viacom is part of a media cabal that wants to keep all control of content within 6 corporations. it is a very tired story about controlling the message. they are scared to death that the truth is going to get out. you know how many new "youtubes" are out there? i have lost track. let viacom do what they want, they cant stop it. youtube/google is already getting a reputation for censorship. when they pull stuff... people put it on different sites. once something is on the internet its not going back in the bottle. let them go after some little guys. they will win.... sue some 11 yr olds for watching an illegal copy of "teen powder puff girls". yawn.... is viacom going to go overseas??? viacom knows they can't win the end game. they would be smart to play nice nice cause this does not end well for them. google knew this was coming.... they will negotiate a deal..... and viacom better take it. the model has changed... the old guard better adapt.
This is nonsense. Did you get this from your 70 year old librarian? The entire copyright field is undergoing a paradigm shift... People thinking is 60s terms about intellectual property are ** out of touch **. GOOG has built a market cap of 140 billion... Entirely by re-packaging other people's content... Because they have been waaaay ahead of the curve on internet age approaches to intellectual content. GOOG is still waaay ahead of the curve... And they will now be shaping new laws in this area. GOOG and VIA and just negotiating... No need for Drama Queen hysterics. And YouTube is a separate company. GOOG could just shut it down and write off 1% of it's market cap. Talk about WIN-WIN.
logic and the law are often quite incompatible. while one cannot say for sure the way to bet is that google received smart legal advice. case law cited by baron seems more than an adequate defense for Google.
Wow...that was stupid commentary. Google is essentially creating a harbor for copyright pirates to dock their loot in...they even harbor the stuff for free...it's blatant what it is. Think there would be no uproar if Yahoo started hosting people's bootlegged music and allowwing anyone to listen? You're pretty much saying that the film, music, and other media industries should just surrender to piracy....that's fucking moronic.
No doubt they received smart legal advice...but in my opnion things like Google harboring pirated material and bowing to the Chinese Govts. calls for censorship shows that they're sort of astray...they make good money doing what they do good...but they made a foolish decision to openly harbor pirated material.
Googles worse mistake was buying youtube. They completely OVERPAID. Google needs to go alot lower before it can begin its rise again. Needs to drop below $400 first.
When the deal was announced last fall, Mark Cuban publicly stated that GOOGLE was "crazy" for purchasing youtube, for reasons just like what is happening now with Viacom. http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/10/07/some-thoughts-on-youtube-and-google/
It's actually easy to get your clips off YouTube. As someone with about 50 clips on YouTube... I've had all kinds of incidents with copyright issues. Viacom could keep > 95% of their clips off YouTube... Simply by assigning one (1) full-time employee to this. So the lawsuit is a strategic move that is part of a larger power struggle.
Mark Cuban is an asshole...but a smart asshole. He's one intelligent anus sometimes and this time is no exception...it was clearly a moronic investment because Goog realized it couldn't compete with YouTube...they're starting to show their size by doing things like this...can't beat them on innovation so just buy em.