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Google Launches First YouTube Ads 217

Posted by samzenpus from the this-bread-brought-to-you-by dept.
A user writes "Video website YouTube is to feature advertising for the first time, after Google revealed it is offering companies the chance to run ads on some of the site's most popular content." I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time.
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Google Launches First YouTube Ads More

Google Launches First YouTube Ads

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  • cue the whiners... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Trigun ( 685027 ) <evil&evilempire,ath,cx> on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @11:49AM (#20319733)
    "I'll never view YouTube again"
    "Google isn't supposed to be evil!"
    "Way to ruin YouTube!"

    ad nauseum

  • Thank goodness! (Score:5, Funny)

    by BuCKsWorld ( 579831 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @11:53AM (#20319785)
    Thank goodness! I was starting to miss commercials when I watched shows on YouTube. Maybe Google can talk to all those BitTorrent guys about getting ads in those shows too. Hopefully it'll be very well targetted too, like luxury cars and tampons!



    -Chris
    • There will be targeted ads WHILE you watch. On the side of of viewing something.

      Like watching the new Showtime show "Californication"? Imagine a scene where the character Hank is having sex with some hottie and a condom ad pops up on the side like some bizarre Ad Sense clicky!

      This in itself may end illegal downloads forever! Or maybe not...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RingDev ( 879105 )

      Hopefully it'll be very well targetted too, like luxury cars and tampons!
      Woh... what kind of porn have you been looking at?

      -Rick
    • The "ads" are going to be overlays, not commercials. YouTube/Google knows that commercials don't work. Pre-rolls make people look elsewhere. From what I've read the ads seem to non-intrusive and can be closed by clicking an "x".

      Does it suck that we are stuck with ads: not really if you want to keep seeing videos on YouTube (that aren't produced in Hollywood).

  • Did anyone really expect (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ironwill96 ( 736883 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @11:55AM (#20319811) Homepage Journal
    them to spend 1.65 BILLION dollars on something if they didn't have a revenue source in mind? The existing business model of YouTube was...oh wait, there wasn't actually a business model unless selling to some bigger company counts.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by neoform ( 551705 )
      Maybe not google, but others [wikipedia.org] have been that [wikipedia.org] stupid [wikipedia.org].
      • Oh how the mighty have fallen! I didn't realize AOL was in such a bad situation right now. There was a story awhile back that the saving grace of the Soviet Union was to be "gas powered boots". I feel like AOL is at the same point right now with their "greetings that will actually say your name". Of course the wikipedia entry could be a little biased... but it honestly sounds like AOL has become Netscape. The focus isn't on the software anymore or even their internet service, but content delivery (of conten
    • And it probably happens more then you think. YouTube was just a particularly high-profile example.

    • them to spend 1.65 BILLION dollars on something if they didn't have a revenue source in mind?
      Having a revenue source doesn't imply having video ads. Far from it. :-p

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tji ( 74570 )
      Yeah, because Google throws in all those Flash ads and animated images to their search results.. Oh wait.

      No, they can actually generate a ton of revenue from unobtrusive text ads placed in the WWW page. Hmmm..

      I'll admit that I was never a big fan of YouTube before. The quality was horrible, and the content was mostly garbage. But, placing video advertisements before the desired content guarantees that my viewing goes from infrequent to almost never. It also opens the door to competitors who find a

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shinma ( 106792 )

        Placing video advertisements before the desired content guarantees that my viewing goes from infrequent to almost never.
        Except there is no video advertisement before the desired content. I know it's odd to expect people to RTFA, but really... It's a small graphic overlay at the bottom of the video that can be dismissed.

      • Re:Did anyone really expect (Score:4)

        by djdavetrouble ( 442175 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @02:09PM (#20321505) Homepage
        The quality was horrible,

        yes, wtf? the world has lowered its standards. no longer is high fidelity king!!
        People just want tons of free SHIT, encoded shittily (youtube, google video, mp3's etc...)

