quote :

"Again, this is business. If it hadn't been for the fucking retards'o'Caldwell county, google wouldn't be here and this wouldn't be a talking point. As it stands, we continue the stupid process of government incentives to lure companies to shithole towns."

I agree that it's a mean game municipalities have to play, but I was specifically responding to your point that Google was definitely doing the looking, most likely not the other way around.

You still haven't commented on Google strong arming Caldwell County into silence while the discussions were going on. "Do no evil" should be amended to include "unless you have to for possibly dubious reasons"

Quote :

"I still preach about it. And guess who I preach should enforce this? USER MODERATORS, aka THE COMMUNITY. If you haven't noticed, there's a little link under EVERY video on youtube to flag it. That's how the VAST majority of videos are pulled for inappropriate content, spam and infringement."

ROFL. You mean the 160,000+ Viacom clips estimated to have been viewed over 1.5 billion times got flagged and removed in a prompt manner? If filtering methods exist (and they do) to prevent this content from being uploaded, then they should be put in place.

You have also failed to comment on GooTube not doing anything to prevent users from creating multiple accounts easily so they can continue to upload infringing content.

Stop being a nancy about the DMCA and lets call a spade a spade. If Google were more restrictive about filtering copy written material, and making it a little bit more difficult to have multiple user names for uploading said content, a big portion of their traffic would disappear, and investors wouldn't applaud those numbers at an SEC filing.

Quote :

"Businessweek is a bunch of fucking retards half the time. Mass Media doesn't even understand what the company does, much less the technical feasability of anything they are suggesting."

Nope, but Mark Cuban knows a helluva lot more than you and I about how to run a business, and he is more on my side than yours.

Quote :

"Google monetizing off this site means they should insure the INTEGRITY OF THE SITE. They should be insuring the users have a good experience, the partners have a good experience, and the advertisers get what they pay for."

Thats what I have been saying all along. Gawd damn. The onus shouldn't be on Viacom to approach Google about a partnership. It doesn't work this way for TV, and it shouldn't work this way for Google.

3/14/2007 9:06:59 PM

Quote :

"ROFL. You mean the 160,000+ Viacom clips estimated to have been viewed over 1.5 billion times got flagged and removed in a prompt manner? If filtering methods exist (and they do) to prevent this content from being uploaded, then they should be put in place."

Filtering method's don't exist for what would suit Viacom.
You know how they deleted 160,000 clips in one day? i'll give you a hint:

DELETE * FROM videos WHERE keyword="jon stewart" OR "colbert" OR "mtv" OR "comedy central" OR "nickalodeon" OR "viacom sucks" OR "tds" OR "the daily show"

The best viacom could do above keyword filtering (which 1) has a ton of false positives, where people simply tag a video with a "restricted keyword" or where people legitimately are practicing Fair Use Principles and 2) can be circumvented by simply not using those keywords, albiet making the videos unsearchable) is somekind of digital fingerprint on all it's copyrighted video. Do you think they want to do that? Provide digital signatures for 24 hours a day worth of content on dozens of channels? Any of which can be overcome by simply editing, resampling, compressing, etc the video and reuploading it?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070314-motion-based-analysis-can-filter-copyrighted-video-clips.html
this still requires someone to create the analysis of all copyrighted video. Then assuming youtube implements it, but Viacom doesn't offer any reasonable alternatives to youtube and doesn't partner with them, other sites will continue to spring up that don't use the filtering. just the whole Napter/limewire/bearshare/kazza thing all over again.

[Edited on March 14, 2007 at 9:24 PM. Reason : .]

3/14/2007 9:20:49 PM

this is a good thread...seriously, one of the best in a long time

3/14/2007 9:23:49 PM

don't ruin it..

add some fuel to the fire

3/14/2007 11:16:05 PM

Quote :

"Under the current DMCA, durr. Which is specifically what I have a problem with. Please don't restate the obvious. "

Then on this topic we have to agree to disagree, because that's a fundamental difference in political beliefs. I believe in individual free choice, and individual consequences. You obviously believe that people shouldn't be held accountable for their actions, only the people who enabled those actions should be prosecuted.

So shooters shouldn't go to prison, the gun manufacturers should.
DUI's should be enforced against both car manufacturers and the alcohol manufacturers.
Software piracy should be paid for by the people who make CD burning software.
Hijacked airplanes are the responsibility of the airline manufacturer to prevent and pay reparations.

Seriously, these are all direct correlaries to what you are suggesting. And all are stupid as fuck.
GOOGLE DOESN'T UPLOAD ANYTHING.

The users make a CONSCIOUS DECISION TO BREAK THE LAW.

Quote :

"Chirst Neon, did you even pay attention to their IPO?"

Yes, and the mantra is "Don't be evil" not "do no evil". The former is a good mantra, the latter is impossible and what bloggers twisted it into.

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

You can go read their code of conduct right there. It hasn't changed a damn bit. They aren't out there to save the damn world, they are there to provide as much free information to the general population as they can do within the confines of their business.

Quote :

"How hard a concept is this? If people weren't emailing around links to copy written content, YouTube wouldn't get a nice chunk of the traffic it does. "

Drop.in.the.bucket.

Quote :

"I agree that it's a mean game municipalities have to play, but I was specifically responding to your point that Google was definitely doing the looking, most likely not the other way around. You still haven't commented on Google strong arming Caldwell County into silence while the discussions were going on. "Do no evil" should be amended to include "unless you have to for possibly dubious reasons""

Of course they are doing the looking, because state governments have been whoring their land and resources for over a decade now. It's COMMON PRACTICE.

You are still being blinded by that fucking idiot of a blogger. Google didn't strong arm anyone into anything. The government officials know full fucking well what they are doing, because they are getting paid off like bandits to get these deals passed. "Strong Armed into silence"? They signed industry standard NDA's. How the fuck is that anything special? ALL the monetary data will show up in their financial reports to the SEC at the end of the year. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people that REALLY think "business holds all the cards".

