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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YouTube-Using Russian Police Officer Fired For Whistleblowing

from the careful-where-you-whistleblow dept

One of the great things about the internet these days is that it gives a platform for people who had no voice before to speak out. Of course, there are certain risks associated with that. Apparently a police officer in the Russian port of Novorossiisk put up a YouTube video accusing his superiors of corruption. The video got lots of attention (over 200,000 views) leading Russia's Interior Ministor (who is responsible for the police) to start a probe. That probe apparently lasted all of two hours before it ended and the police officer who made the video was fired. Of course, many will assume that this was punishing a whistleblower, which certainly sounds plausible -- though, an argument could also be made that if the guy really was making stuff up, that's pretty bad as well. Either way, it is a reminder that just because you have a platform to speak out (whether legitimately or not), it doesn't mean there aren't consequences for doing so (as unfair as those consequences might be in some cases).

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Italian Politician Tries To File Charges Against 4,609 YouTube Commenters

from the thin-skin,-much? dept

Boing Boing points us to a story coming out of Italy, concerning what appears to be a former politician with a... colorful past, Salvatore Cuffaro (he was apparently found guilty of helping the Mafia), who is upset about the comments on a YouTube video that involves himself, but which is from the early 90s. So, he's "laid charges" against all 4,609 commenters (since then, many more have commented). I'm not familiar enough with the legal system of Italy to quite understand what these charges mean, but the link above comes from an Italian political party, Italia dei Valori, which apparently is considered "anti-corruption." Apparently, that party is offering to cover the legal defense of any of the commenters who need the help. The translated text from Italia dei Valori isn't entirely clear -- and I'm not even sure what's wrong with the video or the commenters, or what people are being charged with exactly -- so please help fill in the blanks in the comments. However, any time you have a politician even threatening to sue thousands of YouTube commenters, you know something has gone wrong.

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New Estimate: YouTube's Bandwidth Bill Is Zero

from the remember-all-that-dark-fiber? dept

Earlier this year, there was an analyst report that got a lot of attention, claiming that YouTube's bandwidth bills were huge, and there was no way the site was likely to ever become profitable. Google critics gleefully danced on Google's grave, mocking the company for the purchase. However, the estimates by the analyst seemed off, and we began to wonder if the ancillary benefits of YouTube actually made the site a much better investment. In fact, Google later hinted at exactly that point. One of the major problems with the original estimates of YouTube's bandwidth costs were that they simply extrapolated out the cost of bandwidth, and never took into account Google's unique position -- such as the fact that, during the "down" years a while back, Google scooped up a ton of dark fiber for pennies on the dollar.

Now, a new analyst report points out that, given how much traffic runs through Google, combined with all that dark fiber it owns, there's a good chance that Google has set up peering relationships with other backbone providers, such that YouTube's actual bandwidth bill may be closer to zero. I'm not sure I believe that either, but at the very least, it points out that there's a lot more to consider here than simply extrapolating out the number of videos times the basic cost of bandwidth.

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UK Channel 4 Putting Full TV Shows On YouTube

from the don't-need-another-site dept

mowgs points out that Channel 4, over in the UK, has done a deal with YouTube to put all its shows online. Not just clips -- the entire shows. While many people still seem to think that YouTube is just about individuals uploading stuff, it seems like the company has focused on getting a lot more official content on the site as well. While Hulu has some nice features, YouTube still destroys Hulu in traffic -- and unlike Hulu, YouTube doesn't block out visitors from other countries. Recently, even I can't get to Hulu. Because I use a VPN for security purposes, Hulu claims that I'm trying to sneak in from another country, even as I sit here in California (home of Hulu). Why does the entertainment industry always default to "you must be a criminal unless you can prove otherwise" thinking?

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Does No One Remember That Google Tried And Failed To 'Rent' Videos Online In The Past?

from the short-memory-syndrome dept

The tech press is excitedly discussing the fact that YouTube is looking to work with movie studios to allow movie rentals, with many talking up how this is a way for Google to put in place a new business model for YouTube. But here's the thing: everyone seems to forget that, back when Google first launched Google Video (which was a competitor to YouTube before Google bought YouTube and merged the two), it was based on this very idea. You could "buy" videos on the site to watch. And what happened? It failed pretty miserably. People just weren't interested. Instead, they flocked to YouTube to get all that free content and community, and Google quietly changed around Google Videos' entire business model and concept, and then eventually realized that it couldn't compete, and so it bought YouTube.

