YouTube AntiPiracy Policy Likened to 'Mafia Shakedown'

A C|Net article discusses reactions to YouTube's newly proposed antipiracy software policy. The company is now offering assistance for IP holders, allowing them to keep track of their content on the YouTube service ... if they sign up with the company for licensing agreements. A spokesman for Viacom (already in a fight with YouTube to take down numerous video clips) called this policy 'unacceptable', and another industry analyst likened it to a 'mafia shakedown.' YouTubes cites the challenges of determining ownership of a given video clip as the reason for this policy, and hopes that IP owners will cooperate in resolving these issues. Some onlookers also feel that these protestations are simply saber-rattling before an eventual deal: "'The debates are about negotiations more than anything else--who's going to pay whom and how much,' said Saul Berman, IBM's global media and entertainment strategy leader."

Re:Tilting at windmills

[jfengel]

Another important feature of our culture is property rights: the idea that you can get rich by being smart in what you own. Laws ensure that if others want to use what they own they have to pay you, and because you're certain of that you'll invest in making and acquiring stuff. It's the essence of capitalism, and that investment in both intellectual and physical resources makes people rich.

The term "intellectual property" incorporates both aspects of the culture and gets to the crux of the conflict: we share our intellect but do not share our property. But as intellectual property can be shared without rivalry, the process is upended.

That's the answer to your question "What's the point?" We have two traditions in our culture: building on each other's work, and owning (and getting rich from) property. The easy sharing of information brings those two cultural values into conflict.

Those who claim that the argument has already been settled in favor of sharing over property are (IMO) missing the fact that property has always been a crucial driver of innovation and investment. Many intellectual things are expensive to create, movies most obvious among them, because they incorporate physical elements (sets, cameras, lights) before they become mere bits to be shared. The movie industry continues to believe that they can make money off their "intellectual property" on the basis of selling it like traditional property. If you manage to convince them that they're wrong, it's more likely that they'll stop making movies than that they'll produce them and expect to be unable to recoup their expenses.

The conflict of the two values will eventually produce a shift to a new order, and I don't know what that's going to look like.

YouTube is dead

[svunt]

Ever since Google put a huge bag of cash into YouTube, the content's been getting weaker and weaker, thanks to takedowns. It won't be long until all that's left are camwhores, idiots getting hurt & mentos/coke videos. You know, all that "person of the year" winning material.

Re:So let me get this right?

[stubear]

Safe Harbors are not for online service providers, they are for internet service providers. It is a way to protect ISPs from being sued for the content they host. YouTube is not an ISP, they provide a place to store videos, not host connections. If YouTube was protected by the Safe Harbor loophope in the DMCA then anyone could also make the same claim and distribute intellectual property to their heart's content.

Re:Tilting at windmills

[jfengel]

There are several different kinds of intellectual property. The closest thing to owning an "idea" is a patent, not a copyright. Patents are a whole different story; the idea is dubious, and the US patent office implementation of that idea is criminally negligent.

Copyright is owning a particular work: a book, a song, a recording of a song, a movie. And you need to be very careful about making up your numbers here. It's very simple: I'd rather have 10k fans buy 10k albums than have 1,000k fans buy 5k albums. If the word-of-mouth advertising is so great, why did I sell half as many albums?

Especially given the first thousand albums just go to the cost of recording. Studio time is expensive. Engineers are expensive. Mastering is expensive. Album art costs money, screen printing CDs costs money. And getting those first 10k fans to buy any copies of the album at all is expensive. Put an album out there on the web for free and nobody will download it until you play a few hundred gigs in which your money for the night MAYBE covers the gasoline it took to get there. (And god forbid the drummer should have a few beers.)

Why yes, I have been a rock band promoter, and I do know where these numbers come from. If I want to PAY the band, God forbid, I have to sell 10k albums.

Most of the things that are downloaded are things that somebody spent a LOT of money promoting in the first place. Most bands of the kind I've worked with would pay you to download their album.

There's a lot to be said for developing new models; DRM is simply holding back the ocean with a broom. But I implore you, when justifying your downloading to yourself, not to pretend that you're somehow doing the band a service until you've looked at the economics a lot more closely.

Re:Tilting at windmills

[balloonhead]

Yes, your figures make sense. But why do unproven bands have money chucked at them (though not in their pockets) for tone-sided deals anyway? The recording time, engineering, mixing etc. don't have to be so expensive when they are essentially an unknown quantity. The fact that there is a large (and growing) number of bedroom sound engineers attests to the fact that, although the quality may not be quite up to the same standard, it can get pretty close - close enough that sales don't suffer (e.g. Daniel Bedingfield's 'Gotta get thru this', recorded in his bedroom with a PC and a microphone).

Technology and the internet have shown a few things in the last few years with regard to music:
1. It can be produced much more cheaply (for close to the same quality in some but not all cases)
2. It can be distributed much more cheaply
3. People are still willing to pay an inflated amount for it if that amount is low (iTunes - $1 a track or thereabouts is probably more than each individual track is worth but such a low price point that people still will pay it)

There is still a place for expensive studios and expensive staff and even expensive marketing - but not at some up and coming band that might turn out to be a one-hit wonder who gets the arse end of the bargain with a record company and ends up in servitude for it.

Re:So they bemoan having to pay for their enforcem

[jrockway]

This is not at all what's happening. It's like after you've been burgled, you complain that you have to report the crime to the police and insurance company in order to get your stuff back. It's like expecting money to magically fall out of the sky for no reason -- not particularly realistic.