It's not like Caldwell County or Lenoir are going to get shit for having google there. All the employees are going to commute from the nearest big city, fucking the town out of all that tax base, they aren't going to get shit from google itself because of the tax breaks, and it'll only provide a tiny fraction of jobs to the total town, almost NONE of which will come from it's own residents. It makes NO SENSE FOR THEM TO BE THERE.

As for Mark Cuban, he sure as hell knows a lot about building mediocre buyout businesses. I've yet to see a single venture of his that hasn't fizzled. He sold a integration business to COMPUSERVE, sold streaming audio to Yahoo during the .com boom, started HDNet (which I still fail to see how it's going to survive once the networks all transition), launched a miserable failure of a TV show, made a movie that flopped, invested in a bunch of search engines that flopped and owns the Mavericks.

He's DEFINITELY a good businessman, but an innovator?

3/15/2007 1:36:29 AM

Quote :

"ROFL. You mean the 160,000+ Viacom clips estimated to have been viewed over 1.5 billion times got flagged and removed in a prompt manner? If filtering methods exist (and they do) to prevent this content from being uploaded, then they should be put in place. "

You mean like the RIAA estimates music downloading costs 100000000000 dollars a year?

Who the fuck came up with those numbers? I highly doubt there are even 160,000 viacom clips to PUT ONLINE, much less that many that have been watched. And to paraphrase Mr Mark Cuban, who you seem to agree with, even the most popular clips on youtube only get ~100,000 views before sinking below the fold. You are telling me that these 160,000 clips which are removed within a day or two of being posted, AVERAGE 10,000 views per? Seriously dude, head check here. Total up all of the LEGAL PARTNER content, and you wont have 160,000 clips or 1.5 billion views. Those numbers are fucking ridiculous.

Quote :

"You have also failed to comment on GooTube not doing anything to prevent users from creating multiple accounts easily so they can continue to upload infringing content. Stop being a nancy about the DMCA and lets call a spade a spade. If Google were more restrictive about filtering copy written material, and making it a little bit more difficult to have multiple user names for uploading said content, a big portion of their traffic would disappear, and investors wouldn't applaud those numbers at an SEC filing."

HAVE YOU LOOKED AT THEIR SIGNUP FORM?

The require a VALID AND VERIFIED EMAIL ADDRESS and they have one of the most restricted CAPTCHA's I've ever seen, using color, tone and texture. WHAT THE FUCK ELSE CAN THEY DO TO PREVENT NEW ACCOUNTS? That's more stringent than damn near any other community service out there. Their accounts aren't being bot-spam created, that's for goddamned sure. I've written a captcha conquerer, and there's no way in hell you could beat the implementation they have.

And again you are massively overestimating the traffic generated by said questionable content. Please link me to some sort of EVIDENCE, beyond some numerical CLAIM by Viacom. Because other than the occasional Daily Show or Colbert Report clip, I can't recall seeing even a handful of viacom property clips on youtube in the past year or so. And I browse the top 100 videos in several sections daily.

Quote :

"Thats what I have been saying all along. Gawd damn. The onus shouldn't be on Viacom to approach Google about a partnership. It doesn't work this way for TV, and it shouldn't work this way for Google."

Are you serious? The television giants are some of the most fucking crooked, strong-arming, competition crushing organizations on the planet. I'm ABSOLUTELY OVERJOYED that Google isn't conducting itself in the same manner as TimeWarner, Viacom, NBC/Universal or ABC/Disney.

3/15/2007 1:54:55 AM

Quote :

" Yes, and the mantra is "Don't be evil" not "do no evil". The former is a good mantra, the latter is impossible and what bloggers twisted it into."

Very Clinton-esque. Obviously "Don't Be Evil" means "Do as little evil as possible, so as not to be categorically evil." I'd say that buying out the world's biggest copyright-theft engine and setting it on an unstoppable course violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the "mantra."

As to your comments on platforms and policing: I think you're using the term "platform" too broadly. Youtube is manifestly NOT a platform. If it is, I'd love to know where I can get its source code free-and-clear so I can implement my own video-sharing engine with the same interface. I just don't see Google selling Youtubes by-the-instance, or delivering some open Youtube standard (aside from some limited APIs for leveraging the content).

I just don't see how Youtube can be so intertwined with its base of content and still be considered a "platform" in a real sense. Even Windows is more of a platform than Youtube -- in the sense that, everyone gets their own file system and network, if not full rights to the kernel/etc itself.

This is the underlying irony of the current Google hegemony. Eric Schmidt wrote this long-winded, breathless essay for the Economist about how the web has evolved from simple, open standards into a powerful, unbeatable platform. But practically all Google technology is held closely, wrapped tightly around the content it serves.

Youtube isn't a platform. It's a community, a proprietary service. The technology on which it is built is practically a commodity already (see: Ning). Clearly by coupling Youtube so closely with the underlying content and user-base, it is positioned as way more than some blind protocol for content-sharing.

In short: Google's take as the "neutral safe harbor" would be much more believable if Eric Schmidt put his money where his mouth is.

Quote :

"As for Mark Cuban, he sure as hell knows a lot about building mediocre buyout businesses. I've yet to see a single venture of his that hasn't fizzled. He sold a integration business to COMPUSERVE, sold streaming audio to Yahoo during the .com boom"

I don't really see your point. That big companies often can't take companies they've bought out and run with them? How does that reflect on Mark Cuban? I'll say that the Yahoo sale was certainly overvalued; but then again, everything was during the bubble.

The man went from zero dollars to becoming a billionaire. That takes a hell of a lot of innovation in my book. From reading his blog, he has more than a few good ideas.

Quote :

"You mean like the RIAA estimates music downloading costs 100000000000 dollars a year? Who the fuck came up with those numbers?"

I like this. The "I'm smarter than the highly-paid team of MBAs and corporate marketers and negotiators involved in the lawsuit" argument. That could only fly on The Wolf Web.

