$1.65 Billion? COME ON~

2/5/07 Update: Viacom asks YouTube to remove 100K clips

I have a hard time believing that the earlier-this-month acquisition of YouTube by Google is a good move, if Google's goal is to capture all the top-10 website traffic YouTube was getting up 'til the acquisition. YouTube website traffic mainly comes from two sources: 1) users uploading and 2) users watching. But what are they uploading and watching exactly? 1) copyrighted and 2) non-copyrighted material. I would love to get a number on what ratio is between the time spent viewing these two categories of video content. Why? Because once the acquisition is done, Google, as a public company, will be forced to obey the basic laws of distributing copyrighted material (which they haven't done so thus far). After they actually start taking down videos of such popular shows as "Friends", "Entourage", "Chappelle's Show", and the countless ones of other countries' sitcoms, what are they left with? With mostly the types of videos that I wouldn't waste my time with, the ones where 2 guys with a video camera decide to film a hot girl, or themselves doing stupid things. Of course there are those mini-films that aspiring directors/actors upload to get themselves known... but that's pretty niche compared to the YouTube community at large. YouTube this month has already reacted to a Japanese group's request to remove their copyrighted material from the site by removing 30K videos (article). Only more will follow.

Let's say that they didn't acquire YouTube for its website traffic... did they do it to get their video technology? Maybe, but I doubt it, as Google already has it's own Google Video (from a user perspective, works the same way, just isn't as popular a destination site by far). Plus, isn't Google "the" end-all in technological prowess, through hiring only the best and brightest and subjecting them to grilling technical interviews? They don't need to buy technology! Further, there are tons of other video-sharing sites which have similar technologies, like Revver, Yahoo Video, Grouper, Eyespot, OurMedia, VideoEgg, Vimeo, vSocial, etc........ Incidentally, Revver is one of the few which allow users to monetize their uploads, by shelling out 20% of what revenues they generate of the content. Further, they actually police what is uploaded, and I've found out first hand that their review process works (even for a Taiwanese TV show).

About 6 months ago, I actually wrote YouTube to ask them what they thought of their hosting of many copyrighted tv shows, but they didn't respond. I thought that was indicative of their attitude towards the issue - just pretend it's not there. Further evidence of this type of attitude is their new policy that while they can't be sued for this material, they will GLADLY turn over the user information of the person who uploaded the copyrighed material in question! Sure, just stab the very users who made you a top-10 site in the back with a fat blunt dagger. Google probably does the same thing for users in China who post anti-government messages.

Anyways, I can't wait to see what happens in the next year with YouTube. Wonder if Google's legal fees will take a big hit... I guess YouTube has already begun to make nice with some of the major US networks, by uploading legitimate promo videos for new shows, but it doesn't mean the networks can't still get together and sue them for the tons of other illegal content that's up. Also, YouTube has illegal videos from everywhere, so they could potentially be facing lawsuits in every major country. Yes, I am a hater... but only where they deserve it. Burn, burn, burn!

In case you want to remove your YouTube account, go here and send them a message (they did it quickly for me).