    • Re:Did anyone really expect (Score:5, Informative)

      by madsenj37 ( 612413 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @12:58PM (#20320679)
      Actually YouTube did have a business model. It was based on advertising, which is why Google bought it. In the beginning, the creators of YouTube ran up their credit card bills and did not have any advertising until they created a big user base. Then they advertised only with one company on the main page with special content to click on, this one advertiser found its way to other pages as well. Because they held out from selling ads for so long, they were able to create one advertising space that was highly desirable. Think supply not meeting demand. Although it was a strange business model for a startup, they did have one that started to pay their bills. Either they sucked at advertising, or they were so good you did not notice.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )

      oh wait, there wasn't actually a business model unless selling to some bigger company counts

      That's a pretty common business model. (Remember broadcast.com?) Though in this case I'd amend that to "Selling to Google." Nobody else has both ultra-deep pockets and a lust for products whose main virtue is their technological coolness. After all, YouTube is the first streaming video site to have a really elegant user experience and do it with a scalable infrastructure. There was no way Google could resi

  • Evil yet? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @11:55AM (#20319815) Homepage
    How will Google try to prevent users from circumventing the ads? I don't think the "if" is even a question. And does this represent a move towards Evil(tm)?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pembo13 ( 770295 )
      How do you equate using video ads on a video site to generate revenue for an otherwise free service to be evil? I can think of much more evils than that (even relegating that terms use to describe the actions of corporations)

    • And does this represent a move towards Evil(tm)?
      No! Revenue is not evil! Revenue is what allows sites like YouTube to exist, and it's gotta come from somewhere. Revenue at the major expense of customers could be construed as evil, but only if the customers had no alternatives. But adding ads to YouTube? Certainly not. It was a long time coming.

  • Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @11:56AM (#20319831) Homepage Journal
    I think YouTube is fantastic -- I can grab snippets of information that I'm interested in, plus also have the option to search for proam video from events that normally don't get broadcast in the MSM. I think YouTube should offer some sort of "revenue sharing" options, though. This would quickly destroy the MSM as pro-am or pro videographers and filmographers could find income for their ventures.

    I'd prefer to see YouTube offer a "subscriber" option -- pay $x/month or $x/GB transferred to skip ads of all sorts. Sure, you can block some ads, but the video inserts you can't. Flash Video is capable of skipping segments based on server-data, such as seeing if a person has a subscription and if they have free gigs left. I'd happily pay for my video snippets -- even moreso if part of my subscription went to the video author or "owner."

    One-way TV is too limiting -- either you get all a channel's offerings, or you don't get it at all. Some channels are starting to allow PPV on-demand, which is excellent, but I still have to get the full buffet of channels (Digital ones) to get PPV. I'd rather do an a la carte selection, honestly. In 2 years, the amount I'd save over having to maintain a decent media center PC would be worth it for me (considering my media center PC is probably worth $1500 and has to be upgraded every so often) for the limited TV we watch.

    YouTube has a huge opportunity here to offer snippets, full shows, and amateur content, while offering the viewer the option to pay up front, or watch ads rather than paying. Bandwidth and hosting ain't free, not even for Google, who can also handle fee distribution between their hosting office and the content "owner." This is a big step to also reduce the need for companies to monitor for copyright infringement, as it gives them the option to host their own stuff and make the pennies per hit.

    • Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kebes ( 861706 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @12:09PM (#20320011) Journal

      I think YouTube should offer some sort of "revenue sharing" options, though.
      YouTube already does this. It's called being a "YouTube partner." Most of the highly-subscribed channels are partners and get a bit of money from the views (Wikipedia info here [wikipedia.org] and official blog here [youtube.com]).

      I'd prefer to see YouTube offer a "subscriber" option -- pay $x/month or $x/GB transferred to skip ads of all sorts.
      I'm sure some users would take advantage of such an option. However my guess would be that most users (who frequent YouTube quite casually) wouldn't consider spending money on a YouTube subscription. So, ultimately, most of YouTube's revenue is not going to come from subscription programs. Similar to Slashdot: the subscriber option exists but it seems to be a minority who use it.