But let me turn your argument around: who the fuck came up with the $1.5 billion valuation of Youtube itself? Well, that would be Google. Clearly they think the service is worth (in present-value terms) some large-ish multiple of $1.5 billion to have even sunk their teeth in that far. And for some reason -- call me crazy -- I don't think it was because of lonelygirl15.

Ironically, if the lawsuit were for any less than $1 billion, Google would look foolish for buying Youtube for so much. After all, it's the video-sharing, web 2.0 platform of the future, y'all!

Anyway, you're probably right that immediate damages aren't worth $1 billion. But lawsuits are negotiations, too, and I suspect they're asking for the most they think they can get. It sets a high bar for a settlement.

Personally, I think Viacom has set their sights too low. There is a punitive element here, and to me the best approach would be a broad-based, class-action lawsuit on behalf of all affected media companies. I suppose that's where the MPAA will (eventually) come in.

Quote :

"Are you serious? The television giants are some of the most fucking crooked, strong-arming, competition crushing organizations on the planet. I'm ABSOLUTELY OVERJOYED that Google isn't conducting itself in the same manner as TimeWarner, Viacom, NBC/Universal or ABC/Disney."

Well, they more-or-less are. They got a ton of money, and they used it to buy out a service that is wholly predicated on theft. And they knew beforehand that the service would survive because $1 billion is a small number in Mountain View these days.

Throwing money around to get your way -- that's awfully Old World to me. All they have to do now is build a moat around the campus and throw down a gilded coat-of-arms.

And let's be realistic, while we're at it. Maybe the espresso-heads at Wired think "user-generated content" is some kind of category-killer. But I think I have a copy of their Y2K "day after predictions" issue lying about here somewhere ...

3/15/2007 3:22:45 AM

Quote :

"Very Clinton-esque. Obviously "Don't Be Evil" means "Do as little evil as possible, so as not to be categorically evil." I'd say that buying out the world's biggest copyright-theft engine and setting it on an unstoppable course violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the "mantra." "

Categorically not true. Youtube doesnt even touch newsgroups, bittorrent, or even the shallow vestiges of the P2P networks, not even counting the various music pirating rings still around.

Youtube has and remains a site whose MAJORITY of content, and the intent of the MAJORITY of the users is to publish legal works. You can't EVER prevent people doing wrong.

Quote :

"As to your comments on platforms and policing: I think you're using the term "platform" too broadly. Youtube is manifestly NOT a platform. If it is, I'd love to know where I can get its source code free-and-clear so I can implement my own video-sharing engine with the same interface. I just don't see Google selling Youtubes by-the-instance, or delivering some open Youtube standard (aside from some limited APIs for leveraging the content). I just don't see how Youtube can be so intertwined with its base of content and still be considered a "platform" in a real sense. Even Windows is more of a platform than Youtube -- in the sense that, everyone gets their own file system and network, if not full rights to the kernel/etc itself. This is the underlying irony of the current Google hegemony. Eric Schmidt wrote this long-winded, breathless essay for the Economist about how the web has evolved from simple, open standards into a powerful, unbeatable platform. "

Since when does "platform" mean "open source"? And yes there are TONS of API's out there that you could clone youtube with.

And yes it's a fucking platform. http://www.youtube.com/dev you can sign up as a developer and get API access to integrate youtube with your own applications. Jesus fucking christ, do you people ever fucking ready anything except the retard blogs out there?

Apparently neither you or State409c grasp what Google DOES. They offer people better access to information, and better methods to distribute, search and categorize information. They have release development API's for damn near every fucking service they have, most of which are completely open and free to the public.

Quote :

"But practically all Google technology is held closely, wrapped tightly around the content it serves."

What the fuck are you talking about? The ONLY aspect of Google that they hold close is their core search engine technology. Seriously damn near everything else is open for development, modification and use by the public at large.

Quote :

"Youtube isn't a platform. It's a community, a proprietary service. The technology on which it is built is practically a commodity already (see: Ning). Clearly by coupling Youtube so closely with the underlying content and user-base, it is positioned as way more than some blind protocol for content-sharing. In short: Google's take as the "neutral safe harbor" would be much more believable if Eric Schmidt put his money where his mouth is. "

I like how you keep spouting complete business bullshit. YES ITS A PLATFORM, YES ITS A COMMUNITY, YES ITS A FUCKING COMMODITY. GOOGLE DEALS WITH INFORMATION AS A COMMODITY, ITS THE CORE TO THE DAMN COMPANY.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SMOKING MAN?

Quote :

"I don't really see your point. That big companies often can't take companies they've bought out and run with them? How does that reflect on Mark Cuban? I'll say that the Yahoo sale was certainly overvalued; but then again, everything was during the bubble. The man went from zero dollars to becoming a billionaire. That takes a hell of a lot of innovation in my book. From reading his blog, he has more than a few good ideas."

Did you even READ his history? 90% of his wealth came from that ONE Yahoo sale. That put him up there. He hasn't accumulated shit since then. HE IS A GREAT BUSINESS MAN, but name me ONE DAMN THING he innovated since broadcast.com? He is an integrator, not an innovator.

Quote :

"I like this. The "I'm smarter than the highly-paid team of MBAs and corporate marketers and negotiators involved in the lawsuit" argument. That could only fly on The Wolf Web."

Your damn right about that. Most of the users on this site are more intelligent than the VAST majority of MBA's and corporate marketers out there. Equating marketing and MBA's to intelligence has got to be one of the most stupid fucking analogies I have ever read.

If you had said LAWYERS instead, I would agree with you, but this is all a giant hype engine being fed by corporate bullshit at this point. I PRAY viacom goes after Google on this, because I garaun-damn-tee you they won't win, and Google will not settle.

Quote :

"But let me turn your argument around: who the fuck came up with the $1.5 billion valuation of Youtube itself? Well, that would be Google. Clearly they think the service is worth (in present-value terms) some large-ish multiple of $1.5 billion to have even sunk their teeth in that far. And for some reason -- call me crazy -- I don't think it was because of lonelygirl15. "

There's no way in hell it's worth 1.5 billion even now, I absolutely agree with you there. The valuations for Google and its properties are ridiculous, no doubt about it.