So why would people suddenly be willing to pay when something that sounds nearly identical a few years ago failed to get much interest at all? Perhaps culture or technology has changed (it's easier to watch downloaded movies on a TV screen, certainly). But, I have to admit to being rather skeptical of this as a big business opportunity. We've already seen this movie, and it didn't end well.

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Copyright Conundrum: Was 'Public Domain' Music Silenced On YouTube?

from the it's-in-the-recording... dept

Mark Guertin writes in with an interesting situation that he's dealing with, which I think highlights some of the problems with copyright law today. Guertin put together a YouTube video of some swimming pugs as part of a promotion for a charity he's involved with. Knowing that music on videos is a potential copyright issue, he went to Wikipedia to find some public domain music, and chose Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries to accompany the swimming pugs.

Except... he got blocked. YouTube's content ID system told him that the song was owned by (who else?) Warner Music Group, and thus the soundtrack was muted. Guertin filed a counternotice, and the music was reinstated, but then muted a second time as apparently someone (Google/Warner?) didn't agree with the counternotice. Without knowing the details, my guess is that the situation has to do with the different types of copyright coverage. While the song Ride of the Valkyries is public domain, each individual recording of it is covered by copyright. It seems likely that whatever recording was used is still under copyright.

Guertin is reasonably upset about the situation, especially the whole concept of having the music blocked until WMG has a chance to weigh in on it, noting that "guilt before innocence" seems incredibly unfair.

But the bigger issue may be how this (once again) shows how out of sync copyright law is with what people think is reasonable or fair. If you found out a piece of music was in the public domain, it's natural to assume that a recording of that same piece of music is in the public domain. And to make things more confusing, that's absolutely true (in the US at least) of a photograph of a public domain painting. But making a new recording of a public domain song? Bam. A new monopoly created.

Unfortunately for Guertin, the track he used probably is not in the public domain, even if the music is (yes, that's confusing). That's why, these days, it's probably more reasonable to search out Creative Commons-licensed music than public domain music -- because you can't be as sure whether the PD part covers the recording as well as the music. To some of us, that seems like a problem with current copyright laws, while others appear to view it as a feature.

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More Musicians Pissed Off Over Their Own Music Videos Being Taken Off YouTube

from the nice-job,-labels... dept

Eric points us to yet another story of yet another artist getting pissed off that his own videos have been pulled from YouTube. The writeup suggests that this is about competing record labels issuing bogus DMCA-style takedowns on artists as a part of their competitive fervor, but I'm not sure that's true in this case. The artist, Calvin Harris, is based in the UK, who is signed to Sony Music. In the UK, due to a royalty dispute, Google has removed all official major label music from the site. So contrary to TechCrunch's reporting, it seems that this may just be collateral damage of the silly royalty dispute, rather than nefarious competitors issuing bogus takedowns. Still, the point remains: this dispute, which the music industry claims is to "help" artists, is actually doing exactly the opposite.

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Google To The World: Don't Be So Sure YouTube Isn't Profitable

from the and-there-we-go... dept

It was just a few weeks ago that we were suggesting all the talk about YouTube's inability to be profitable was suspect, and there was increasing evidence not that YouTube was profitable yet, but that the claims of how much they were losing didn't take into account the real situation. Still, it comes as a bit of a surprise for Google to come out with a blog post that basically tells everyone that they are way, way, way off in thinking that YouTube is a huge money loser for the company. The reason it's a surprise is because it actually seemed like Google enjoyed having people think that YouTube was such a loser, since it held back competition. Perhaps there was some fear that it was also holding down the stock price or something. Either way, hopefully we can put to rest the silly idea that YouTube is some sort of blackhole for money.

