Jon Stewart, Lorne Michaels Come Out In Favour of YouTube

techdirt writes "Viacom employee Jon Stewart recently announced that he believes his bosses are making a mistake in taking Viacom content off of YouTube. Today, NBC employee and Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels has stated he can't understand NBC's position on YouTube. The interview with Michaels is especially interesting, because it was a Saturday Night Live clip of the infamous 'Lazy Sunday' music video that is often credited with putting YouTube on the map. At the same time, however, almost everyone admitted that it did wonders in revitalizing SNL's reputation (as well as boosting Andy Samberg's reputation to new heights). Yet, NBC's lawyers shot it down, limiting the benefit to SNL. It appears that Michaels understands that, and says he wishes they could put more of the show on YouTube."

he is not privy?

Lorne Michaels + Out of the loop = me crazy suspicious

poof

The reference YouTube clip has already been removed, and I'm among the first 10 posts here.

Feh.

Re:poof

I don't think it worked that way.

from what i remember reading, viacom made a blanket request for google to remove all viacom content from youtube without specifying any shows or videos.. essentially they said "do our work for us".

google refused to do this, and asked them to identify each clip in takedown notices as per the dmca.

viacom acted like a spoiled child denied his ninja turtle action figure and threw a tantrum, and is now sueing google with a more or less meritless case.

Denial

People always accuse big corporations of not caring about the customer. Now it seems like they don't even care about the success of their own products. The posting of the SNL material clearly helped NBC. It sounds like the corporation is in denial over that.

Re:Denial

Bollocks. To a TV executive (except those in the BBC) the value of a TV show is directly proportionate to how many people watch it, and how much people will pay for advertising during that show. Clips on Youtube bring in viewers. I wouldn't be a Daily Show regular if I hadn't seen it on youtube. I sure as fuck didn't pick it up on Comedy Central's crappy video player system.

Far from it

What is happening is that the networks are wanting to prevent GOOGLE from owning them. Google is not a search. Google is an ad engine. They were iindirect competition against the networks, but with youtube, are now direct competition. The real problem here is that these companies are thinking like typical American companies. They do not want to be a big fish in an ocean. They wish to be what they consider a whale in a lake. Viacom and others are now working with several youtube wanna-bes because THEY are part owners of these companies. The media companies are hoping to own not just the content but the deliver system.

Imagine what would have happened had RIAA simply created a new company against napster back when napster first started AND then shut down napster? Today, it would be a mosnter. As it is, RIAA is probably in danger of having the musicians do their own thing, rather than go with a label. MPAA is part of that, and are now taking a different approach. BTW, they are also concerned that the young talent is slowly drifting away from them. If they are stuck making Barbi as Cinderella, or Escape from LA, while the indies run off elsewhere, then the studies will be in serious trouble.

Re:Denial

A show like SNL is dead if it loses any vestige of a "cool" factor. SNL had lost its big-name cast members like Will Farrell a couple of years prior, and was in one of its many periodic doldrums. This clip made millions of people aware that they had recently hired a group of new cast members that actually have a good deal of potential (although IMO the writing since then has not usually been up to par with the potential talent of the cast).

The clip and the hype around it really kept SNL from falling off the radar screen for a lot of people. The ratings didn't drop, which they very well might have in light of the strong competition like the Daily Show and its ilk that's saturating cable these days. The clip was a strong generator of buzz in a market where buzz is vitally important for survival.

Yeah, its called viral marketing

You see something that you don't perceive as an advertisement, and because of that it has a better effect than had it been an advertisement. If you enjoy a grainy 5 minute clip from a show on YouTube, it might entice you to check it out on your television. Especially if it's referred to you by a friend, then its a whole social dynamic that advertising begs to capture. Word of mouth is powerful, because people generally respect a personal opinion more so than a fake corporate one.

TV Stations that "get it"

I was interested to read today that the ABC (that's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has a policy that allows for it's content to be used on other platforms by operators.

I found this out after content was taken down when a teenager pretended to be their representative [smh.com.au] and sent YouTube an infringement notice (complete with awful spelling, "Australian Broddcasting Corperation")! The kid has since apologised [smh.com.au].

Why don't they get it?

All of the artists and the people who are actual involved with creating all of the content for the music labels, television stations, and other big media companies realize that at least to a certain extent allowing people to freely access and spread their content is good for them. Maybe some bored person who just happens to be browsing around the internet will happen to stumble on this content and for that reason might end up buying a CD, DVD, or something else to support the creaters of that content. I know that I've personally discovered several different things that have interested me and lead to me purchasing a product because I've found free clips or samples on the internet.