Quote :

"Personally, I think Viacom has set their sights too low. There is a punitive element here, and to me the best approach would be a broad-based, class-action lawsuit on behalf of all affected media companies. I suppose that's where the MPAA will (eventually) come in."

The MPAA won't touch youtube. Both the MPAA and RIAA have already established that they target the piraters, not the service (exempting of course Napster/Kazza et al whose services were SOLELY based on copyright infrignement).

Quote :

"Well, they more-or-less are. They got a ton of money, and they used it to buy out a service that is wholly predicated on theft."

Again, not true. I mean you can call a horse a chicken, but it doesn't make it one. If you look at the NUMBERS, as youtube has grown and matured, the amount of infringing material has regulated itself to a large extent. I agree it was pretty damn bad in the beginning with the user content race. But that leveled itself out in a matter of months as true content producers began making their own contributions.

You called it a community. In a community you have ALL elements. Good, bad, illegal and nefarious. There's no fucking way around this. It's what a community is.

Quote :

"Throwing money around to get your way -- that's awfully Old World to me. All they have to do now is build a moat around the campus and throw down a gilded coat-of-arms. And let's be realistic, while we're at it. Maybe the espresso-heads at Wired think "user-generated content" is some kind of category-killer. But I think I have a copy of their Y2K "day after predictions" issue lying about here somewhere ... "

Hahahah. Viacom is the one throwing the money around right now. Google uses it's money to buy up applications that fit with the company vision to expand their data reach. Hardly old-world.

Wired is a bunch of retards too, as are most journalists, especially in the tech industry. User generated content is ONE aspect of google's grand plan. they have aggregated blogs and news, now they are aggregating user driven video and beginning to aggregate corporate video productions.

Their next moves are going to be: opening google books as a full commerce and research application (which is what google checkout is for initially), expanding google video / youtube to incorporate as much commercial broadcasting as they can, launching their thin client productivity applications, and finally launching GoogleOS. Once the OS hits the bigtime, is when they are going to REALLY start fucking shit up in corporate america.

You'll have a company who has aggregated damn near every piece of research, literature, news, video and audio (im sure this is already in the works), who can also offer productivity and a computing platform. Tack an ISP onto that and you have the Google Internet.

And the beautiful thing about ALL of this, is every bit of google's succes relies on them keeping EVERYONE happy. If any party pulls out, they fail. It's a completely diffeent take on business, and I believe it's why they CONSTANTLY innovate, profit and expand.

3/15/2007 5:44:27 AM

Since it's appropriate http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/03/14/2220210.shtml (EFF makes guy apologize in humiliating ways for DMCA violations)

3/15/2007 6:53:08 AM

google responds, pretty much what was expected - DMCA

Quote :

"Google confident digital liability law protects it http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1316411620070314 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Google Inc. is confident its popular video-sharing site YouTube and other Web services Google offers have strong legal protections under current copyright law, company attorneys said on Tuesday. Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. ended six months of thinly veiled threats of legal action against YouTube earlier on Tuesday with a $1 billion lawsuit that accuses Google and YouTube of "massive intentional copyright infringement." But Google and YouTube lawyers said their actions are squarely within the protections offered by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 and they were prepared to defend the company aggressively. The DMCA has served as the legal standard defining U.S. copyright law in the digital age. It limits liability for firms that act quickly to block access to pirated materials once they are notified by copyright holders of specific infringement. "Here there is a law which is specifically designed to give Web hosts such as us, or... bloggers or people that provide photo-album hosting online ... the 'safe harbor' we need in order to be able to do hosting online," said Alexander Macgillivray, Google's associate general counsel for products and intellectual property. "We will never launch a product or acquire a company unless we are completely satisfied with its legal basis for operating," Macgillivray told Reuters in an interview. Google's move to acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion in early October was preceded by a series of threats and at least one federal lawsuit filed against YouTube. YouTube was sued in July 2006 by Los Angeles News Service operator Robert Tur for allowing YouTube users to upload and view his famous footage of trucker Reginald Denny being beaten during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In September, Doug Morris, chief executive of Universal Music Group, the world's biggest record company, accused YouTube and News Corp.'s MySpace social network site of being "copyright infringers' at a Wall Street conference. David Drummond, the executive who spearheaded Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube last November, serves as both its head of business development and chief legal officer. Responding to Viacom's suit, which also seeks an injunction that could lead to a possible shutdown of YouTube, Macgillivray said Google had done its homework. "This is an area of law where there are a bunch of really clear precedents, so Amazon and eBay have both been found to qualify for the safe harbor and there are a whole bunch more," Macgillivray said. "We will continue to innovate and continue to host material for people, without being distracted by this suit." The attorney noted Google previously won dismissal of a lawsuit involving copyright issues filed by Nevada attorney Blake Field. The judge used 'safe harbor" protections, among a series of grounds, in granting summary judgment to Google."

[Edited on March 15, 2007 at 7:36 AM. Reason : .]

3/15/2007 7:36:05 AM

Quote :

"You mean like the RIAA estimates music downloading costs 100000000000 dollars a year? Who the fuck came up with those numbers? I highly doubt there are even 160,000 viacom clips to PUT ONLINE, much less that many that have been watched. And to paraphrase Mr Mark Cuban, who you seem to agree with, even the most popular clips on youtube only get ~100,000 views before sinking below the fold. You are telling me that these 160,000 clips which are removed within a day or two of being posted, AVERAGE 10,000 views per? Seriously dude, head check here. Total up all of the LEGAL PARTNER content, and you wont have 160,000 clips or 1.5 billion views. Those numbers are fucking ridiculous."

#1 Stop acting like you have a damn clue about estimates. You've basically said you don't believe the estimates given, but then don't even attempt an estimate of your own.
#2 Stop trying to claim this argument is bunk because you have a problem with the estimates. Cut them all in 1/3rds, 1/4ths even, and it's still a god damn lot.