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The Secret 'Profits' Of YouTube

from the don't-worry,-be-happy dept

It's become quite common for folks who dislike "web 2.0" or the concept of "free" business models to mock YouTube as an absolute disaster. For example, music industry lawyer (and hater of all things "free") Chris Castle has already declared the site dead (which is news to, well, just about everyone). Over in the UK, the Independent is running an odd little article that goes back and forth on whether or not YouTube is a real business proposition and then tries to extrapolate from there whether or not "free" works as a business model. The whole discussion is a bit off -- since YouTube really doesn't represent a good example of a business model that uses free, since the bandwidth costs of hosting video is so high. To use that as a proxy for the concept of free would be a mistake, since most other business models don't have that same issue.

That said, really the only truly worthwhile parts of the article are the ones where analyst Keith McMahon speaks up. He seems to be one of the few folks out there who actually has bothered to look at YouTube within the larger context of Google itself, and makes a few important points about (a) why YouTube helps Google in many other ways and (b) Google benefits from the widespread belief that YouTube is losing tons of money:

"There are many urban myths surrounding the way that companies extract value from the internet," he says. "Google's spin-off benefits from owning YouTube include the accumulation of our data and strengthening of their network design -- and the more time people spend watching online video, the more advertisers will pour into marketing on the internet as a whole. There's no doubt that Google can afford YouTube."

McMahon also believes that by keeping quiet about YouTube's hidden benefits and by allowing the misconception of it as a deeply unprofitable business to circulate, things work very nicely in Google's favour when it comes to negotiating with copyright holders in the world of TV, movies and music. Copyright holders can't demand money that isn't there, and it would certainly take no more than a hint of profitability at YouTube for lawyers to descend, threatening court cases and demanding higher royalties. In the new, topsy-turvy world of online economics, it seems astonishing that losses on paper have actually made YouTube a more powerful online force.

This leaves out another point as well: the more that people believe YouTube is unprofitable, the less likely they are to build serious competitors. I have no idea whether or not YouTube is actually profitable directly yet (I'd doubt it), but I think those who are insisting that the acquisition by Google was a bad idea, or that YouTube is somehow on its deathbed, haven't taken much time to understand some basic trendlines or the larger picture of how Google views YouTube, and the opportunities it has to make money via YouTube down the road.

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An Analysis Of YouTube's Content Fingerprinting System

from the data-data-data dept

There have been plenty of questions about YouTube's fingerprinting system and how it works, and the EFF notes that an enterprising YouTube user figured that with a little experimentation, he could perhaps figure out how the system worked. Basically, he uploaded 82 different versions of a song, to see what YouTube caught... and what it didn't. He's put together a list of what he found out that's worth reading through, noting that it could still "catch" plenty of distorted content and that it reviews every video as soon as it's uploaded. But perhaps the most interesting (and surprising) bit: it seems to only look at the beginning of the video. He found that if he left the first 30 seconds blank, the system didn't catch anything. But if just played the first 30 seconds of a song, the video got flagged... There are some other interesting findings as well, that pretty much highlight how questionable some of these fingerprinting systems are in terms of accurately identifying the content in question.

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High School Doesn't Overreact To Fight Video Getting On YouTube

from the it's-too-bad-this-is-news... dept

It's somewhat unfortunate that it is comment-worthy when a high school does not overreact and does not blame camera phones and YouTube for a school fight getting publicized on YouTube. Usually we see stories where school administrators, law enforcement or politicians assume that, because the video is on YouTube, it will encourage more infractions, and then they take out their anger on YouTube. They never seem willing to admit that by putting these videos on YouTube, it actually makes it easier to catch and punish those responsible. That's why it's so amazing to see this story, sent in by reader William Jackson, about a school that notes it's using the video of a fight to track down and punish those responsible and the principal, Dan Durbin, doesn't blame YouTube for this at all:

"This should remind our students that they're not going to get away with anything. If you try something like this, you're going to be seen on a security camera or on someone's cell phone.... The evidence of this makes our jobs easier because I don't have to go get it from a student. Sometimes things happen that we don't know about until well after the fact."

Even more impressive? He even seems to think that perhaps the school should rethink it's no-mobile-phones policy in light of this:

"We may need to embrace this technology in some capacity. Our students aren't going to keep their cell phones hidden away at all time. So I've asked our staff to think about what is the appropriate time to be using some of this technology. When we have something that happens at our school and a student captures it on their cell phone, we can't blame the technology. We have to look at what's going and what caused that to happen."

