aimInfo

Thursday, March 15, 2007 $1 Billion, I wonder how they came up with that figure, I thought as I sat listening to the news report from my hotel room in Austin.  SXSW was a great place to be when Viacom announced their lawsuit against Google/YouTube, not just because of the "I told you so" factor, but with the movie industry there, that provided some more fodder to the discussion.  I do feel that piracy is wrong, but has anyone at Viacom spent time figuring out how much viewership of the Colbert Report or Daily Show is attributed to people discovering it on YouTube?

YouTube is delivering on a promise of making videos as easy to distribute and share as any media content ever has, but they have done so without really contemplating the repercussions.  Think about a YouTube without any content that was shown on network/cable television or the movies.  Would YouTube still be as popular?  What if YouTube licensed their distribution tools to the networks?  Instead of YouTube owning the pirated content, the networks retain control of the content.  YouTube's flash player and some of their social sharing and redistribution capabilities make the videos still viral.  YouTube can revenue share from the network, probably through video ads or ads on a web page (though you know how I feel about web page ads).

YouTube will still be the king of viral media, but remember there will be or at least should be a time when all content is copyrighted.  Whether its network tv or my own video, fair use should be tied to every piece of content out there so it is clear on how it can be used.  Creative Commons helps in this regard with my photos uploaded to Flickr.  Its up to me to enforce, but at least my photos are protected to be used fairly.

I will be watching the results of the lawsuit carefully, because other networks may follow with lawsuits of their own.  I wonder if Fox will go after YouTube after the remarks Mike Henry from Family Guy and Tim Long from the Simpsons said at SXSW?  Stay tuned, because you may not find the video on YouTube afterwards.

gregsblog at 10:06:00 PM EDT Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

This entry has 1 comments: (Add your own)

• #1 Comment from joslynphilips18 
  3/16/07 12:46 PM | Permalink

  The "$1 Billion" figure seems pretty arbitrary, but I am supportive of this lawsuit. I am a big internet user, and want to be able to watch (or download) legal content.  And, I think YouTube is honestly holding everyone back.
  
  Joost is great -- I was lucky enough to get a token for beta-testing -- and once there is a lot of content, I'll use it a lot.  It is everything that <a href="http://advancedmediacommittee.typepad.com/emmyadvancedmedia/2007/01/over_the_top_fi.html">so-called "cable bypass" television</a> promises to be.  
  
  YouTube, I think, won't last in its current form.  It was nice, but now web video has to grow up.
  
  - Joslyn