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Mark Cuban Declares War on GooTube 295

Posted by CmdrTaco from the settle-this-with-jello-wrestling dept.
PreacherTom writes "Mark Cuban — the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, tech entrepreneur, and self-proclaimed 'blog maverick' — has always been outspoken in his ridicule of Google and YouTube. Now, it appears he's willing to put his money where his mouth is. Cuban is so convinced that GooTube will be a failure that he is in the process of acquiring the news agency owned by Robert Tur, currently involved in serious litigation with Google over copyright violations. With billions on both sides, this could be a real clash of the titans."
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Mark Cuban Declares War on GooTube More

Mark Cuban Declares War on GooTube

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  • Titans (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:30PM (#16870690)
    With billions on both sides, this could be a real clash of the titans.


    Yeah, it could be, but we're calling it "GooTube".

  • Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pionzypher ( 886253 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:32PM (#16870726)
    The man is so convinced that google/youtube will fail, he's actually going to jump in the ring to try to make it happen? Umm... Someone should just give this guy a hobby.
    • "Someone should just give this guy a hobby."

      Dallas Mavericks
    • It just goes to show that money doesn't necessarily make things better... I mean, look at the Mavericks.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by X43B ( 577258 )
        "It just goes to show that money doesn't necessarily make things better... I mean, look at the Mavericks." 1) There is a salary cap that all teams must adhere to so it isn't like he can just buy up every player in the league. 2) The Mavericks reached their first ever championship finals last year and have consistently had a much higher winning % compared to their franchise history since Cuban took over. This is attributed to Cubans willingness to spend extra coaches to help the players and private plane

    • Re:Wait... (Score:5, Funny)

      by PFI_Optix ( 936301 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:57PM (#16871194) Journal
      He has a hobby: finding new and interesting ways to get ejected from an NBA game.

    • Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ryan Amos ( 16972 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:58PM (#16871216)
      This is Mark Cuban we're talking about. He bought a basketball team just so he could hang out with pro athletes. The whole situation with him and the Mavs reminds me of a movie where the biggest fan somehow ends up becoming the owner of the team. His blog rants are the same kind of rants you'd hear from your buddies while watching the game on TV (refs are against us, conspiracy theory, blah blah blah.) What I like about the guy is that the NBA fines him $100,000+ every time he says something stupid and he keeps doing it. That's putting your money where your mouth is.

      Of course, this is actually his area of business specialty (media and the internet.) He has a ton of business reasons to ensure Google/YouTube don't succeed. He probably had the same idea 3 or 4 years ago but scrapped it over liability concerns, and he's making sure nobody else gets to make money off it either.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Achromatic1978 ( 916097 )
        What I like about the guy is that the NBA fines him $100,000+ every time he says something stupid and he keeps doing it. That's putting your money where your mouth is.

        And, I believe, donates an equal amount to charity. I think he was even quoted as saying something along the lines of "Such and such charity hasn't been getting enough money from me since I lost my voice, so I've been catching up on badmouthing the refs"...

    • The guy is ALL hobbies (Score:5, Interesting)

      by alexhmit01 ( 104757 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @02:19PM (#16872540)
      The guy owns HD Net (and the sister channel, HD Net Movies). When nobody was doing HD Content, he got HD rights to minor college games and NHL games, and built a little network there. He also bought the right to do transfers of old shows. He's an active participant on AVS Forum, explaining what is going on in the HD world. The craziest thing, you could only get HD Net from DirecTV and a local Texas station for its first few years. He bought a local television station just to run HD Net OTA to prove that OTA HD was practical.

      When I met him very briefly (like 1 second) at CES some years back, watching him speak was amazing, not for what he said, but to hear the AWE from the representatives of companies like TI that were talking about how nobody did more for their industry than him.

      The man has loads of money, and is spending it to push things that he believes will make the world a better place. He also has an ego the size of Texas. He had is own show on HD Net (where he could be a big dork but have his players on), and HD Net's coverage of CES was interviewing him.

      The guy made a fortune selling broadcast.com at JUST the right time, and is now pushing technology the way he wants it, where a few gambles can make a difference. HD Net's sports coverage forced ESPN to adopt HD content before they wanted to, and DirecTV used HD Net to anchor HD programming when there was almost no programming. If it wasn't for him, the local affiliates would have gotten their dream of HD being a fig leaf to get public airwaves, where 1/6 of the channel space would carry normal 480i programming, and 5/6s be sold for data services, etc. Instead, HD Net helped force everyone's hand, and HD is here and real.