The local Police Chief, Matt Clancy, seems to feel the same way as well:

"It's a great tool for us. You've got it on video, and you can identify the person and see what they're doing. There's lots of video of amateur fights and street fights on YouTube. But will seeing that encourage someone to be violent any more than a television show or a movie? I don't know."

Yes, this all looks like common sense... but it's so uncommon these days that it's actually worth pointing out.

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China Blocks YouTube, Again

from the repeat-offender dept

Lots of headlines today about how China has blocked access to YouTube, apparently because of some videos posted by a Tibetan exile group. Of course, this isn't the first time China's blocked the site -- it did so about a year ago, again because of videos related to Tibet. Around the same time, it also started enforcing laws against non-government owned video-sharing sites, and took action against more than 50 of them. This latest block shouldn't be particularly surprising to anybody, but it stands as a reminder that the flow of outside information into China on the internet is like a faucet the government can shut off at any point. The only real question is when did the country lift last year's YouTube block?

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Bangladesh The Latest To Call Extra Attention To Controversial Video By Banning YouTube

from the axis-of-notube dept

It never fails. Over the past few years, a variety of government officials in different countries have freaked out about a single video on YouTube and gone on to ban the entire site. There was Brazil, which did it first, followed by Turkey which has gone back and forth on the YouTube ban multiple times. Not surprisingly, China has banned the site as well. Then there were Thailand and Pakistan, as well. In the case of Pakistan, the method for blocking YouTube served to break the site across the world by effectively tricking routers across the globe into believing YouTube wasn't where it really is.

Of course, each one of these bans has done the exact opposite of its intended purpose. Every time, it's only served to draw more interest to the video in question. So, you would think, by this point, government officials might think twice before banning an entire site over a single video. No such luck. Jay writes in to let us know that Bangladesh is the latest to ban all of YouTube over a single video of a meeting between the Prime Minister and military officials who were unhappy about some of the Prime Minister's decisions. And, of course, now that it's making news, that video is getting a lot more attention.

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EFF Gears Up To Fight Back Against Bogus YouTube Takedowns

from the fair-use,-huh? dept

Last month, we were a bit surprised by claims from an NBC Universal representative that filtering technology in use today could distinguish between fair use and infringement when it came to content online. That was a surprise to us, because we've seen no such technology -- while seeing plenty of bogus takedowns. That's only increased in the last few weeks since Warner Music decided to demand more money for any video on YouTube that included Warner Music Group music, leading to many videos being taken down. The response is not just pissing off and damaging Warner's own musicians, but also many, many fans whose videos almost certainly do not infringe or are covered by fair use rules. Warner's public response to all of this, by the way? "No comment."

The EFF is noticing this as well and is pointing out that it correctly warned that various automated filtering technologies wouldn't take fair use into account and would cause many more problems. Now, the EFF is clearly looking for a test case, asking those whose videos have been taken down, despite clear fair use -- such as the teenaged girl who's video of herself singing "Winter Wonderland" was removed -- to contact the EFF. I expect we'll see lawsuits filed in short order.

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Ridiculous Criminal Trial Of Google Execs Begins In Italy

from the bad-news-all-around dept

eWeek has a report noting that the ridiculous criminal trial of four Google executives in Italy is starting this week, with the surprise news that one of the execs in question, Google's Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer, is expected to appear. The eWeek report oddly credits the news of the trial to the International Association of Privacy Professionals, claiming they broke the story on Monday -- but plenty of folks have been covering this story for many months. The only bit of news is that the trial has begun, and that Fleischer made the mistake of traveling to Italy to give a talk at the University of Milan, where he was taken into custody.

The trial, however, makes a mockery of just about any bit of common sense out there -- on so many different levels. First of all, as described when the charges were first released, the issue was a video that was uploaded to Google of some kids taunting a disabled boy. The video was up for about two days before Google was made aware of it -- at which point it was immediately taken down. So why are random Google execs being tried for criminal charges? I can't figure it out at all. First, Italy actually does have a law that protects internet service providers from liability for the actions of their users. That's good... but for some bizarre reason, it doesn't count Google as a service provider.