The corporate dinosaurs who are in charge don't seem to realize this and almost flat out refuse to change. EMI offering to sell music without DRM on several online music stores is a good start, but it seems like almost everyone else is trying to despirately cling to a business model that the consumers are rejecting in favor or something better. In a truly free market, I'd like to think that these people would have been put out of business already, but with the fortunes they've accumulated to court government and write their own policy, they keep trying to dictate how we will consume the content that's produced.

Why not give us what we want. Put free clips of The Daily Show on Youtube, but ask the Google display advertisements to buy official merchandise from their store in exchange for the rights to display it. I get to consume some content on demand for the reasonable price of free, and if I'm really interested in it, I've got a nice link to where I can get more or buy something else to support the creators. I think there are a lot of people out there, who like me, don't mind paying a little bit to support the people who make the music, television, or other content that we enjoy.

Not only that...

I think there are a lot of people out there, who like me, don't mind paying a little bit to support the people who make the music, television, or other content that we enjoy.

There are also a growing number of people who flat out refuse to support companies with such a heavy handed approach to the inevitable changes the internet is bringing. The actions of companies like Viacom and the various **AA members are creating a lot of consumer hostility, and in a situation where the consumer has a choice between getting content for free or deciding to support the creators such hostility can mean the end of their business.

I believe most people would willingly support their favorite bands, or the creators of TV shows they often watch, but not when the organizations managing those groups continue to bite the hand that feeds them. The reality of the situation is simple; broadcasters and distributors are being trumped by a much more efficient distribution medium. Instead of adapting their business models they're flailing about in some futile attempt to stop the inevitable and alienating their consumers in the process.

The Puppeteer in Ghost in the Shell summed it up quite nicely, "All things change in a dynamic environment, your effort to remain what you are is what limits you." (I bought several GITS DVD's after I'd downloaded the first movie, I'd never have bothered to look into it otherwise)

No, you don't get it

All of the artists and the people who are actual involved with creating all of the content for the music labels, television stations, and other big media companies realize that at least to a certain extent allowing people to freely access and spread their content is good for them.

That isn't the issue here. YouTube is not equal to "freely access and spread". YouTube is a single website. Some media companies are 100% fine with their content being freely accessible on the internet, so long as it is accessible through their servers only. That is, they make the ad revenue, not YouTube. That is all the Viacom/YouTube issue about - who makes the ad revenue. Not about them 'getting that allowing free access is good for them'.

Personally, my position is that media should be allowed to be copied and shared freely, so long as it is done noncommercially. Share music with your friends? Fine. Put an MP3 on your blog? Also fine by me. But create a site like YouTube that intends to make big money off of ads - I think that money should go to the media creator, not to YouTube. In other words - if anyone can make money from a piece of media, it should be the creator, but if no one can (and with P2P indeed no one does, as things currently stand), no one should. So I support P2P (and am using BitTorrent right now at 25K download rate), but not necessarily YouTube.

Note that the big media companies have ironically screwed themselves with the DMCA in the US, because it actually gives YouTube a fairly airtight defense against the Viacom allegations (all they need to do is respond to takedown notices, and they do). So, even though personally I think only Viacom should be making money off of Comedy Central clips, it looks like YouTube may do so as well.

not a big deal

While you can certainly find whole seasons of shows on youtube, the more usual thing is to just make a short clip of the relevant part. Then, the youtube superstars post their replies, followed by their hanger-ons, all the way down to the fat, ugly dregs of the internet. As with slashdot, the original article doesn't really matter. The news is more of a starting point than an end in itself.

It seems to me that "old media" is really being rather obsessive about infringement. So what if a couple thousand people watched your small, grainy, old clip. So what if a crazy, half-naked scot provides more interesting political commentary than your own guys. OK, that one must hurt a lot. But still. You've got loads of money. You've got publishing expertise; you know what the public wants. Probably. Most likely, net neutrality won't go through, so you might be able to clamp down on digital distribution. It'll be just like cable TV, distributed through the same cable providers, but routed over the internet instead. Unlike, say, book publishers, your business model isn't totally shot, not if you adapt.

Hang in there, Viacom. We're rooting for you.

God forbid...

Anyone should watch something free on the Internet that they could've already watched for free over the airwaves or on the basic cable they are almost assuredly already paying for. Oh wait, but then they don't get to see the ads that they'd skip over anyway by changing channels or fast forwarding past on their DVRs.

Youtube as a video archive...

Although the faint hope of commercial value in many television properties does give some television shows some guarantee it will be around for future folks to look at (including historians), I think it is also important that the banal and the "so-common-as-to-be-worthless" content get it's shot at archival also. I think Youtube is somewhat important - it looks to be strong enough to survive until digital storage is cheap enough that our current processes of digital archival are made irrelevant. It's important, because although there are groups like the Digital Archive Project [dapcentral.org], Archive.org [archive.org], and the various file trading groups which keep a lot of content alive long term, none of these have as strong a hope of legally keeping their information freely available, or have the same mass of content that Youtube/Google can provide.