      The guy's hobby appears to be bending public will to his, and he does a good job of it. While these "investments" may not have been profitable in a traditional sense (I doubt that he loses money, but he probably isn't getting a better ROI than having plowed his money into the S&P 500), it seems to have made him happy. He owns a basketball team, and he has a television network that buys the rights to do HD Transfers of whatever shows he wants to watch in HD. While the rest of us are at the mercy of the marketing departments guessing what we want, he can go make it happen. That's a pretty cool hobby.

      Alex
    • Yeah, I live in Dallas and know all about Mark Cuban's shenanigans. He's a dumbass with a truck load of money, and his NBA antics with the officials and refs are well publicized.

        I hope he gets sued into oblivion by Google/Youtube. I'd like nothing more at this point than to see him fail miserably.

  • *Tsk Tsk* Have we learned nothing? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dr. Eggman ( 932300 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:34PM (#16870760)
    Whenever Godzilla and Mecha-Godzilla fight; it is Tokyo that suffers the most.

  • Only a moron would buy YouTube (Score:5, Funny)

    by burris ( 122191 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:34PM (#16870764)
    Just like the morons that bought broadcast.com

  • Furthering his own interests... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thebdj ( 768618 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:35PM (#16870776) Journal
    As of August 9, 2005, Cuban had begun spearheading ventures in both the social software and distributed networking industries. Cuban is an owner of IceRocket, a search engine which scours the blogosphere for content.[34] Cuban is also a partner in RedSwoosh[35] -- a company which uses peer-to-peer technology to deliver rich media, including video and software to a user's PC.
    That is taken right from the wikipedia article, here [wikipedia.org]. Seriously, this would just a movie to further his own ventures. I still think this is odd since he did back Grokster during their failed legal attempts. I guess since there is no way for him to get in on the Google/YouTube money (and he feels cheated there were wrongdoings in the deal) that he will help beat them the "old fashioned" way by financing someone who is suing them. Where have I heard of this little scheme before....

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Cuban is also a partner in RedSwoosh[35] -- a company which uses peer-to-peer technology to deliver rich media, including video and software to a user's PC.

      commonly known as a PUP (potentially unwanted program)
      or as we in the tech industry call it "spyware"

      http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/redswoosh.net [siteadvisor.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 )

      still think this is odd since he did back Grokster during their failed legal attempts.

      (Emphasis mine) Actually it makes perfect sense. To a legal simpleton anyway.

      Grokster was sued by copyright holders over illegal distribution of copyrighted material.
      Google/YouTube is being sued by copyright holders over allegedly illegal distribution of copyrighted material.

      Grokster lost, therefore Google/YouTube will lose. Cuban is backing the horse that he thinks will win, and he believes he'll cash in.

      • If true, that's an *incredibly cynical move by the man who said "software doesn't steal content, people steal content" w/r/t Grokster. Google/YouTube don't 'steal' content, its users do. Unless I can make a few quid by suing Google/YouTube, in which case software does steal content now.
    • MGM won grokster b/c of the latter's active inducement. Cuban is well aware that Gootube is not actively inducing infringement; quite the opposite. He is therefore doing his damnedest to expand the grokster decision beyond its actual holding, and to profit from the expansion, at the expense of the users.

      the Supreme Court's Grokster opinion, properly interpreted, strikes an appropriate balance. It preserved secondary liability as a powerful tool against copyright infringement. At the same time, it declined t
    • ...IceRocket, a search engine which scours the blogosphere for content.

      Well, at least the database backups fit on an 8" floppy...

  • Open up a Western Front (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lev13than ( 581686 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:35PM (#16870782) Homepage
    Cuban is so convinced that GooTube will be a failure that he is in the process of acquiring the news agency owned by Robert Tur, currently involved in serious litigation with Google over copyright violations.

    In retaliation, Sergey Brin has just announced plans to buy the L.A. Clippers.

    • In retaliation, Sergey Brin has just announced plans to buy the L.A. Clippers.

      What would make that even funnier, is if with Brin as owner, the Clippers won the NBA Championship. I would predict that the moment that happened, Cuban's head would not only explode, but the splatter would land in the form of a 350-page rant about how the Clipper's victory was the result of a Vast Conspiracy between the NBA Referee's association, Commissioner Stern, Google, and the Bavarian Illuminati.

      As it is, anymore I'd say

      • The key way to say it is that he is a BILLIONARE who is a 100% certified attention-whoring assclown. Billion. That gets you a lot of attention regardless.

