The Miscellaneous Ramblings Of A Saved Soul

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

GooTube

Viacom said on Tuesday it filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google Inc. and its acquired Internet video sharing site YouTube over unauthorized use of its copyrighted entertainment.

The suit accuses Web search leader Google and YouTube of "massive intentional copyright infringement" of Viacom's entertainment assets and seeks an injunction against further violations.


Every other media conglomerate has always taken the same approach to technology, "It will kill our business". They typically panic, overreact, try to kill the technology, accept it, and then figure out how to profit from it. It’s been seen over and over from cassette tape recordings of albums, to VCRs, and now digital media.

Every movie company said VCR's would kill their business. It was same with the rental of DVD's. It will kill the traditional movie industry. Instead, what it has done is create a HUGE revenue stream. Movies that are horrible, or niche, or just plain uninteresting often become very profitable in DVD release!

Viacom is a very big industry; it can take care of itself. The real losers of unauthorized use of copyright entertainment are the copyright owners who can’t afford to protect themselves. One way Google can do to make things better is to make sure they have permission from the copyright owner before the video is posted. Instead, tiny copyright owners who make a living based on their creative efforts have to do business the Gootube way. These owners don’t have the financial capability to sue Gootube and get something back in return. That is wrong and it always will be.

10 comments:

Bryan said...

Hey. Looking clean and sharp. I'll be back around to see your next few posts ;-)

surjit singh said...

Informative blog.Best wishes.

BillyWarhol said...

I saw that!

Funnily enuf i was gonna Sue Google myself when they were making people Swtich to the New Blogger2 & it completely Sucked!!

Fortunately it seems to be sorted out!!

;))

p.s. I could have used the $Millions tho!!!! ;))

Catherine Bugi said...

Well, this is what we call free world. Cheers!

Carol said...

Are you writing Reviews?

Mark said...

yeah sure! :)

Anonymous said...

I think the Viacom suit has the power of a class-action suit for all those small creators who can't afford to sue. It's not as important that Viacom get paid as to make YouTube do the paying. Things will shake themselves out, as you say, but this is HOW they shake themselves out. If nobody bothers to hold YouTube accountable, they'd never shape up on their own, don't you think?

Mark said...

yeah that's right.. that should have been my conclusion then! but IMO, I don't think they will be successful

Unknown said...

Hi, like your blog, will link to it from mine. Will revisit to see what's new.

Dwacon said...

I need to run Viacom!