Google Blocking Set Top Boxes From Showing YouTube Unless They Pay Up?

from the evil-is-as-evil-does dept

I'm wondering if there's more to this, because it seems rather "un-Google-like." The makers of a set top box that can display internet content are complaining that Google is blocking them from displaying YouTube content, unless they agree to "partner" and commit to buying lots of ads (the amount is in dispute). If this sounds quite a bit like the ongoing battle between Hulu and Boxee, you might be right. However, in that case, at least you could sort of understand the (misguided) thinking behind it, since Hulu is owned by the colossally short-sighted content companies. But what's Google's excuse? If all these set top boxes are really doing is accessing free internet content and formatting it better for a TV, why stop it? They're really no different than accessing content via a computer and a browser -- it's just that the "computer" is a set top box and the "browser" is formatted for a television. That shouldn't require a special agreement, or any sort of ad buy commitment. Update: Received a confused and angry email from YouTube PR linking us to the very Wired article we linked to and demanding we add their PR statement (which is already in the Wired article). However, it does not actually answer the questions raised or change the point of this post. The fact that YouTube restricts set tops from accessing the content still does not make sense.

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Can You Copyright Movie Times?

from the and-if-you-could,-why-would-you? dept

One of our readers, Jay Anderson, writes in to let us know that he was working on a useful little app to let people put in their zip code, find local movies, and click through to buy tickets. In doing so, he found an undocumented API on a major site that provided all the relevant info, and linked back to MovieShowtimes.com, a site owned by West World Media. Anderson contacted the site to find out if it had some sort of affiliate program since it was reasonable to assume the site would be happy to gain some free traffic. No such luck. Instead, he got back a threatening letter, warning him that he was opening himself up to copyright infringement damages that could be upwards of $600,000 per month.

You need to know it is unlawful and a violation of our copyright and intellectual property rights for you to build a system that obtains our content from any source other than to obtain an expressed license from West World Media for legal usage of our content. Each violation of our Intellectual property rights allows us to collect damages of up to $150,000 per infringement. This would equate in liquid damages of over $600,000 per month if you violate our rights.

Anderson responded, asking the company how factual information (such as movie times) could be covered by copyright, and the company responded:

"It is not our responsibility or duty to explain complex US Intellectual Property rights law, we however enjoy many protections from them. I suggest you hire an IP attorney to explain it to you. From your response, it seems to me you have no intentions of moving forward in a legal manner. We closely monitor any and all usage of our content and if we discover your unlawful usage of it, we will exercise our rights to their fullest extent of the law."

Now, obviously, the company makes its money by licensing its database of showtimes to certain websites, but that information is factual, and it's difficult to see how the company could hold a copyright on it (at least in the US, where there's no real "database right" -- elsewhere... perhaps a different story). There's also no creative element in merely listing showtimes, and it's hard to see how they would possibly be covered by copyright. If the problem is that the company is upset that its business model can't handle other people sending it traffic, that's a business model problem, not a copyright problem. Time to redesign the business model to take a cut of sales, rather than to rely on artificial copyrights. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't stop a company from making such threats...

Separately, this reminds me of the fact that, just a few months ago, we were talking about how the movie times in newspapers were apparently paid advertisements by the theaters themselves. So, this seems like an odd switch as well: newspapers get paid for movie listings, but websites have to pay for them? How does that work?

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The Guardian Follows The NY Times In Making News A Platform

from the good-job dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in the wonderful news that the Guardian, in the UK, has opened up an API and is sharing data in such a way that others can build programs on top of the news. This is fantastic -- and follows on a similar move last month by the NY Times. It appears that both the NY Times and the Guardian really are pushing the boundaries of recognizing that being an online newspaper these days needs to be about a lot more than delivering the news.

Perhaps even more interesting (though, getting much less attention) is the companion bit of news from some editors at the Guardian -- who are pointing out that they hope and pray each day that the NY Times gives into temptation and starts trying to charge for news... because it will create a huge opening for the Guardian to create a much larger online audience. This is what plenty of people have been pointing out for years: if clueless newspaper execs decide to start charging for news, it just opens the door wide for smarter news organizations to stay free and accumulate a much larger audience.

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NY Times Turning News Into A Platform

from the smart dept

For years, we've been big fans of the concept of having newspapers start becoming platforms, rather than monolithic "news delivering" services. Over the past year or so, a group of digitally savvy folks at the NY Times have shown one way that can work. Their latest move? To turn the NY Times news articles into a true platform. They've released an API for news, allowing others to actually build useful tools on top of the NY Times' news articles. Contrast that to, say, GateHouse Media, which recently sued the NY Times for trying to build useful tools on top of GateHouse's content.

Of course, just because there are some folks on the digital side who "get it" at the NY Times, it doesn't mean management has quite figured things out yet. At the same time as releasing this API, the paper's Executive Editor, Bill Keller is talking about trying to lock up their content and charge people for it, again. Yes, the newspaper needs new and innovative business models, but by now it should know that trying to charge for such content simply isn't a sustainable model. There's too much competition out there (which the NY Times discovered already when it tried and failed to charge for content a few years back). There are things that the paper can charge for -- but basic online content isn't one that will be successful.

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NY Times Starting To Recognize That Data Is News

from the all-the-data-that's-fit-to-release dept

Last year, we pointed out that, after quite a slow (and, at times, backwards looking) start, it appeared that the NY Times was finally figuring out how to truly embrace the web. That meant more than just putting its newspaper online, but taking advantage of the unique opportunities opened up by the web. However, there was still plenty of room for improvement, but it appears that the NY Times continues to move in that direction. Two years ago, we wrote about how newspapers should start freeing up their data via APIs so that others could make useful applications out of it. News organizations often have a tremendous amount of useful data that others might not have access to. Putting it to good use by opening up an API would be a truly valuable service.

And that's exactly what the NY Times appears to be doing, if only on a limited scale (for now). It's set up an API for campaign finance data, allowing anyone to build useful tools or visualizations on top of it. And, that's not all, they're also getting ready to release an API for movie reviews. In other words, the NY Times is definitely recognizing the value in not just freeing up their stories, but making core underlying data totally accessible and useful.

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Where Are The APIs For Government Data?

from the open-'em-up dept

It shouldn't be a huge surprise that the government isn't always the fastest to embrace what the internet lets it do (even if it did basically fund the creation of the internet). However, a new report out of Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy is suggesting that it's about time that the government make its data more widely accessible for a web 2.0 world. Basically, the government has put up websites, but it hasn't done much to make it so that it's easy to access the data available in those websites or (even more important) let other applications and services do something with that data and actually make it useful to the citizens that data is supposed to help. Given the pace of government activity in this arena, maybe we can expect some sort of movement in this direction by about 2016 or so. But wouldn't it be nice if we could actually easily pull government data and make it useful?

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