Google Launches Pay-Per-View Web Video 217
Elliot Shepherd writes "According to John Batelle, on Monday Google is launching in-browser video playback based on VLC. Google has been accepting video uploads in April, including allowing the video owner to specify that payment is required, through the Google Payment Program." Update: 06/27 22:21 GMT by T : An anonymous reader writes "Google Video is now up. The about page describes what kinds of content has been uploaded to their servers so far -- mostly a random assortment of stuff from Gamespot's archives, a few things from Greenpeace, a Google recruiting video, some breakdancing videos, and other randomness. The in-browser video plugin works seamlessly (although Windows only for now). Looks like it has potential." Check the top entry on Google Blog for a few more words on it, too.
Content control? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is every file looked through to make sure it's not copyrighted? Or if the file depicts illegal activity, etc?
On the same note, would Google take files out if someone paid them to (eg. insulting clips, though not illegal, may tarnish a reputable name or something)
But what about the patents problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
TFA says nothing about patents problems that VLC and other media players are facing (see http://www.videolan.org/patents.html [videolan.org]). But with Google in the bandwagon, I guess this problem can be solved with a win on the open source front :-)
CPU emulator (Score:1, Interesting)
You may think this is illegal, but the fact that it is simply possible, shows that selling information like this is stupid. (Any links to downloadable mpeg of college_dork?)
No. (Score:2, Interesting)
google = content brokers (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft and Linux and MacOSX might actually be on the way out, or at least on the way to obscurity. All of these offer interfaces to the computer, and that's useful in its own way, but I think one thing that Google has figured out is that mastery of the computer is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. It's throwing an abstracted layer over the top of it all and owning that layer, and making it useful enough that people eventually aren't going to care what OS they're running, so long as it'll give us what google has to offer.
Google maps. Translation services. Multimedia access. Shopping/Pricing comparison. News. Wikipedia (well, not exclusively, but you get my point). Limitless-space email. They're coming closer to giving us what we expect computers to give their users in Sci-Fi movies.
Google's on the verge of becoming THE content broker. What's odd is that from this point of view, Yahoo is more of a player than Microsoft at this point. But they've got to be worrying. Most of what google's done has been collecting and mining, but with Google maps developing the way it is, it's obvious that they're doing more than just throwing a bunch of computer clusters at a problem.
Anyways, if this is what they're about, the consistency behind all their new forays, then maybe Microsoft's already lost the battle to Google, but they're stuck on what no longer matters as much, which is people's relationship to the computer. Google, by focusing on people's relationship to the content, is miles ahead now.
Yeah, yeah, -1 full of shit or totally obvious, but I really think this is the way it's going.
Few details (Score:5, Interesting)
Me: How are you going to protect copyrighted material from being copied?
Google: We're working on that.
Me: You say video can be free or fee based. How does that work?
Google: We'd prefer free content, but you can also charge a fee. We will have a payment mechanism in place.
Me: In a fee-based scenario, what "cut" does Google want?
Google: We haven't decided.
Me: What if I upload free content and a LOT of people like/view it? How does Google make money?
Google: We reserve the right to charge the uploader if the content becomes "very popular."
Me: Define "very popular".
Google: We don't know yet.
Me: Why should I upload content if you can't answer these basic questions?
Google: You just should.
So unless they're just planning to get lots of home videos, I didn't see any real incentive for a content provider to participate. It costs real money to produce content so companies aren't going to just give it away.
Cheers,
Re:Mirror (Score:1, Interesting)
News: Google To Launch Online Video Playback This Monday
I've confirmed that Monday Google will launch an in-browser video playback feature based on the open source VLC media player. This is the logical next step for Google's video search and upload function, which began taking uploads from anyone who cared to submit back in April.
Google will not disclose the raw numbers of videos that have been uploaded to date, but the company will make all those which were tagged as "free" available for real time streaming through the VLC player, which Google has modified and will make available for download Monday morning. The company also intends to make its VLC code available to the open source community as part of their Google code project.
The video will be searchable via the meta data provided by the submission process (no, there's no PageRank for video, yet).
Now, before we start discussing how this represents the Death of Comcast/The Networks/Windows Media Player et al, this is not quite that, but it is the start of something big. For one, it's clear this will be integrated with the Google payment program which was revealed to be in process last week. Plenty of folks uploaded video to Google with a payment option, and that has yet to roll out, but you can expect that it will.
