Since we posted this about YouTube, copyright issues and how video is quickly revolutionizing the Web, there have been a couple other notable round-ups on what we'll call the YouTube = Napster Question.
Brad Stone gives us a nice Newsweek online roundup ...
It would be easy to call the venture-backed, San Mateo-based YouTube the Napster of video, an outlaw startup rocketing onto dotcom radar screens on the backs of rights-holders. But that's a designation that the year-old company desperately wants to avoid. YouTube is far friendlier to copyright owners than the peer-to-peer sharing pioneer, and offers to take any material off its servers when a rights-holder complains (as NBC did earlier this month, asking the company to remove the popular Saturday Night Live "Lazy Sunday" clip from its site.) YouTube execs point out that, unlike Napster, they control what's on their site and can boot users who are breaking the law. "This is not 1999. Those guys [Napster] were renegades. They thought no one could touch them," says Kevin Donahue, YouTube's VP of marketing and programming. "We want to be in business with content owners, not in conflict."
Yet, as Stone quotes EFF digital copyright lawyer, Fred von Lohmann when YouTube starts making realy money, it's going to be harder to keep the content owners sanguine...
But when it comes to potentially infringing content, things get even trickier when YouTube starts trying to make real money—which it hopes to do later this year by selling its own ads on the site. That could aggravate its already shaky legal status. Its "beg for forgiveness" approach—taking copyrighted content off its site only when faced with a complaint—probably places them comfortably within the safe harbor provisions of 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But as Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Fred von Lohmann points out, companies that benefit financially from infringement don't necessarily enjoy the same legal protections. "There's a real question whether an advertising-based business model creates extra risk" for a company like YouTube, von Lohmann says.
And, last week, the LA Times also ran a piece that weaved the scourge of BitTorrented broadcast files with YouTubed sharing...(link via the Austin-American Statesman)...
In fact, some people use file-sharing as a source of on-demand programming, outpacing the industry's efforts to set up their own pay-for-view services. Clicking the mouse instead of the remote has dramatic implications for the TV industry.
Producers of popular programs often take in as much as a third of their revenue from foreign sales — a pot of money that presumably would evaporate if overseas downloading catches on. In addition, producers also rely heavily on the profits that flow from DVD compilations of their hits."It's a serious problem," said Peter Levinsohn, president of Fox Digital Media. "There is a voracious appetite for this content."
Indeed. It's so voracious that you should consider the implications while you watch the latest notable video clip that will soon be yanked from YouTube by a broadcast network. It's Natalie Portman getting all Eazy-E on your *** and busting out a new Lonely Island gansta rap on SNL last night. (For mature and satire-friendly audiences only). BTW, when this video no longer works, you'll probably be able to find it over at NBC.com.
i agree this version, while lonokig great, just dosent sound right, its a song that needs to be heard as loud as possible.I dont agree FNM could only go another 5 years max, i think they could go on workin together in some form or another for the next decade at least, lets hope so anyway, the world of music NEEDS them now more than ever!!
Posted by: Tess | May 30, 2012 at 05:40 PM