Its something that I get asked all the time. Why all the Youtube "hate".
I don't hate Youtube or Google. Have met them all, and think they are nice guys. What I have always had a huge dislike for is the 800 pound gorilla in any industry hiding behind the law and/or breaking the law to get what they want.
As long as Google doesn't have the confidence that Google Video or Youtube can survive without their users illegally uploading stolen videos and uses their financial muscle to try to shoehorn itself into legal nook and crannies in order to try to dominate any space on the net, I'm going to point out every step that I believe is a misstep.
Its the same way I have always felt about the RIAA.
I'm against Piracy and have always felt that there were many ways to fight it. Our day and date strategy in the movie business is a prime example The RIAA has always taken the route of intimidation. It has used its financial muscle to go after individuals they know can't fight them. They used the law to put entrepreneurs out of business and scare kids, parents and even grandparents. Their approach goes beyond just trying to protect music, it has a chilling effect on many other areas of our economy.
It is just wrong.
Google is doing the exact same thing. They aren't suing individuals and trying to collect money from them. Instead they are pushing the cost of doing business legally on copyright owners, 99pct of whom are tiny and can't afford to protect themselves. Google could be a good corporate citizen and make sure they have permission from the copyright owner before a video is posted. Instead they have become the bully on the block. They feel they have the legal right to tell every person who makes a living based on their creative efforts that they have to do business the Gootube way and if you don't like it, sue us. Thats wrong today. It will be wrong tomorrow and its not something I will ever just accept.
Why I "Have it in for " Gootube
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(Page 1)2. Mark's certainly is a monomaniac with GooTube!!!
If a sports team's owner was a billionaire and could thus outspend his opponents for players, wouldn't he then be an 800 pound guerilla of sorts?
Posted at 3:42PM on Mar 1st 2007 by CaptiousNut
3. /\/\ LOL at CaptiousNut..
Posted at 3:54PM on Mar 1st 2007 by huss
4. I just want to say it's stunning how little I agree with you about the NBA and how frequently I agree with you about everything else. Kudos for being somebody who has made it big and not forgetting that sticking up for the little guy is the right thing to do even if it means your own profits won't be as great.
5. Whatever Mr. Cuban's motivation is, he's right about Google/YouTube. It's unequivocally wrong for them not to police the uploaded content, and request permission from copyright holders where appropriate.
Posted at 6:04PM on Mar 1st 2007 by Kevin Bailey
6. Do you read these comments Mark? Have you thought about having one of your companys make a deal to post some of it's content with Youtube?
Posted at 6:51PM on Mar 1st 2007 by Kevin
8. google is infringing on copyright holders rights as a normal course of business. it is a deeply disturbing business model. amazing wallstreet has bought in too.
google has other potential intellectual property issues to worry about in the patent area. they are patenting anything they can think of, but in many instances its too late for some core 'foundational' patents. for instance, geography is key for google to sell ads on YouTube and its other properties. geotargetted ads are critical. google may be in trouble with US Patent No. 5,930,474. http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT5930474&id=mWcpAAAAEBAJ&dq=5930474
http://jasongalanis.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
Posted at 7:33PM on Mar 1st 2007 by jason galanos
9. Google has far larger problems than monetizing YouTube. I'm probably off the reservation on this but... I predict that if Google does strike guaranteed minimum revenue deals with the networks (which would be huge), it will be the beginning of their demise. Remember, Google makes almost ALL its revenue from one, single consumer action -- the action of clicking on ads. Their CPM and CPA biz is tiny in comparison. That having been said, is it not reasonable to project that the more search savvy a user becomes, the less likely they are to click an ad? This is the case for all of the people I know. If this is true, time is not on their side. Call me crazy but... who clicks on ads anymore? Seriously. I'm not a Google hater -- I use their search dozens of times a day. But I also know the difference between ads and organic results. The sad part for Google is that not too long ago they were a company people loved to see succeeding. My how the tide has turned... Rant complete.