Quote :

"And again you are massively overestimating the traffic generated by said questionable content. Please link me to some sort of EVIDENCE, beyond some numerical CLAIM by Viacom. Because other than the occasional Daily Show or Colbert Report clip, I can't recall seeing even a handful of viacom property clips on youtube in the past year or so. And I browse the top 100 videos in several sections daily."

Come on Neon, this is classic made up lies you tell. I can't believe a guy that is doing as much stuff as you, ALSO has the time to browse several hundred videos on a daily basis. Furthermore, why are you putting the burden on me to prove out Viacoms numbers? Why don't you attempt an estimate yourself? Maybe it's because any estimate ANYONE can come up with is going to be a crapshoot at best anyway.

Quote :

"The require a VALID AND VERIFIED EMAIL ADDRESS and they have one of the most restricted CAPTCHA's I've ever seen, using color, tone and texture. WHAT THE FUCK ELSE CAN THEY DO TO PREVENT NEW ACCOUNTS? That's more stringent than damn near any other community service out there. Their accounts aren't being bot-spam created, that's for goddamned sure. I've written a captcha conquerer, and there's no way in hell you could beat the implementation they have."

Wow, a verified email address. Kinda like, how you can get 100 gmails free for every gmail account you create? ROFL.

Quote :

"Are you serious? The television giants are some of the most fucking crooked, strong-arming, competition crushing organizations on the planet. I'm ABSOLUTELY OVERJOYED that Google isn't conducting itself in the same manner as TimeWarner, Viacom, NBC/Universal or ABC/Disney."

What? You're glad Google doesn't at least attempt to pay for the illegal content they are making money off of?

Quote :

"Apparently neither you or State409c grasp what Google DOES. They offer people better access to information, and better methods to distribute, search and categorize information. They have release development API's for damn near every fucking service they have, most of which are completely open and free to the public."

Look, I fully see the value in having a highly visible platform for content distribution. I however don't like the "evil" practices Google has engaged in while operating it while hiding behind the DMCA.

This isn't the same as bitorrent or some other file sharing service. Look at it this way. If 100 people don't buy a DVD because it is available P2P, the MPAA companies have lost out on 100 sales of that disk. If those same 100 instead view it on Gootube, and a certain portion of those ALSO generate revenue for Google, then thats 100 DVD sales lost PLUS revenue that Google received for hosting the video. This is not what the DMCA was designed for.

Quote :

"Did you even READ his history? 90% of his wealth came from that ONE Yahoo sale. That put him up there. He hasn't accumulated shit since then. HE IS A GREAT BUSINESS MAN, but name me ONE DAMN THING he innovated since broadcast.com? He is an integrator, not an innovator."

He innovated the Dallas Mavericks. They weren't exactly the Lakers, Celtics, Bulls, etc before he came to town. The bottom line is, he knows a helluva lot more than you or I.

Quote :

"Your damn right about that. Most of the users on this site are more intelligent than the VAST majority of MBA's and corporate marketers out there."

I can't take your post seriously when you make statements like this.

Quote :

"Wired is a bunch of retards too, as are most journalists, especially in the tech industry."

Dude, just say it

YOU KNOW MORE THAN ANYONE IN ANY INDUSTRY YOU ARE CURRENTLY DISCUSSING ON THIS WEBSITE.

Quote :

"Their next moves are going to be: opening google books as a full commerce and research application (which is what google checkout is for initially), expanding google video / youtube to incorporate as much commercial broadcasting as they can, launching their thin client productivity applications, and finally launching GoogleOS. Once the OS hits the bigtime, is when they are going to REALLY start fucking shit up in corporate america."

Hahah, yea, you're no fanboy. Are you kidding? Coroporate America is so entrenched in MS products that they can't afford a switch to something new. This is before considering google has over a decade of catching up to do in this regards. Lets revisit this one in about 10 years and see how good a soothsayer you are.

Quote :

"You'll have a company who has aggregated damn near every piece of research, literature, news, video and audio (im sure this is already in the works), who can also offer productivity and a computing platform. Tack an ISP onto that and you have the Google Internet. And the beautiful thing about ALL of this, is every bit of google's succes relies on them keeping EVERYONE happy. If any party pulls out, they fail. It's a completely diffeent take on business, and I believe it's why they CONSTANTLY innovate, profit and expand."

Dear god man. Not only have you drank the kool aid, but it has successfully changed your DNA.

3/15/2007 9:16:28 AM

NERD WAR! NERD WAR! IT'S GOING DOWN! SH*T IS GOING DOWN! NERD WAR!

3/15/2007 9:29:13 AM

haha south park references ftw

3/15/2007 9:34:56 AM

Well they have to prove that Youtubes business model is based primarilly on profit from copyrighted material if I've understood articles I've read about the DMCA. This was the case with napster and the likes where its primary use was sharing copyrighted music files.

However I'd say that 90% of the video's I watch on youtube are user created videos. I think this is the case for most people as nearly everytime someone sends me a youtube clip over IM it is a user created funny and/or creative video.

The other 10% (the probably illegal part) of the time I use it to watch either sports replays/collages (and I thought I read google signed a deal with the NBA and some others) or to look up some SNL clip someone was talking about.

This is why Viacom doesn't have a case in court because youtube does comply with the DMCA and stresses legal content. Go look at the "top" videos on youtube. They are all legal. The illegal ones are deleted too quickly to become popular. Another anecdotal thing that shows that youtube is effective at removing copyrighted clips are the threads in sport's talk about UFC fights that post clips to them and say "watch quickly before they are removed".

Anyway I don't see how viacom has a chance at succeding in the lawsuit while the DMCA is around.

3/15/2007 9:35:23 AM

This is the common arguement between two vastly different viewpoints of digital rights.

You have Noen is is focused on defending the end user and their rights and you have State409c defending copyright holders.

The point is simple. Should a website that allows for anyone to upload anything be responsible for content beyond removing items when notifiied of infringement?

It comes down to you not trying to understand WHY people do what they do. It comes down to understanding that the version you see on youtube is extremely poor quality. It also comes down to people having multiple resources to look up YOUR products and services. If they suck people will often let you know!