      YouTube has a huge opportunity here to offer snippets, full shows, and amateur content, while offering the viewer the option to pay up front, or watch ads rather than paying. Bandwidth and hosting ain't free, not even for Google, who can also handle fee distribution between their hosting office and the content "owner." This is a big step to also reduce the need for companies to monitor for copyright infringement, as it gives them the option to host their own stuff and make the pennies per hit.
      I agree that there is a huge opportunity here. Both amateurs and the big networks have the chance here to make serious money by posting content on YouTube. I don't think anyone has a big problem with ads, as long as they are reasonable (not too annoying, not too long, etc.). I'm hoping that YouTube understands how to implement ads (hint: reasonably unobtrusive, like Google ads, and not consistently bothersome, like TV ads).
      • ultimately, most of YouTube's revenue is not going to come from subscription programs [because] most users (who frequent YouTube quite casually) wouldn't consider spending money on a YouTube subscription

        Though users might well contemplate spending money if it enables them to avoid watching ads. Other incentives in return for money could include delivering higher quality vids (larger view area, better compression levels) or early or exclusive access to certain media.

      • Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices (Score:5, Funny)

        by CODiNE ( 27417 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @03:15PM (#20322233) Homepage
        Similar to Slashdot: the subscriber option exists but it seems to be a minority who use it.

        Yeah, one day Taco said to Hemos "Man if I had a nickel every time someone said 'FIRST POST' I'd ... . I'd .. heeeeeey..."

        It's the greatest troll of all time, running for years on end and the secret didn't get out til NOW. The trolls are PAYING for their first posts!! HAAAAH!!

        I suggest Google run a similar scam and charge $0.50 per first post. It's like a handicapped parking spot for trolls.

    • Content authors that choose not to have ads should still have that option. There's a lot of home grown content on youtube that currently has no embedded ads. The content provider should ultimately have the choice in determining whether or not they want ads (commercials) displayed in their content (and at what points). Furthermore, a portion of the ad revenue should go directly to the content provider in the same style as adsense.

      This scheme would probably really start to kill broadcast television since

  • Sitting through commercials (Score:5, Informative)

    by reset_button ( 903303 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @11:56AM (#20319839)

    I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time.
    Did you RTFA before posting? (I know, I know, it's Slashdot...) From the article:

    The featured adverts are animated semi-transparent banners, or "overlays", that run along the bottom of the screen about 15 seconds into the video. They stay there for 10 seconds, allowing viewers to click on the overlay, which launches a deeper interactive video advert, while the main video is temporarily paused. Or viewers can ignore the overlay, and it will disappear.
    Seems to me like a pretty effective, yet not very obtrusive method for advertising.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @12:03PM (#20319933)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Did you RTFA before posting?

      Yeah, no kidding! I submitted the same story like four hours earlier [slashdot.org] with a correct summary:

      The New York Times (registration likely required) has a report [nytimes.com] on Google's plans to recoup its $1.65 billion investment in You Tube. Borrowing a move from television networks, Google will introduce advertising that overlays the bottom fifth of the video starting at the 15 second mark. Are they going to kill the goose that has so far laid a giant goose egg for their bottom line?

      There's just

    • Actually those kind of advertisements that appear on top of the real content are more obstrusive than the full commercials. I started to see those ads in Football matches some years ago. As it is not possible to break for 30 seconds ads during a football(soccer) match TV companies started adding those ads strips at the bottom of the image. They really suck because they prevent you from watching some part of the the content. They blatantly interfere with the actual content of the video.

      I find those a
      • "They really suck because they prevent you from watching some part of the the content. They blatantly interfere with the actual content of the video."

        I have to agree, i would rather see an ad (and i HATE ads) in the beginning or at the end or on the page itself.. problem is, all of those methods are easily bypassed.. the problem with the overlay it that it inevitably blocks something important.. last night i was watching a movie (The godfather) that had subtitles for the parts when they spoke italian.. alon

  • Sounds good to me. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SocialEngineer ( 673690 ) <invertedpanda@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @12:01PM (#20319905) Homepage

    No waiting to watch the video, and has some nice features to it. While I'm sure most people would say "BOO!" to advertising, Google has made itself known as someone who cares about targeted advertising. I myself have found a number of retailers through Google's contextual advertising which I have patronized.

