GOOGLE buys YouTube

[Paulo Teixeira]

The deal is done.
This is very good news indeed.
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/sto...10-09-17-46-48

[Emre Safak]

Will it be merged with Google Video?

[Paulo Teixeira]

You won’t see that much of a difference in YouTube but it is a very big advertising opportunity to Google. With so many people trying to sue YouTube for copyright violation they had no choice but be bought by Google since Google can deal with legal issues better than they can and Google has better technology that can deal with copyrighted material.

There is going to be a lot of competition in online video distribution and Google knows that they need as many allies as possible knowing that they are going to have a very severe battle against the likes of AOL, Verizon, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix etc.

As we know it the internet is changing and Google becoming this powerful is a very good thing because a lot of people want to privatize the internet. With Google’s video service, independent Producers and Journalists have a way to make money by selling their programs online with the potential to reach the same amount of people as the big film companies although Amazon and FilmBaby is just as friendly toward independent producers which is why I think a partnership with Amazon or Film Baby would be just as good as a partnership with Youtube.

[Mark Utley]

I think I'm going to start calling it GooTube. (that's gonna catch on!)

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Mark Utley

I think I'm going to start calling it GooTube. (that's gonna catch on!)

Har, har... pretty clever name! Has potential.

-gb-

[Josh Bass]

At first I thought it was a reference to pornographic content. . .

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Paulo Teixeira

With so many people trying to sue YouTube for copyright violation they had no choice but be bought by Google since Google can deal with legal issues better than they can and Google has better technology that can deal with copyrighted material.

Google's "technology" isn't any better equipped to deal with copyright violations. The only way to deal with that is to screen every single video and make users validate their accounts with legitimate email addresses and other forms of ID while making them assume full responsibilities. And even that won't stop it.

I'm surprised that Google (or any other company) would want to pick up YouTube due to all the legal issues. The only thing I can figure is that as already mentioned, it's a huge potential advertising venue with all that traffic. Perhaps they feel there's a lot of ad revenue to be made there if they can stave off the litigation.

[Lee Wilson]

Originally Posted by Greg Boston

Har, har... pretty clever name! Has potential.

-gb-

Or 'Yoogle'

[Ben Winter]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kilgroe

Google's "technology" isn't any better equipped to deal with copyright violations. The only way to deal with that is to screen every single video and make users validate their accounts with legitimate email addresses and other forms of ID while making them assume full responsibilities. And even that won't stop it.

I'm not so sure that's accurate. It's been stated in many articles that Google's search capability will help with the battle on copyright restrictions. It may not eliminate the need to screen videos, but I think it will definately be used to narrow down substance that needs to be screened by a human.

[Boyd Ostroff]

I posted a link to an article in area 51 before the deal was done:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=76998

Being part of a deep-pocketed larger company could be attractive for a startup company whose longer-term survival could be jeopardized by a major lawsuit over intellectual property. By pairing with Google, YouTube may have found the financial power, as well as the technical know-how, it needs to address those concerns, Forrester's Bernoff said.

and

By snaring YouTube, Google would be in a better position to partner with the likes of Apple Computer and its iTunes music store, according to Stephen DiMarco, vice president of marketing and client services for Compete Inc., a Boston-based consulting firm.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Ben Winter

I'm not so sure that's accurate. It's been stated in many articles that Google's search capability will help with the battle on copyright restrictions. It may not eliminate the need to screen videos, but I think it will definately be used to narrow down substance that needs to be screened by a human.

I think it will help with some things, but most videos submitted to YouTube are untraceable. They are nothing more than a video clip with some arbitrary name. Google's search and metadata capabilities can probably help flag potential videos by referencing key words in descriptions and whatnot, but there is no way that they can tell a clip recorded from a primetime TV show apart from a clip shot on someones home video camera. I think a lot of these companies are hoping that upcoming DRM features in Windows Vista and OSX Leopard will help control a lot of this, but just like any other copy protection, there's always a way around it. So far all the articles I've seen talking about how Google's technology is going to really curb the copyright violations and related issues are just a bunch of hot air. We can stick them up on the wall along with all the past claims of digital DNA, voice signatures and all the other stuff that was supposed to protect various types of copyrighted media, and while it showed promise in preliminary testing, it was of absolutely no real world use in practice.

So, if you can tell me how Google is better equipped to sort through 200,000 or more submissions per day consisting of descriptions like "chk dis out d00dz!!!" and a filename of b1z0tchpwnsyerm0m.wmv and internal file info headers all left blank or filled in with complete garbage and still be able to tell me if the clip is in violation of someone's copyright, then please do.

[Richard Alvarez]

Attrition.

It's all about catching a few.

Millions of people speed every day and don't get caught. Millions more WOULD but don't because they've BEEN caught, or know someone who's been caught, or know they can't afford to get caught.

[Barry Gribble]

Here's an interesting development:

http://www.technologyreview.com/read...04&ch=infotech

They are using facial recognition to track characters and create an index of sorts. They used Buffy as an example, and they also used closed-captioning information and original scripts, so that made it easier. But the idea of keying on faces for indexing raises a lot of possibilities in filtering copyrighted material.

[Paulo Teixeira]

Here are some Google bits of information.


'Gootube' deal ups the ante for Google's rivals
http://www.theage.com.au/news/biztec...455663117.html


The search for influence: Google becomes a political player
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media...930030,00.html
I know that this sounds political but it does tie into their video distribution goals.

Amateur 'video bloggers' under threat from EU broadcast rules
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...407359,00.html
This may end up being a bigger problem to Google than copyright violations

[Paulo Teixeira]

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus...0610250311.htm