People just can't take criticism anymore. It's wine to mommy (or the courts in this situation) instead of evaluating why it's happening and how to fix it. Look at Google. Bad press comes out how do they respond. They don't cry "sue sue sue" they fix their shit and address the problem. They focus the capitol on the problem, not screwing the people that pointed it out.

Instead of fighting google, viacom should be like... HEY, google... how about we make a advertising deal that makes viacom ads show up on the page when viacom its associated with that video! Kinda like your search engine! What a great idea. No some douche said "lets sue google for 1 billion dollars".

This day and age copyright holders CANNOT CONTROL the flow of information. In the years past business models were designed on the ability to control flows of information. Technology is way too fast now to do business this way. Cisco is a horrible offender of this. They won't give you tech help or manuals without a service contract. You know what happened? One guy who had a service contract posted every single manual on bittorrent. Now you can find them online EASILY.

You cannot base your business on control of information. You CAN base your business on how you present this information, how you combine it with other information, how it helps create new information, and how you enhance it.

[Edited on March 15, 2007 at 9:56 AM. Reason : ! god i can't spell]

3/15/2007 9:54:13 AM

FPS

3/15/2007 9:59:29 AM

^ gg

3/15/2007 10:24:14 AM

Quote :

"#1 Stop acting like you have a damn clue about estimates. You've basically said you don't believe the estimates given, but then don't even attempt an estimate of your own. #2 Stop trying to claim this argument is bunk because you have a problem with the estimates. Cut them all in 1/3rds, 1/4ths even, and it's still a god damn lot. Come on Neon, this is classic made up lies you tell. I can't believe a guy that is doing as much stuff as you, ALSO has the time to browse several hundred videos on a daily basis. Furthermore, why are you putting the burden on me to prove out Viacoms numbers? Why don't you attempt an estimate yourself? Maybe it's because any estimate ANYONE can come up with is going to be a crapshoot at best anyway."

And even at FULL estimates, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to youtube's overall traffic, and by your argument, Google's profit from that traffic.

Yes it's a crapshoot, that's my point. And it takes less than 10 minutes to browse the top 500 or so videos, I browse them, not watch em all. I'm not putting the burden of proof on anyone. YOU posted baseless numbers. You admit they are baseless, SO WHY EVEN POST THEM IF YOU CAN'T GIVE A LEGITIMATE SOURCE?

Quote :

"Wow, a verified email address. Kinda like, how you can get 100 gmails free for every gmail account you create? ROFL. "

So please show me ANY commercial site that doesn't collect a user's financial data, that has a sign-up methodology better than this. You still have to manually create every email account, you have to sit and manually sign-up for each youtube account, and manually post the videos. There's not much more a developer can do to slow down registration. This is trolling at best.

Quote :

"What? You're glad Google doesn't at least attempt to pay for the illegal content they are making money off of?"

They have from the time the acquired youtube. See that partners link?

Quote :

"Look, I fully see the value in having a highly visible platform for content distribution. I however don't like the "evil" practices Google has engaged in while operating it while hiding behind the DMCA."

How are they HIDING behind a law? The law is there for THIS PURPOSE. It would be different if they were using it as some loophole, but they are following the letter of the law here.

Quote :

"This isn't the same as bitorrent or some other file sharing service. Look at it this way. If 100 people don't buy a DVD because it is available P2P, the MPAA companies have lost out on 100 sales of that disk. If those same 100 instead view it on Gootube, and a certain portion of those ALSO generate revenue for Google, then thats 100 DVD sales lost PLUS revenue that Google received for hosting the video. This is not what the DMCA was designed for."

It's exactly the same, because every P2P app, and every bittorrent tracker MAKES MONEY BY LISTING SAID PIRATED MATERIAL. WITH ADVERTISING.

Quote :

"I can't take your post seriously when you make statements like this."

Kind of like your buddy Smoker who posts bullshit about how we should listen to the spin-doctors and MBA's because they know so much. And I can't believe you honestly DON'T believe my statement. Most people are idiots, MBA's aren't exempt.

Quote :

"YOU KNOW MORE THAN ANYONE IN ANY INDUSTRY YOU ARE CURRENTLY DISCUSSING ON THIS WEBSITE."

Not even. You want real journalism, hop over to Ars Technica or the like. Mass media is just that. I mean have you ever watched a tech piece on CNN/ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox and NOT cringed? Or for that matter, read a tech article in any major publication and not thought it was 6 months too late?

Quote :

"Hahah, yea, you're no fanboy. Are you kidding? Coroporate America is so entrenched in MS products that they can't afford a switch to something new. This is before considering google has over a decade of catching up to do in this regards. Lets revisit this one in about 10 years and see how good a soothsayer you are."

Nope, I'm not. I'm just not an idiot who thinks a company is evil because the play the capitalist game, and follow the laws of the land set before them.

I'm not talking about companies USING Google's products in my corporate america reference, I'm talking about Google's effect ON corporations trying to compete with them in side markets. Google is doing what Microsoft has tried to do for the past 5 years, introduce a thin-client architecture to leverage content.

Quote :

"Dear god man. Not only have you drank the kool aid, but it has successfully changed your DNA."

It's true. If advertisers pull off Google, it fails. If corporate partners pull out, it fails. If the users pull out, it fails. Unlike with Microsoft, IBM or other traditional software companies, people don't have any data or monetary ties to keep using Google's services. You want to stop using Gmail? Download everything to your mail client of choice and cancel the account. It's a COMPLETELY different dynamic. There are functional alternatives to EVERY consumer product google has, yet tens of millions of people still choose Google everyday instead.

[Edited on March 15, 2007 at 11:59 AM. Reason : .]

3/15/2007 11:57:50 AM

Quote :

"I'm not putting the burden of proof on anyone. YOU posted baseless numbers. You admit they are baseless, SO WHY EVEN POST THEM IF YOU CAN'T GIVE A LEGITIMATE SOURCE?"

