More Dumb Criminals On YouTube: Man Faces 10 Years In Jail For Self-Incrimination By YouTube

Legal Issues

from the darwinism-at-work dept

While some still want to blame YouTube and other sites for the fact that criminals often post evidence of their crimes on the site, others have at least recognized that all YouTube really does is make it that much easier for police to track down and catch criminals. In the latest example, a guy is now facing 10 years in prison after posting a video on YouTube of him holding a gun (and pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm). Not only was the gun unregistered, but it was manufactured outside the state, making it a federal offense. It’s like YouTube is a giant filter for dumb criminals.

Filed Under: criminals, videos
Companies: youtube

Universal, YouTube Collaboration All Depends On Execution… And Community

Overhype

from the give-them-the-benefit-of-the-doubt? dept

A bunch of different sources are reporting on a “near deal” between Universal Music and YouTube to create a special stand-alone music video site, sort of like a “Hulu for music.” As has been widely reported, all of the major record labels have been in talks to try to come up with new deals with YouTube — with most of the earlier focus concerning how to deal with user-uploaded clips that contained music. Famously, Warner Music pulled out of discussions, when it was angry about the terms of the deal. Sony Music, however, recently renewed their deal. The Universal Music deal would be something much larger — focusing more on content put on an entirely new site by the label itself. The other major labels have been offered the option of joining in as well.

Of course, no deal is definite, and with all of these things, the devil is in the details. The News.com report notes that the “benefits” that each party brings to the table is that Universal would bring the music, while YouTube/Google would bring the technology. If that’s really all there is to it, then it’s missing the point of YouTube. The value has never been in the technology itself — which isn’t even as good as some others’, and not all that hard to replicate. The value in YouTube has always been the community. Many people now go to YouTube first to find any kind of video they’re looking for — and there’s a large and growing community of folks who use YouTube to communicate with others. Creating an entire site to get rid of the riffraff just for the sake of selling higher CPM ads may sound good at first, but if it does so in a way that diminishes the value of the community, it may limit the usefulness or success of the site. In fact, at just about the same time that news of this possible deal was leaking, news was breaking that PluggedIn, a site that tried to be a “Hulu for music” and apparently had wonderful technology, was shutting down.

Filed Under: music videos
Companies: google, hulu, sony music, universal music, warner music, youtube

Neil Young (And Warner Music) Should Learn To Respect YouTube… And Music Fans

Culture

from the this-is-getting-tiresome dept

After Warner Music got greedy and demanded money from YouTube that the company is under no legal obligation to pay (safe harbors, people), Google and YouTube demonstrated to Warner Music how little leverage the record label has by taking down all Warner Music videos. This is making plenty of Warner musicians quite angry with Warner Music for pissing off their fans and in some cases breaking the artists’ own websites. So, rather than back down and admit that it overplayed its hand, Warner Music is pulling out the old school strategy it has used for years to win such arguments: trot out some well-known musician to whine about how it’s just not fair that he’s not getting the “respect” he deserves.

This time around, it’s Neil Young, who has taken to his own website to claim that he and Warner Music aren’t getting the proper respect from YouTube, and that YouTube needs to pay up to provide that proper respect. And what about all the musicians who Warner Music’s policy is harming right now? What about all those musicians whose fans are pissed off that they can’t see videos with the music they like? The problem isn’t that YouTube isn’t respecting Warner Music — it has no legal obligation to do so. The problem is that folks like Neil Young and the execs at Warner Music don’t respect their fans at all, and fail to realize they want to access their music through YouTube, and doing so provides those musicians with a great benefit in terms of better connecting with their fans and opening up new opportunities to create valuable relationships that will pay much more money in the long run.

In the meantime, when you look at the actual statement on Neil Young’s site, it seems like a a pretty blatant copy of the NY Times. We’re guessing he didn’t pay the NY Times anything. So why isn’t anyone demanding that Neil Young “respect” the NY Times?