    I guess most people have become disenfranchised with the dubious nature of national adverts for weight loss pills and whatnot, which is understandable. Publishing companies that allow such advertising into their products are doing their customers a disservice, as well as the industry. Look at what it has brought us - the necessity for ad blocking on the web, TiVO, etc.. Who knows if those of us in the publishing industry will ever be able to regain the trust of our consumers (I work in the newspaper industry).

  • Advertising Is The Internet (Score:3, Informative)

    by blunte ( 183182 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @12:02PM (#20319917)
    It should be obvious that most free websites exist just as advertising delivery vehicles. In fact, that's the foundation of the new web.

    Create a new free web architecture to hold user-submitted data, and stick ads on the site.
    • I run a website that's add free. I foot the bills myself. I have a donation button that mostly takes up space. I don't mind because it's an arts and music site and aside from all the revenue pumping ventures out there (which is where I work to pay the bill in the first place) there is also a lot of amazing music and art. Which I felt obliged to give something back to. So while many, many sites use advertising to offset the costs of operation or simply to generate revenue there are also some sites that run b

  • Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @12:05PM (#20319957) Journal

    Advertising to pay for everything. Offcourse in a way it does, youtube has been paid for by advertising already although the ads so far have been on other sites. In the end however it was Google that bought it and presumably paid those who had been paying for the massive amounts of bandwidth.

    Overlays on video off 10 seconds, 15 seconds after the video started, at the bottom of the screen.

    Mmm, what to say about that, something that sounds thoughtful, intresting and will garner me the praise of the internet.

    Oh I know:

    YUCK

    Do NOT want!

    I seen something like this before on a torrented becker episode, after commerical breaks (Fellow europeans, if you ever complained about ads in the EU, just watch an american show with the commericals left in. You will be hugging you commericial channels advertising staff before the show is out) it showed some ad that popped some weird cartoon dude up to sell something. God knows what it was for but taking up 50% of the screen was kinda annoying.

    While this may astound yanks, the bottom of the screen has its uses for subtitles. So basically subs are out while the ad plays?

    I can well understand googles desire to get some revenue going, I am currently watching old columbo eps on youtube all for free except my ISP fee and whatever google has to pay to upload several gigs of data.

    But I hate ads. It is not just that they get in the way, it is not just that 99% of them insult the intelligence of a republican, it is not that 99% of them are irrelevant to me (jay leno site shows me clips for american companies while I am in holland, even the best ad is not going to get me to fly to the US to buy something), that they cost me bandwidth, that the distract from what I want to do.

    It is ALL of the above.

    So good luck google, but remember one thing, you got big because people NO longer were prepared to put up with the crud laden, ad riddled sites of previous search engines. You wouldn't be the first dotcom to commit suicide by ad agency.

    Remember, youtube is handy to watch columbo eps, but a torrent wouldn't cost me that much more bandwidth, I would get them in higher res, better sounds and in one long segment. Perhaps google nows this, perhaps this is the end of youtube.

    • While this may astound yanks, the bottom of the screen has its uses for subtitles.
      Why would this surprise us? There's deaf people in the US too, y'know. ;)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cromar ( 1103585 )
      it is not just that 99% of them insult the intelligence of a republican

      Yeah... just imagine how the rest of us feel!!

      Joking aside, if I have to see one more commercial full of lies and glitz... ooh shiny and only 3 easy payments...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by babyrat ( 314371 )
      I'm guessing for every one of you, there are a thousand people who just won't care.

      Will the advertisers care if they are advertising to one less person per thousand? Nope. Thus will Google care? Nope.

      Bye - don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.

    • Those are rarely direct advertisements. Generally they're the station advertizing some other program that's coming on next or some big event they're trying to rustle up support for. If it does have a product tie in its usually in conjunction with a sponsorship for a program, like "Doritos Presents Some New Show", "Ford Half-time Break", etc. I do agree its annoying and its probably because of perceived loss from Tivo users. I do actually prefer it though to an even worse trend of product placement.