It may seem rather silly to keep ahold of some of this stuff - but even if you'd never even dream of spending the time to watch any of it, I believe that our increasing ability to find new ways of consuming content and searching through it will bring surprising value, even as the value of content itself continues to fall. Youtube increases this aggregate historical value still further by also having a (youth and nerd-oriented) snapshot of a wide variety of daily lives around the world.

Ryan Fenton

Dinosaurs

Sometimes you'd have to step back and wonder, "Are these corporations run by idiots?" The answer is an emphatic "Yes"

I believe the old-media bosses at RIAA, MPAA, Viacom, NBCUNIVERSAL, et. al. are doing the world a favor by being so foolishly stubborn.

This whole situation reminds me of a PBF comic [pbfcomics.com]

Missing the point

Whether or not it is in Viacom's best interest to allow Google to do whatever they want with their intellectual property is beside the point. The question is whether or not Google is profiting off of Viacom's content without an agreement in place to allow them to do so. You can argue until you are blue in the face about how Viacom ought to run their business, it has no bearing on whether or not Google has the right to make money off of Viacom's content without their permission.

I'm not saying that Viacom is right or that Google is right, just that there are a lot of articles on Slashdot trying to find excuses for Google that miss point entirely.

Who cares, he is not the owner

He cares because exposure on youtube gives him popularity, wich increases HIS earning potential. Very sensible off course BUT why should the actuall owner of the show care?

Imagine if you like a supermarket, say the meat department feels SURE that they can have more success if they were allowed to re-arrange the isles, the placement of the registers, in fact overhaul the entire way the shop is being run. Yippie? OR would the actuall owner of the store perhaps wonder if what is good for the meat department is good for the entire store?

NBC has a business model. It don't really matter wether you agree with it or not, or even if it is the right one, or wether new tech is making it obsolete. It is THEIR business model and theirs to follow or change by their choice.

It to a degree depends on giving people restricted access to their content so they can in turn expose those people to ads for wich they are paid.

NBC's primary income comes from selling ads, NOT from tv shows. They are just the way to get people to watch the ads.

The popularity of a tv-show therefore only matters if you get people to watch ads. Youtube does NOT run NBC ads, therefore it don't help NBC.

Their MIGHT be a side-effect, that because people saw a NBC show on youtube they will watch the regular version with ads included BUT there is a huge risk. What if people just expect ALL the NBC's shows to be on youtube instead and stop watching the ad-laden tv-shows all together. Those people that claim that exposure to shows on youtube leads to increased television watching are ignoring that it could just as easily just lead to more youtube watching.

Imagine if you like of a thirdparty pulled all the content of slashdot and re-published it without slashdot ads leading to massive exposure. Sure individual story submitters might be pleased BUT would CowboyNeal welcome this? Would he be told that people reading slashdot stories somewhere else is going to lead to increased traffic to his own site? Slashdot stories are NOT there because CowboyNeal wants you to know about thing, but because they are the way to get you to see ads.

NBC and the likes are fighting for their business model, selling ads by offering free content. If someone else redisplays that content they can't sell ads. It is perfectly simple. Perhaps their business model is bound to die off (unlikely, youtube == google and google gives free content in exchange for watching paid ads as its core business model) but they are under no obligation to hurry it along.

I wonder what Jon Stewart and Lorne Micheals would say if their tv stations came to them and said, "hi, we are going to stop broadcasting your shows on tv with ads and just post them directly to youtube instead, your salery? Well, negotiate that with google, they are the ones displaying the ads."

IF youtube display's NBC programs then NBC becomes NOT a television studio but "merely" a producer. This is not unusual, there are plently of tv-producers who do NOT own the means of actually broadcasting what they create, (at least they do in europe) and they sell it to companies/organistions that can. If youtube wants to show NBC programs, with their own ads inserted, they need to pay NBC for the production.

Anything less just doesn't make sense from NBC's point of view.

Unless offcourse Jon Stewarts and the likes are going to do their work for free. Not bloody likely is it?

Re:Who cares, he is not the owner

Solution: Put small text as punch lines/etc in most popular shows! That way, youtube watcher's don't even get the jokes!

The Daily Show DVD sales

Putting the daily show on YouTube won't be good for it's DVD sales. I for one are interested in a +-25 DVD collection of a single season of the Daily Show.