Filed Under: business models, copyright, music, neil young, respect, videos
Companies: google, warner music group, youtube

The Chilling Effects Of Warner Music's YouTube Takedowns

Culture

from the it's-about-chilling-effects,-not-lawsuits dept

The EFF is reporting on the chilling effects created by Warner Music’s regular takedowns of videos of things like kids singing “Winter Wonderland” on YouTube. Due to liability issues, it’s a very scary thing to contest a DMCA takedown — as it could leave you open to paying statutory damages (up to $150,000 per song) and the recording industry’s attorney’s fees. Some entertainment industry lawyers think this is no big deal at all because Warner Music hasn’t actually filed any lawsuits against anyone concerning these videos. But that misses the point (by an astoundingly huge margin). The chilling effects by such takedowns are huge, and are clearly inhibiting creativity — the very thing that copyright was supposed to encourage. Saying that it’s no problem because Warner hasn’t filed any actual lawsuits (just takedowns), is the sort of thing that only an entertainment industry’s logic could allow.

Filed Under: chilling effects, lawsuits, takedowns, videos
Companies: google, warner music group, youtube

YouTube Removing Sound From Music Videos Rather Than Takedowns?

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the hurray-for-bad-user-experiences dept

Damon writes in to point out what seems like a strange decision on YouTube’s part. In response to at least some complaints from record labels concerning music videos, rather than take down the whole video, as was done in the past, apparently it’s just removing the sound, leaving odd, slightly creepy, soundless videos. The end result? Annoyed and confused users having a bad experience. Update: So it turns out that YouTube gives users the option of muting the sound or having the whole video removed. Still seems like an odd way to handle the issue.

Filed Under: copyright, takedowns, user experience, videos
Companies: youtube

YouTube Is Changing How We Think About Video

Culture

from the it's-not-just-for-presenting-a-story dept

Whenever we talk about changes impacting the movie industry or the television industry, there’s always someone who chimes in with claims about “how will we be able to make $200 million movies any more?” Of course, that question has a few false premises hidden in there — such as the idea that movies have to cost $200 million to make. But perhaps an even bigger question is why movies need to exist at all. A few months back we were discussing how popular artforms change over time. Epic poems, stained glass, mosaics, book illumination, fresco painting, tapestry and plenty of other forms of culture were quite popular at one time or another, but eventually times changed and they went out of fashion.

I’m reminded of that discussion in reading Clive Thompson’s latest piece about how the rise of the ability for anyone to create and distribute videos on YouTube and other video sites is leading to the creation of video content that just can’t be classified in the traditional manner. He talks about a video collage of thousands of people making videos of themselves holding up their hands with short sayings written on their palms. Is it a movie? Is it a documentary? Does it matter?

The people who believe that TV shows and movies and such forms of broadcast content are the be-all, end-all of creative cultural content still don’t recognize the true power of the internet as a communications platform, that allows individuals to interact and communicate in ways that simply weren’t possible before. The official sites like Hulu may get lots of attention, but they’re just about taking content from the TV and movie world and moving it to the web. The power of YouTube is that it enables something entirely new and different to emerge and to thrive. In the history of disruptive innovations, merely taking a product from one medium and moving it to another usually doesn’t get very far. It’s the projects that really embrace the new possibilities that are only possible via that new medium that really make an impact.

Filed Under: communication, content, movies, video
Companies: youtube

Warner Music Musicians Pissed Off About YouTube Dispute

Say That Again

from the as-they-should-be dept

Warner Music’s dispute with YouTube, where Warner Music suddenly claims that YouTube needs to pay more has been pretty silly from the outset. We pointed out that Warner has almost no leverage here. Warner Music needs YouTube a hell of a lot more than Google needs Warner Music to allow its content on YouTube. As if to drive that point home, some Warner Music artists are up in arms over the latest moves. Amanda Palmer, an artist signed to Warner subsidiary Roadrunner, is not at all happy about where things stand:

in other words, roadrunner is a subsidiary of warner and i’m stuck in hell with madonna and the other poor bastards, because warner wants more money. even worse, warner has almost no bargaining power…they’re not even in the top ten of labels who have huge artists with material streaming on youtube. they’re just starving for cash right now and they’re doing anything they can think of to come up with cash. it’s abSURD. they are looking for money in a totally backwards way.

money that, i should point out, i would NEVER see as an artist. if they got their way and youtube decided to give them a larger revenue share of the videos, it’s very unlikely it would ever make its way into the artists’ bank accounts….

did i mention that being on a major label is starting to seem like…..not such a grand idea?