Posted at 9:12PM on Mar 1st 2007 by WTL
10. It would be great if quality UGC was featured as much as copyright infringed material on such sites... that's what these video portals were created for, I suppose. How can a girl get a break amidst funny cat videos and lip syncing teens?
Posted at 9:25PM on Mar 1st 2007 by Average Betty
11. your point of view is understood, and i don't think you 'don't get it'... i just think your ignoring the new dynamic of content distribution, like the rest of old media.
1. your premiss that youtube thrives on copyrighted material has been proven wrong today by the report that specifically stated youtube viewer went up WITHOUT the viacoom content.
2. a marketWatch journalist John Dvork (i believe) asked this question... 'what is a relatively old 10min clip worth in the open market?' it is worth nothing, other than potentially adding exposure to the brand of the content.
as far as oscar.com, where are the funny clips of jack black that people want to see? all i could easily find was the clips of award speeches. i don't fault YouTube's users for posting something that the Youtube audience wants to see. Oscar.com should learn something from this. (i am curious to see how many views the videos of Oscar.com got vs the ones on Youtube, in a side by side comparison... i'm sure this would prove the established audience valuable as the youtube oscar videos were viewed more.
and regardless of the illegal uploading issue, the bigger issue becames the audience. even with the web, content has to go to where the audience is... assuming the content provider wants to maximize its veiwership. (when youtube impliments ad embeded technology, content will be able to economically utilize Youtube's audience... but deals/partnerships have to be created first.)
ps... there is absolutely an underline social networking aspect of youtube. it is alive and well. the proof of this is the subscriber numbers to the original user content creaters... ie LisaNova, geriatric... and many many others.
12. Youtube is one of the most popular video sharing sites on the net. A year ago, co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen were in between jobs, a pair of twentysomething geeks running up big credit card debts as they tooled around a garage trying to develop an easy way for people to share homemade videos on the Web.
Hurley says, "I do not want to work hard. I want to live a soft life. I want to sleep for three hours every afternoon and nine hours at night. I do not want to stay awake the whole day so that I can get a few 350 grand at the end of each month. I do not want my talents to be exploited by a ruthless employer. I am a lazy man. That is why I choose to live off the net. I am too lethargic to try and survive in the real world. That is why I did not bother to hold down a job though my credit card debt soared.
"On the net things are handed to me by Google. The idea of youtube came to me from a dinner party with a half-dozen friends in the greatest city in the world San Francisco. It was January, 2005, and we couldnt figure out a good solution. Sending the clips around by e-mail was a bust: The e-mails kept getting rejected because they were so big. Posting the videos online was a headache, too. So we created a site and put in basic software.
"What I and Steve came up with is a Web site, now called YouTube, that has become an Internet phenomenon. Show the honey and the bees will flock to it. We worked for about six hours each week in a garage like that Apple dude Steve Jobs for two months designing youtube. We had the idea to create a community around the video.
“Once that was done we knew that tons of millions of dollars would just flow into our laps after the Google buyour. We will not have to work hard. In the old economy you have to work really hard for a lousy promotion which might give you a few more grand if your employer is very generous. You have to get up early in the morning and run for a few 350 grand each month. On the net you can become rich without working hard.
"On the net once you have the idea you just sit at home and then magic will happen. That is exactly what happened at Paypal, Skype, MySpace, Facebook. The basic, simple to design software that I and Chen designed allows people to post almost anything they like on YouTube in minutes. People can jack off on porn. Now we are sitting at home retired early after the Google buyout. Content has been handed to us on a silver platter. We do not have to slog hard to create content like a poorly paid online journalist who makes a lousy 450k each year. We do not have to experience daily financial pressure
because our site does not get enough readers. We are not under pressure to meet deadlines. We get up at ten in the morning and consider that to be hard work. We do not have to work for ten llllong years. That is the privilege of those in the old economy. they take the tube to go to work for a bum 350,000 dollar paycheck at the end of the month.