Secondly, this is a big deal for many institutions which do not have the ability to host and stream their own video, but would very much like to get their message out. In essence, Google is providing their infrastructure free of charge to let anyone upload video and have it be found. That's a very big deal in and of itself.
Third, this is clearly a shot across Microsoft's bow. The Windows Media Player is a standalone application, rife with its own DRM and entanglements with Hollywood. Many once claimed IE would never fall, but Firefox has shown what the open source community can do with some good code and the support of a dedicated user base. I'm pretty sure that once Google's VLC implementation is stared at by enough folks, a stand alone player with hooks into Google Video search and many others will not be far behind.
Fourth, this will help the spread of an alternative universe for video distribution and playback, one independent of the walled garden business model in which video is currently locked. I've ranted on this before, but I do believe that the sooner independent voices have an outlet for their work, and a business model to pay for it, the sooner we'll see content creators revolt from the hegemony of cable and studio models.
More on this as it develops...
Re:Codec compatibility (Score:2, Interesting)
or maybe we will see video player vendors creating new codecs, modifying existing ones and threatening patent enforcement to try to stay ahead of the game...
Show of hands?
Paying for it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Call it an iTunes for everything that's not music, an Amazon for self-published eBooks, or an eBay for digital content, whatever you call it, there might well be space there for a big player...?
Some schmuchks blog is news now? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Is google trying to be all things to all people (Score:2, Interesting)
Makes you wonder about ethics.
Regards, Tommy
TFA discusses Open Source Implications (Score:4, Interesting)
When I first heard about the Google's video hosting service, I thought, "SO WHAT."
But if others set up compatible porn video streamers, and others make firefox work with the video service well, then suddenly the combination of the video streaming and the video features (built in to browser) suddenly make them "gotta have" features --- esp. if porn video sites pop up.
Suddenly IE and WMV start looking totally behind the times. MicroSoft won't be able to integrate those features cheaply if they are done under a GPL: they are totally hosed, and have to play an expensive catchup game. Fine -- they do "embrace and extend", but it will cost them a lot of time and money.
In the meanwhile, pornlovers will have switched over, and M$ will be looking pretty useless.
If the people at Google are doing this on purpose, you have to give them credit for doing to Billy what he's done to so, so many others!
Buy my video!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
They would run around everywhere there might be something remotely interesting going on and capture it. Then they'd copyright it and offer it for sale. If someone wanted it, they paid a royalty and could download it. It was all centered around some big company with lots of storage that made money off of hosting the video and getting it copyrighted. Kind of a higher-tech paparazzi, I guess.
Re:Codec compatibility (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably because they're not WMV9 or 10. Earlier WMV versions were reverse engineered and are included in VLC's codecs.
Google Video Uploader Screenshot (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So precensorship? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, you hold a copyright for your material by default...BUT...as far as I understand it (and IANAL), when you upload that material to a service and offer it for download for free, you are extending authorization for people to use it. If it's not a default extension of authorization, I'm almost certain that google would have looked into this and required the use of some type of agreement that explicitly stated that. It's not illegal, and google should not have to worry about doing anything to protect that copyright - its use it authorized. There is a chance, though, that people will upload stuff that is not theirs to upload. MOST of the time this would be pirated movies from big hollywood type productions. Not always, you're right. and that represents a copyright violation too. But it's naive to state that for the sake of fairness these two should be treated the same. The fact is that there is a large backlash from big hollywood movie business right now, and failing to properly protect themselves against allegations of copyright violations on these films would be monumentally stupid. More importantly, it is EASY to recognize these types of violations. It's way harder to determine if random #1 uploaded a video made by random #2 in violation of random #2's copyright.
Would it be prudent for google to check these for obvious copyright violations? Yeah, it probably is. Can the company reasonably be excepted to find ALL the violations? No.
Now, I freely admit that I do NOT know what is legally required of google in this case (I'm not sure there IS a solid legal backing for this, judging by some of the more recent law suits). BUT, I do think it's reasonable and prudent for google to try and weed out obvious copyright violations, and unfortunately, most of this WILL be the big movie type things. If they can't see an obvious violation, then they'll have to assume authorized use. Yeah, it's not fair, but I, personally, think they're doing what they can, and that's all we can really expect of them if they want this venture to get off the ground.
Re:Microsoft and Realmedia's proprietary formats? (Score:1, Interesting)
Distribution of the dlls would be illegal of course (not done or encouraged by the makers of mpc in any way), however interfacing with the dlls is not. There is even law that allows reverse engeneering for that purpose.