      Adver
  • But I kinda agree with it. The ads aren't intrusive (you're watching VIDEO, right? We're accustomed to watch COMMERCIALS in VIDEO for ages), and they support the service. I wouldn't mind watching the next model of Gillette Aftershave before watching my favorite clip.

    However, the ads shouldn't last longer than 5% of the video in question, even if they're little watermarks on the bottom right corner. And one more thing: The ads must NOT be part of the .flv!!! I want to be able to download them and not having to watch the commercial over and over and over.

    I guess we'll have to wait to see how things go.

  • Spend Free Time... aka TV (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xtracto ( 837672 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @12:11PM (#20320033) Journal
    I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time.

    You already did that. That is what TV is all about isn't it? killing some time while watching soups, "news" or cartoons. The only difference is that ... mmm ... well, I guess there is no difference at all form the viewer point of view. The only difference from the "content provider" point of view is that I guess the guys showing the "my neighbour falling LOLZ!" video won't get a penny for the ads embeded in their video...

    I remeber signing in in YouTube like page which actually payed you for each click a page with your video or picture generated... something similar would be fair in the case of video advertisment dont you think?
    • killing some time while watching soups

      Is that some Food Network show or something?
  • Isn't the most obvious offshoot of this that people will parody the new ads. Then those parodies will become popular. The result will be companies paying for an ad that will be immediately followed by a lampoon of that same ad. Will Google be sink into true evil and allow companies to decide that their commercial won't be run next to a spoof of their commercial.

    From a spoof-production point of view this actually presents some interesting possibilities.
  • It doesn't sound evil, it just sounds annoying and ruining.
    • Why is this evil? Because making money off the minor annoyance of your consumer base (who aren't paying a cent to you) is quite evidently evil.
  • I don't get it. Youtube is somewhat held harmless (TBD) by claiming they simply have a repository of videos controlled by the masses for which they're happy to take down content that violates DMCA once "alerted" by the copyright holder. Their position, I thought, was that they don't deal with the content granularly and its too vast to hold them responsible.

    To date Youtube has provided somewhat simple features such as ranking and searching however if they're now doing work above and beyond that by inserti

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cdrguru ( 88047 )
      Welcome to the new creativity. It is just like the old creativity, except with less ... creativity!

      Really, if the only "good" content is stolen content what is the point? Are we so culturally inept that we have to have people carving clips out of existing music to make new music? When will "sampling" come to video productions?

  • If they share the ad revenue, it could be good. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @12:44PM (#20320471)
    The article mentions something about "partnerships" and I assume that means the ad revenue will be shared.

    That could be good, because it means it's possible for someone who produces popular and engaging content to be rewarded financially without having to kiss the feet of big corporate media.

  • sans gel (Score:3, Insightful)

    by llZENll ( 545605 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @12:47PM (#20320529)
    Although their current idea doesn't sound terribly annoying (a small overlay at the bottom), a much better solution would be to just add text ads around the video. Forced ads don't gel with youtubes philosiphy of watching your choice of stuff in your free time, it would better match the sites flow if you were able to view ads at your choice as well, which text ads to the side would allow.

  • Just keep them small (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ohmypolarbear ( 774072 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @12:51PM (#20320579)

    This sounds like the ads that appear on the screen during a TV program. Hopefully they will stay small and unobtrusive, unlike what has happened with the TV version. A quick history of those, starting sometime in the 90's:

    • Small, often transparent network logo in the bottom corner of the screen
    • Static or scrolling single line of text with either a "this portion sponsored by:" message or a reminder of upcoming shows
    • Same text, but encased in prettier graphics that take up a little more screen real estate. Transitions smoothing the entrance of the graphics allow the eye to adjust and continue watching the show without being disturbed too much.
    • More lines of text added, perhaps with the rest of the evening's schedule. Also animations appear, but they're not very distracting.
    • LARGE graphics take up a significant portion of a corner of the screen, making it impossible to "squeeze" the tv show itself and preserve the whole scene. Visual information is lost and the show is negatively impacted.
    • More complex animations and graphics that aren't immediately recognizable as text boxes intrude farther into the picture and/or require significant viewer attention to determine whether the object that just appeared is part of the show or not.
    • Large, intricate animations with sound effects cause the loss of both visual and auditory information and cause the viewer to change the channel and/or shoot the tv. Sound effects? Seriously? What's the point of watching the show anymore when you can't see or hear what's going on?