There's too much liability at stake

to make the corporate lawyers feel comfortable. And shameful as it may be, there is no small amount of greed involved; the big corps want to maximize the earning potential of their products and the established way to do that is to clamp down on who gets access to what. NBC/CBS/FOX/CommedyCentral/etc want you to go it THEIR websites to see their content so they can generate discreet viewership tallies to entice more advertisers to give them more money.

The flaw (as I think the common view is) in espousing the "virtues" of spreading content around for free is that the people who produce the content do not benefit from it directly and that's all the traditional been counters care about. "We lost X amount of potential viewers to our site (which is oriented to get them to see what we want them to see) and that equates to Y amount of lost revenue. Clamp all our content down so that we can maximize our profit." Think of the NFL's end-of-broadcast disclaimer for a perfect example.

Put simply, the crux is this: juxtaposing the need for people to see your product with the need to make real, quantifiable dollars from it. It used to be that we lived in a 3-channel-plus-PBS TV world, where the best way to spread interest about your shows was found in the TV guide, seconded by word-of-mouth. These companies need to embrace our digital world rather than try to fight it like the RIAA and MPAA have done (with questionable success). Offering their content on DVD's and Itunes is a great start but what better way to get people to want to purchase this stuff than by releasing low quality 320x240 vids on Youtube? I'll even go so far as to posit that the spreading and sharing and bookmarking of popular "viral" videos is the new "word-of-mouth"...

So it's all well and good that some celebrities are promoting the easy spreading of digital media such as the TV shows they produce and star in; let's just try to understand it in a way that satisfies the demands of the bottom line and also the public's need for more content. It's going to have to be a compromise...

Hear it here first!

Network executives are stupid.

Water is wet.

More earth-shattering revelations tonight at eleven.

Sigh. Self interest wins again.

Let's see if we can apply actual logic to this question, shall we?

1. Jon Stewart is an entertainer whose personal fortune, success, and prestigate is much more closely tied to personal recognition and likeability rather than the long-term profitability of his network. Hence, he has every reason in the world to want to be associated with the 'free beer' aspects of let's put stuff on youtube.

2. lazy sunday's youtube success doubtlessly brought some fame back to SNL. however, to start as that as a premise and then argue that ergo snl/viacom should not care if the funniest bits of their shows are put onto the internet en masse by anonymous users is completely disingenious. more realistically, it makes sense from SNL's / the network's standpoint to be against random copyright infringing posts of clips from their show but to put carfully selected teaser bits up that may encourage viewers to their television show, where they actually make money through advertising. and this is exactly what they do.

How is this not old news?

Colbert actually had a person from the EFF [comedycentral.com] on the show, which filed a lawsuit [eff.org] against Viacom on behalf of Moveon.org for a "baseless copyright complaint from media giant Viacom." If one watches Colbert and Stewart, they've clearly taken a liking to youtube, enough to mention it in other guest interviews and the casual banter that starts and ends each show.

A comment I made once is relevant to this.

Television producers would make more money on bittorrent. [slashdot.org]

Business Plan

1. Post clip on youtube
2. Millions watch it
3. Viewing figures go up
4. Advertisers, uh, advertise on your program.
5. Profit

Once lawyers start running the company, kiss goodbye to profits and future.

Because SNL only _mostly_ sucks

Every now and then I watch SNL, and it still mostly sucks. Like your typical album put out by major record companies, there are one or two good skits buried in a bunch of mediocre garbage. So I just switch back to MadTV and watch a bunch of good skits with only a little mediocre garbage. I normally only stick with SNL when I want to watch it for the guest host (such as Rainn Wilson, etc.)

What YT exposure does is show off the good stuff that you don't see because you got tired of waiting for it and simply assumed that it was 100% suck. And, uh, makes you want to watch it more?

I thought I had a point here, and I guess it's that "YT exposure keeps you from thinking that SNL is 100% suck". Oh well, back to MadTV.

Ah, I see the problerm.

You see, I don't know about Lorne Micheals, but Jon Stewart is sane. That means he's not equipped to understand the subtleties of company policy.

of course, they know their content is worthless..

John Stewart is a very smart man and he knows free publicity when he sees it. When a particularly funny bit comes along why not post it? Really, what are they protecting? Who is going to pay for episode of TDS from a week ago or even last year? It's comedy that's very time sensitive, making past episodes of limited value on resale, however it can still be great advertising!

To be fair

Digging in your heels and cursing the onrushing tide has worked so well for the RIAA.

Obligatory Homer Simpson Quote:

"Ohhhhhh ... an inteview with Lorne Michaels ..."

Joost?

Maybe I don't get it. What's wrong with them refusing YouTube and releasing on Joost, where they control the content, get revenue, and people get to watch it for 'free' (with advertising, which is how TV has worked for 50+ years).