"We have it easy. The reason why we never held a job for more than a year was because we felt that a rope was attached to out necks. We would have had to stay chained in an office with four walls. It is such a pain to get up in the morning and run for the sake of a few 350 milli grand at the end of the month. The content that we offer is free. That is easy for us to that as we do not have to work to create it. Copyrighted work is there for our users to copy and paste as that is work which we have the right to copy. Other content
comes from common folk wanting to share stuff.
"Revenues will come from advertising. The net is a click and eyeballs business. Google understands this. All I had to do was make web users some crap. I had to keep it really, really simple and watch as the 400 million moronic teenagers flock to it. Forget about working hard for a a lousy 350 grand at the end of the month. That’s so old school.
“If you get the eyeballs you get the offer. You don’t have to be first, you just have to be simple and appeal to the web crowd. Then Google, the original ‘not first, but simple’ giant will write you a check. That’s the new business model. Figure out the next hot thing that you can make simple for the average web user (kids) and those two ugly dudes from Google Sergei Brin and Larry Page will send you a jet full of cash. It’s not about brains or talent or skill which I lack as I am a child of the Internet. It’s about timing and simplicity.
“The clicks come from youtube's millions of eyeballs that we have not worked for. It is unearned traffic. We do not have to sweat and bleed for it. That is the privilege of poorly paid online journalists. I do not have to worry about losing my job as my content does not get enough page views. I do not have to take the initiative about my own life. I do not have to discipline myself. I do not have to worry about having a career. The millions of youtube.com visitors will ensure that this will never happen. I can simply focus on trying to build relationships with my tall, tough women friends in San Francisco. We hang out together. We work out together. We sleep in the afternoon together."
Posted at 10:39PM on Mar 1st 2007 by Chad Hurley
13. Disruptive innovation happens quickly. We already have lost all of our electronic privacy though we treat it as though it's a benign tumor that will go away with a little work. The media copyright system is broken. It's been unchanged for many, many years while information channels have been completely transformed. The old rules no longer make sense yet no one of influence is ready to consider any changes.
Posted at 11:22PM on Mar 1st 2007 by Tetracon Rex
14. Hmm, I wonder if that's really Chad Hurley or one of his dudes... interesting.
As far as your claims go Mark, you're a little off base with your conclusion that the little guys are getting the raw end of the deal. Simply untrue, and there's facts to back it up.
Check out some of the studies that've come out lately, most proving pirated content HELPS promote smaller, lesser-known bands/companies. It's called the long tail. You know all about it. Video posted on YouTube copyrighted by smaller companies... that's the thing, they're smaller companies that no one knows about. The FREE hosting and bandwidth provided by GooTube and FREE promotion for a lesser-known business is clearly beneficial to these companies. It seems like the long tail is gonna be quite an important economic understanding for the future, and if these smaller businesses can't figure out how the long tail works, they'll just have to shut down if they can't find another way to profit.
I agree with the first poster, Tim, who seems to agree with me. YouTube is only HELPING the little guys and it's "hurting" larger companies like Viacom (at least they claim it hurts, look at how the NHL's embraced GooTube and it's clearly helping their business. The NHL is also no small company either.). Basically your little guy argument has no merit and even saying large companies are being hurt by Gootube is arguable.
Posted at 1:02AM on Mar 2nd 2007 by James Stevens
15. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MMMOOONNNEEEYYYY!!!!!!!!!
When were you born? There alway has been and always will be piracy.
Morals? To some degree we all steal. Not that it is right.
greed, me, mine, ownership, it doesn't matter what you call it.
You are wasting your time if you think you can make every single person on this planet do the right thing.
It is only when you give that everyone wins.
Who owns freedom and choice?
Do some good MR. CUBAN it's your choice, lead us by doing some good now that you can afford the freedom of choice.
Lead, follow or get out of the way.