IT'S IN THE GOD DAMN NEWS STORY ABOUT THE LAWSUIT! HOW DO YOU ACT LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON WHEN IT IS CLEAR YOU DIDN'T READ ANY OF THE PRESS ABOUT IT?

Quote :

"So please show me ANY commercial site that doesn't collect a user's financial data, that has a sign-up methodology better than this. You still have to manually create every email account, you have to sit and manually sign-up for each youtube account, and manually post the videos. There's not much more a developer can do to slow down registration. This is trolling at best."

Oh jesus, don't pull the damn trolling card. This isn't chit chat, and you didn't fuck jelrican in this thread. I think if Google is going to take a cavalier approach to preventing/removing infringing content or requiring copyright owners the burden to getting the stuff removed via takedown notices then if they were truly "not being evil", they'd make it even more difficult to get accounts. IP banning (sure, easy to get around by proxy, but some people really are that dumb), etc.

Quote :

"They have from the time the acquired youtube. See that partners link?"

The burden was left up to the content owners to either send takedown notices or engage in negotiations. Google, as the profiteer from this content, should have done the approaching.

Quote :

"How are they HIDING behind a law? The law is there for THIS PURPOSE. It would be different if they were using it as some loophole, but they are following the letter of the law here."

Dude, are you lacking rational thought? My entire beef with google is this "Don't be evil" mantra while they profit off of other peoples content. Don't you get what I am saying? I know what the law says, and it isn't well formed for situations such as this.

Quote :

"It's exactly the same, because every P2P app, and every bittorrent tracker MAKES MONEY BY LISTING SAID PIRATED MATERIAL. WITH ADVERTISING."

HELLO, MCNEON. All these p2p apps aren't powered by publicly traded companies with the mantra "Don't be evil" (see previous point).

Quote :

"Kind of like your buddy Smoker who posts bullshit about how we should listen to the spin-doctors and MBA's because they know so much. And I can't believe you honestly DON'T believe my statement. Most people are idiots, MBA's aren't exempt."

This isn't even what you said earlier that I commented on. Christ dude. You said most people on this site are smarter than MBAs. Reread that again and fucking think. MOST WOLF WEB USERS ARE SMARTER THAN MBAs.

3/15/2007 12:21:32 PM

On a side note... does youtube even make a profit? I'm pretty sure they didn't when they were bought by google and thought I read they still don't although I can't find any data.

3/15/2007 12:32:33 PM

Quote :

"I think if Google is going to take a cavalier approach to preventing/removing infringing content or requiring copyright owners the burden to getting the stuff removed via takedown notices then if they were truly "not being evil", they'd make it even more difficult to get accounts. IP banning (sure, easy to get around by proxy, but some people really are that dumb), etc."

IP bans are such an imperfect thing and without a real support structure, they would lose out on a lot of legitimate users because of dynamic IPs that most ISPs have or IP range blocks that you haev to enforce to completely get rid of a user. That's why it works on small forums but even things like games - they rarely use IP bans on punkbuster because there are so many problems with it. but really, i agree with Noen - they're following the industry standard here. if the DMCA changes, i'm sure they'll follow whatever it changes to. why should google be expected to go above and beyond what's required of them? just because they used a slogan of don't be evil? and just because a few people disagree that being evil means being proactive about being good instead of just not doing anything inherently evil?

Quote :

"The burden was left up to the content owners to either send takedown notices or engage in negotiations. Google, as the profiteer from this content, should have done the approaching."

i see where you're coming from but i agree with the DMCA - if you're a photographer and someone has made money by ripping off your pictures, YOU have to sue them for what it's worth. but that means you have to find out about it first. something about that does seem wrong becuase it's saying you can get away as long as you're not caught by anyone that cares, but isn't that how it always goes? everyone does stuff like that - i've used a lot of copyrighted images in past web work probably, or graphic design for sure, but i know that none of the owners are going to ever see these works.

Quote :

"Dude, are you lacking rational thought? My entire beef with google is this "Don't be evil" mantra while they profit off of other peoples content. Don't you get what I am saying? I know what the law says, and it isn't well formed for situations such as this."

it's their mantra - it's up to them how they interpret it. you have a right not to like them for the choices they make based on your interpretation of it.

3/15/2007 2:54:31 PM

Quote :

" IT'S IN THE GOD DAMN NEWS STORY ABOUT THE LAWSUIT! HOW DO YOU ACT LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON WHEN IT IS CLEAR YOU DIDN'T READ ANY OF THE PRESS ABOUT IT?"

That doesn't make it any less hype, or any more factual, and doesn't excuse you posting it as a POINT OF CONTENTION TO SUPPORT YOUR ARGUMENTS.

Quote :

"The burden was left up to the content owners to either send takedown notices or engage in negotiations. Google, as the profiteer from this content, should have done the approaching."

That's not the law, and it's not the way our IP system works. It's never worked this way, and if it did, it would cause a MASSIVE reverse in communications in this country.

Quote :

"Oh jesus, don't pull the damn trolling card. This isn't chit chat, and you didn't fuck jelrican in this thread. I think if Google is going to take a cavalier approach to preventing/removing infringing content or requiring copyright owners the burden to getting the stuff removed via takedown notices then if they were truly "not being evil", they'd make it even more difficult to get accounts. IP banning (sure, easy to get around by proxy, but some people really are that dumb), etc. "

Good job with the libel there.
IP Banning is not an option for any large scale application. You should know that. dfShadow explained it pretty well. The only way to block people with ANY reliability is through IP range bans, which would end up killing of hundreds of thousands of perfectly law abiding users. The last time this happened was with the initial spam/email bans by AOL and Earthlink in the early 00's and it left millions of people without reliable email service.

And really, what are these other "etc" options? There's no way to stop even a semi-determined user from commiting felonious acts if they so choose.

Quote :

"Dude, are you lacking rational thought? My entire beef with google is this "Don't be evil" mantra while they profit off of other peoples content. Don't you get what I am saying? I know what the law says, and it isn't well formed for situations such as this. The burden was left up to the content owners to either send takedown notices or engage in negotiations. Google, as the profiteer from this content, should have done the approaching."