You can bet that there are many more musicians feeling similarly right now — and it’s only going to make it more difficult for Warner Music (or any of its subsidiaries) to sign new artists or to retain the ones (like Amanda) who feel screwed over by the latest move — all of which Warner will surely claim were done in order to “protect the interests of the artists.”

Filed Under: amanda palmer, videos
Companies: google, warner music group, youtube

Record Labels Learning They Have Little Leverage On YouTube

Culture

from the well,-look-at-that... dept

Over the weekend, the story made the rounds about Warner Music’s dispute with Google over getting money from YouTube videos. As we discussed in our post on the topic, it seemed like Warner had very little leverage here: Google has no legal responsibility to pay anything, and removing the videos from YouTube seemed a lot more likely to harm Warner Music and its artists than Google. As noted by some folks, for many kids these days, YouTube is how they find and listen to music these days. Forcing your songs off YouTube would be like demanding their removal from the radio twenty years ago.

Yet, more details are coming out on this story, and it appears that both Warner Music and Google may recognize Warner Music’s precarious position here. In fact, it appears that it wasn’t Warner Music that demanded its music be taken down. Instead, reports are coming out saying that Warner instead went to Google with higher monetary demands, and it was Google’s response to start pulling the music down, to demonstrate to Warner Music that YouTube is a lot more valuable to Warner Music than Warner Music is to YouTube (a lesson that Warner Music execs desperately need to learn).

Warner Music’s response, apparently, has been to try to pretend it has some leverage, supposedly leaking a somewhat questionable story that it, and other major record labels, are preparing to launch a “Hulu for music.” However, as Greg Sandoval notes in the News.com link in the paragraph above, this seems like little more than idle speculation by the labels. They had talked about this months ago, and have done nothing since. Instead, it was a bluff by the record labels in a weak attempt to convince Google that it needs to play ball or face competition. Google is likely to call the bluff — because Google still recognizes what the record labels seem to have trouble recognizing. The power of YouTube isn’t in having a site that plays videos, it’s in the audience — and you don’t recreate that overnight.

Filed Under: copyright, leverage, videos
Companies: google, warner music group, youtube

Warner Music Taking Its Music Off YouTube And Going Home

Failures

from the still-not-getting-it dept

Warner Music desperately wants people to believe that it’s not the evil record label that people make it out to be, but it’s going to have a very difficult time proving that’s true when it keeps doing strategically braindead things like pulling all its music off of YouTube because it’s upset Google won’t pay more money. This is classic Warner Music. The company almost always overvalues its music, compared to the services that help promote that music, and is always demanding a larger cut. Last summer, it did a similar thing and pulled its music off of Last.fm. With plenty of other startups, the company has a history of suing until they agree to cough up a huge chunk of equity. This, of course, is the same company whose boss, Edgar Bronfman Jr. just a year ago declared that the industry had made a mistake in going to war against consumers, ignoring the fact that it was his own speech back in 2000 that basically kicked off that war.

To be honest, Warner Music should be hugely thankful that Google is paying the company anything for music on YouTube. Legally, Google has no reason to pay a dime. Thanks to the DMCA safe harbor provisions, if Warner wants to go after anyone, it should be going after those who upload the videos, but Google worked out a totally unnecessary (and somewhat questionable) deal to pay the labels for a promise not to sue users. However, it looks like Warner Music is getting excessively greedy again. Perhaps it’s the recent reports that Warner’s larger competitor, Universal Music is bringing in significant cash from YouTube that got Bronfman and crew angry, but it’s doing exactly the wrong thing in pulling its videos.

Pulling the videos off of YouTube doesn’t punish Google. It punishes fans: the folks who Warner desperately needs on its side, though it’s been failing at that for a long, long time. Google’s response should be “good riddance.” Let’s see how Warner Music copes with angry musicians who want fans to promote their music on YouTube, while seeing plenty of other bands build up larger audiences that way.

Filed Under: copyright, music, videos
Companies: google, warner music group, youtube