The 800 pound gorilla, is now the mass of people using the internet. We get smiles on our faces when we can do things for free. Creating things on the internet puts smiles on our faces. Give away tools to create. Other companies do and the money follows.
And you, MR. CUBAN, do what? Want to help everyone keep what they created. Put smiles on their faces, its alot harder. Or don't, just keep what is yours. You earned it, it's your choice.
The new gorilla has a smile on its face.
Posted at 10:13AM on Mar 2nd 2007 by Gary
16. Speaking of that single revenue stream....
I wonder how often a consumer types a merchant's name into Google's search box (for instance Office Max) and then clicks on the paid search advertisment for the same merchant (in this case Office Max). I'm not sure the average user is aware (or perhaps cares) that the merchant is charged for a click on the sponsored link but not for a click on a natural search listing (for which Office Max would undoubtedly be listed first). Essentially, the user knew where he wanted to go, but didn't direct nav through the browser, choosing to go via Google instead. Even with his destination already determined, Google managed to make money off his ignorance/carelessness. I wonder how much adwords revenue Google generates from these situations? I can guarantee it's significant. Sickening...
Posted at 11:37AM on Mar 2nd 2007 by Stoklos
17. Mark,
While I agree with you that piracy is wrong, wouldn't it be prohibitive for Google to check every video uploaded to YouTube? Just look at the sheer number of videos out there. I just don't see how they could feasibly do their due diligence.
Posted at 11:40AM on Mar 2nd 2007 by Naples Real Estate
18. I agree with Mr. Cuban - these mega-corporations always target those that cannot fight back. The RIAA is using the judicial system in a manner where they are not for the good of the world; they are for the good of themselves, and they are just showing us 'how strong we are'. There are a lot of wrongs in this world, but by adding more, you will NEVER achieve right
Posted at 12:38PM on Mar 2nd 2007 by LOS KINS
19. I believe piracy is wrong. I don't download music, applications, movies or anything for that matter that holds a copyright notice and you need to purchase or buy it, unless of course if it's provided for free. Although I think people like the RIAA are scumbags. This world is sue happy and that bothers me. There will always be piracy, it won't go away.
But as an example, I listen mostly to independent music artists and labels, not just because their controlled or owned by the RIAA but rather the music is just better overall. It doesn't have to be on t.v. or the radio to be considered good. Most of these independent artists usually have free downloads, sometimes a few songs or the whole album. 95% of the time if I like an artist based on their one download they have available or even the whole album, I'll usually buy it to just have the official cd or album, to support their work and efforts to continue making great music and work. It's a shame larger corporations can't take this same approach to get more people to buy their products instead of suing them.
Music, Movies and everything else is kind of like drugs, give them a few freebies, they'll be back if it's good enough... ;)
20. The RIAA and 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, then figure out how to profit from it. I've seen it 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. 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.
I'm not against paying for downloading music. I recently digitized my entire CD collection. But the model today is just plain dumb. Jobs is right, remove the restrictions. It's not worth $0.99 to me to download a song that is so restricted I'm limited in what I can do. Unlock the files, so I can play them where I want, with the device I want, cut the cost in half, and the chances are very high I'll never buy another CD. The sound quality is guaranteed, the tagging is consistent, and you can provide the liner notes and album art for download as well. There is value there. But I won't pay you $11.00 or $12.00 for a digital version of a CD that is locked, and comes with no packaging, liner notes, etc.
Embrace and figure out how to make billions off the new model. It's hear to stay.
Posted at 1:38PM on Mar 2nd 2007 by Dean M.
1. Where is the outrage from tiny copyright holders who are losing money because of Youtube? The only people I've heard complain about Youtube are Viacom and you. Neither of you are tiny.
I just don't buy that you're fighting for the little guy. You are usually looking out for yourself, the 'looking out for the little guy' argument doesn't sell coming out of your mouth.
Posted at 2:47PM on Mar 1st 2007 by Tim