No, I'm the one being rational here, because I actually believe the LAW and the long standing operating procedures of our IP systems in this country are perfectly fine. You are the one claiming it rational to flip the whole damn system on its head.

The burden HAS ALWAYS BEEN on content owners to do this.

Quote :

"HELLO, MCNEON. All these p2p apps aren't powered by publicly traded companies with the mantra "Don't be evil" (see previous point)."

When did it matter that they are publicly traded? And while they might not have used the mantra "Don't be evil", most of these P2P apps are based out of Scandinavia, where they absolutely consider what they are doing as fighting the evil IP giants of the world. So if you want to take the idealogical side, there's still no difference.

Quote :

"This isn't even what you said earlier that I commented on. Christ dude. You said most people on this site are smarter than MBAs. Reread that again and fucking think. MOST WOLF WEB USERS ARE SMARTER THAN MBAs."

Yes, I was being facetious. This isn't chit chat, I shouldn't be throwing in sarcasm or exaggeration into the conversation, so I do apologize for that.

3/15/2007 3:23:04 PM

Quote :

"if you're a photographer and someone has made money by ripping off your pictures, YOU have to sue them for what it's worth. but that means you have to find out about it first. something about that does seem wrong becuase it's saying you can get away as long as you're not caught by anyone that cares, but isn't that how it always goes? everyone does stuff like that - i've used a lot of copyrighted images in past web work probably, or graphic design for sure, but i know that none of the owners are going to ever see these works."

There are companies who offer IP protection services for photographers, they have technology that actively seeks copied and derivative works.

But yes, the entire principle of our country's criminal law system is that you can't be prosecuted unless get caught and have it proven against you. This discussion is going back to the basis of our judicial system

3/15/2007 3:25:17 PM

3/15/2007 6:06:43 PM

Quote :

"but really, i agree with Noen - they're following the industry standard here. if the DMCA changes, i'm sure they'll follow whatever it changes to. why should google be expected to go above and beyond what's required of them? just because they used a slogan of don't be evil? and just because a few people disagree that being evil means being proactive about being good instead of just not doing anything inherently evil?"

Well, I am done arguing with the industry experts on the DMCA and digital rights here. Personally I find it funny that Google can somehow keep Youtube more-or-less clear of pornography, yet that copyrighted material ... well, they just totally miss it! Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil! Safe Harbor!

(please, Joe, don't post a SQL statement like "DELETE * FROM videos WHERE title = 'Debbie Does Dallas' ...)

But I will say this: the net result of these shenanigans will definitely be the revision of the DMCA. It will be even worse public policy than the original.

Clearly the pro-Google side on this -- you and Noen, specifically -- are given to a sort of moral relativism. We can freely interpret "evil" as a flexible standard, the product of Sergey Brin's and Larry Page's and Eric Schmidt's collective imagination. Taking into consideration what is actually evil -- in any of its first- or second-order effects is not permissible in this discussion.

Clever. The Kool-Aid must be tasty indeed.

3/15/2007 11:37:33 PM

Quote :

"No some douche said "lets sue google for 1 billion dollars". "

No, actually, Viacom has agreed to partner with Joost -- a content service about fifty times more innovative and exciting than Youtube.

3/16/2007 12:03:08 AM

Quote :

"Well, I am done arguing with the industry experts on the DMCA and digital rights here. Personally I find it funny that Google can somehow keep Youtube more-or-less clear of pornography, yet that copyrighted material ... well, they just totally miss it! Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil! Safe Harbor!"

I've already answered this. It's called community moderation. It's called the report inappropriate content link next to every video.

And, they don't "totally miss it". Copyrighted material is removed as soon as Google is notified of it being there, OR as soon as user reports it as such. People don't report copyright violations as much as pornography, most likely because the average joe has no clue it's illegal.


I don't think anyone here is claiming to be an expert, except for your claims that we should listen to the spin jockeys coming out of Viacom. What I do know is that Google is operating under the laws set before them and there have been recent legal precidents supporting their position.

Quote :

"Clearly the pro-Google side on this -- you and Noen, specifically -- are given to a sort of moral relativism. We can freely interpret "evil" as a flexible standard, the product of Sergey Brin's and Larry Page's and Eric Schmidt's collective imagination. Taking into consideration what is actually evil -- in any of its first- or second-order effects is not permissible in this discussion. Clever. The Kool-Aid must be tasty indeed. "

It's NOT moral relativism. YOU CANNOT CONTROL PEOPLE'S ACTIONS. You can TRY, but people will ALWAYS find ways to abuse the tools they are given. What kind of pseudo-world do you live in?

Do you honestly propose that if a company or person cannot garauntee ABSOLUTE control over the lawful use of their products, they should be liable or any misdeeds done by the users of said product?

And you can preach to me about good and evil all day. The fact is that our culture rests on a bed of capitalism, defined and restricted by laws. Google isn't EVIL. They aren't breaking any of the ten commandments (which is what you'd have to base this evil claim on, being that our morality in the US is Judeo-Christian based). Their USERS are. Google is not turning a blind eye to the mis-deeds of their users, they are responding as US Law dictates they should and as their own community rules are set forth.

Quote :

"But I will say this: the net result of these shenanigans will definitely be the revision of the DMCA. It will be even worse public policy than the original."

While I do disagree with many parts of the DMCA, this is one of the few aspects they got right, and it has been strengthened by time and court opinions.

As I've already said, this comes down to a difference between individual freedoms and consequences, versus centralized freedoms and consequences. You obviously believe the opposite from myself.

Quote :

"a content service about fifty times more innovative and exciting than Youtube."

Whoa, they are putting television on the internet and making it searchable. Kind of like TiVo, TVU, Sopcast and youtube without user content. How is the innovative or exciting?

[Edited on March 16, 2007 at 1:15 AM. Reason : .]

3/16/2007 1:14:06 AM