    As long as the YouTube ads stay reasonably close to the top of this list, we'll be ok. It won't require too much effort to disregard the ads if we're not interested in them, and they probably won't obscure the videos themselves. If they creep towards the bottom, then people will stop using YouTube, at least for content from the "partners" that allow ads to be put in.

  • The ad overlay is probably no worse than those ridiculous network promos that take up almost a good 1/4 of you TV screen in the lower right corner.
    I read an article (I think it was here on slashdot) that streaming video traffic this year is greater than all internet traffic from the year 2000. I'm sure youtube is partly responsible for that.
    Lets not forget, disk space, servers, and bandwidth aren't free, even though use of youtube is.
    We can't hold it against them too much for wanting to earn a litt

  • If I don't see advertisments... (Score:5, Funny)

    by shoolz ( 752000 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @12:56PM (#20320641) Homepage
    If I don't see advertisements, how will I know what I'm supposed to buy?
  • Is it just me, or is the decision to make the adds semi-transparent a deliberate way to make it possible for third parties to strip the ads away? I.e, if the translucency algorithm is "loss-less" you could combine data from two videos to figure out what the ads look like and then subtract that value from the feed to produce the original content. I doubt Google would make their videos have this "feature" by mistake, so maybe they are deliberately trying to encourage people to write tools that strip it away,
  • Then WTF is up with the google ad I just found at the top of the /. homepage!?

    Bacterial Vaginosis
    Bacterial Vaginosis Gone Forever herbal treatment solves problem

  • BETTER (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kurtis25 ( 909650 )
    Google you've done well. I can still watch your videos unlike ifilm where it takes 2 minutes to watch a 1 minute video. I can respect your choice to advertise since I can get rid of the add which means I can watch that kid fall off his skateboard and see him hit the ground. I'll be interested to see how this works in the long run.

  • Take a look (Score:3, Insightful)

    by intx13 ( 808988 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @04:39PM (#20323071) Homepage
    Take a look at an example [youtube.com]

    My impressions:
    • Very unobtrusive - diverts the eye briefly as it appears, then is small enough to not bother you once you look back to the video.
    • No sound - very important! Nothing is more annoying than those new TV overlay ads that incorporate sound, especially when meaningful dialog is taking place.
    • It has an X button - I was worried about this one, but as soon as the ad appears you can click the "x" to make it vanish permanently. The "x" is easy to hit with the mouse, and since the video has just started 15 seconds previous, you haven't sat back in your chair to watch yet. Very easy to use.
    • Targetted ads are better than untargetted ads! The less bright-eyed white-clad models I see hopping around the screen waving tampons and telling me about whatever brand they happen to be using at the time the better.
    Also, the fact that the "x" button appears in the same place every time makes you wonder - how hard would it be to write a Firefox plugin that fakes a mouse click at the proper position 15 seconds into the video? Doesn't sound too tough, but that's not my field.

  • I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time.
    That did work pretty well for TV.

  • one significant problem (ie, the DMCA) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Triv ( 181010 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @06:48PM (#20324101) Journal
    I can see at least one significant problem with this.

    Let's say I upload something I don't control the copyright on, something like fansubbed anime. Let's assume it falls through youtube's copyright enforcement cracks and stays up, and youtube overlays an ad on top of it. YouTube is therefore generating a profit from copyrighted material they don't have the license to distribute. That's a helluva can of worms, wriggly legal ones, one that YouTube knows about - there aren't ads on the actual video pages for precisely that reason.

    Wonder how they're gonna get around that without losing their DMCA safeharbor provisions. S'gonna be interesting to watch.

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