Even so, there's absolutely no fathomable reason for why anyone would think that Google's execs should be charged with anything. Google, the company, had no proactive role in uploading the videos. The execs in question had absolutely nothing to do with the video at all. Google was actually proactive in removing the video as soon as it became aware of it. And, most ridiculous of all, the video itself was actually useful as evidence to charge the kids who taunted the disabled boy. By charging the Google execs under criminal statutes, all prosecutors are doing is making sure that in the future, no such evidence exists. As we noted when this story first came out, the kids in question apparently hit the disabled boy with a packet of tissues as well. It would seem like the tissue company is much more responsible for what happened than Google. So why aren't we seeing charges filed against the tissue company execs?

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Monty Python's Meaning Of Free: The Holy Grail Of Massively Increased Sales

from the and-that-is-the-speed-of-an-unladen-swallow dept

Last year, we wrote about Monty Python's decision to put all its content online for free hoping that would drive people to buy more of its scarce goods -- such as DVDs. And, as a bunch of you have submitted, it appears to have worked wonders. Monty Pyton's DVD sales jumped an astounding 23,000% and are now the number 2 best selling item in the Movies & TV category on Amazon.com. Who was it that said "you can't compete with free" again?

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Cop Caught Slamming Cyclist To The Ground On YouTube Indicted

from the fighting-back dept

Over the summer, you may have seen the video that got passed around quite a bit of a NYC police officer going out of his way to slam a Critical Mass cyclist to the ground. As you may have heard, the officer wrote up a report claiming that the cyclist ignored his commands to stop and tried to steer his bike into the him. From the video, that's obviously false, though the cyclist ended up having to spend a day in jail based on the report:

The good news is that the officer, Patrick Pogan, has now been indicted and charged both with a misdemeanor assault and felony counts for falsifying his report. Obviously, none of this would have transpired if it weren't for the tourist filming what happened and then putting the video up on YouTube. We talk about abuses of power via technology quite often, but it's good to see an abuse of power stopped thanks to technology as well.

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Monty Python Puts All Its Content On YouTube To Increase Sales Of Scarce Goods

from the good-for-them dept

As quite a few folks have sent in, it appears that the always funny team of folks who made up Monty Python actually seem to get the concept of giving away infinite goods to increase the value of scarce goods. They've set up a Monty Python channel on YouTube, where they'll be putting up pretty much all of their videos in high quality. The video announcing this is quite amusing, and a good contrast to all those content providers who decided to sue YouTube, rather than learn to embrace it:

First, it points out that plenty of folks have already been posting content to YouTube, and while they could sue, instead, they decided to fight free videos with free videos by putting up their own versions -- in higher quality. There's a funny segment where the Monty Python crew reacts to being told that all of this content will be available for free, and then the video notes that while this content will be free, they're hoping people viewing the videos will go to the Pythonline site and buy DVDs (scarce goods) of their movies as well. What an idea. Instead of suing, give fans what they want, and give them a reason to buy. Ideally, they would provide extra reasons to buy the DVDs, rather than just praying that people will, but this is definitely a much better reaction than so many others.

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Hulu 'To Catch YouTube' -- Great, But So What?

from the rising-tide-etc-etc dept

The FT's got a story saying "YouTube is in danger of being upstaged commercially" by Hulu, the online video site owned NBC and News Corp. It's based on a report saying Hulu will make as much in advertising revenues as YouTube next year, about $180 million, despite having far fewer active users. Two points: first, is this really surprising given the strengths of Hulu's parents at selling advertising around content; second, when did this become a zero-sum game? The article sets up some sort of adversarial relationship between Hulu and YouTube, or between professional and user-submitted content. While perhaps there's some competition for advertising dollars -- as there is between any two parties selling ad space -- the two sites don't have to succeed solely at the other's expense. Despite what the likes of Andrew Keen would have us believe, there's room enough on the web for both professional TV shows and amateur fat cat videos, and the success of one doesn't intrinsically mean the failure of the other.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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