    • Re:Open up a Western Front (Score:5, Funny)

      by Odin's Raven ( 145278 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @02:32PM (#16872766)
      In retaliation, Sergey Brin has just announced plans to buy the L.A. Clippers.

      Next, Brin and Cuban agree that all copyright issues will be settled by best-of-7 tournaments between their respective teams. This proves to be too time consuming, so they expedite the process by substituting one-on-one NBA Live 07 matches using virtual versions of their respective teams.

      The first match goes poorly, with Cuban accusing Brin of redirecting 90% of Google's computers to run a "hoop-bot" to improve his team's shooting accuracy. To ensure fairness, future matches are broadcast live on G4 TV. This proves to be an instant hit, capturing 100% attention from both of G4's viewers. A year later, Electronic Arts introduces "Madden Meta-NBA 08", where players control either a virtual Brin or virtual Cuban playing simulated NBA Live matches, available exclusively on the new SonySoft XStation720.

      The game becomes an instant hit, and six months later Hollywood commissions a movie of the game of the company owners playing sports games of teams fighting for ...errr... for something or other, frankly we've forgotten by now. Probably a woman. Or a cat. Maybe an orphanage. Screw it, we'll go with an orphan cat-woman. Uwe Bolle will direct.

  • Suing for profit is a moral stand? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ghostlibrary ( 450718 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:35PM (#16870800) Homepage Journal
    Okay, I'm puzzled. The EFF defending someone sued by, say, the RIAA, is to support the individual who is being overwhelmed by a large corporation due to a questionable law. And one could argue Cuban is just doing something similar-- supporting a lawsuit of an individual who feels a corporation has infringed on their rights in an area where the law is murky.

    However, supporting an individual's lawsuit, not because of the principal involved, but because you don't like them and think they're stupid, that's... well, childish. That's putting ego as more important than justice, and in theory, that's what the whole court system is supposed to prevent.

    Isn't this just a form of vigilante justice by Cuban? "I don't like 'em, so they're going down."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kabocox ( 199019 )
      However, supporting an individual's lawsuit, not because of the principal involved, but because you don't like them and think they're stupid, that's... well, childish. That's putting ego as more important than justice, and in theory, that's what the whole court system is supposed to prevent.

      Isn't this just a form of vigilante justice by Cuban? "I don't like 'em, so they're going down."

      Didn't you read the part where it stated the guy has billions so is very rich by most standards? Um, I think that most court

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bugnuts ( 94678 )
      supporting an individual's lawsuit, not because of the principal involved, but because you don't like them and think they're stupid, that's... well, childish.
      This is a billionaire and his interests are not "principles", they are "principle".

      There is money involved, and like any entrepreneur, he wants what doesn't belong to him. If he can make a gamble and win, he can tap gootube for a lot of cash.

      As someone else stated, he needs a real hobby. Litigation is not a good one. He's worse than the ambulance-ch
    • People with inflated egos and too much money are always dangerous, first to others and then probably to themselves as well. Now I am not sure if they always had inflated egos or it was the money that did it to them, probably the former is the case. You should have watched Cuban's show on TV a couple of years back where he gave a winner of his little contest $1M. He might have sold Yahoo just at the right time but he still is an arrogant 12 year old that tries to get attention to himself and brag.

      Out of th

  • I am the boss! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AdamGott ( 802705 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:37PM (#16870814)
    Jeez, Mark Cuban is a whiney little brat (or substitute your own word that begins with a B here). You guys need to learn that just because you have all the money you don't get to make all of the rules. Most of them, sure, but not all. Go to news.google.com and search for Mark Cuban and see for yourself...

    • You guys need to learn that just because you have all the money you don't get to make all of the rules.

      This is the United States of America. The people with all the money do get to make all the rules. What is interesting here is that both sides have "all the money". The winners will be the lawyers.

  • What is he getting? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jense ( 978975 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:37PM (#16870822) Homepage
    Mark Cuban is a maverick in a lot of ways. I have actually had the pleasure of meeting him several times during the course of my previous job here in Dallas, and in-person and in everday situations (I've spoken with him both in a business and casual setting), he is a cordial, and generally "normal" person. But he is not not stupid. Maverick is a good word for him, as he may not always be diplomatic or smart about his emotional reactions, but he is definitely not dumb when it comes to many business decisions. My question is: what is he getting out of this? Is it a pride thing? So needs to be right he's cast his lot with the opponents? The money motivator is there, but it's not like he needs more. I think he may be bored and just needs something to focus on that he feels is a sure thing.

  • Why you ask... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by C_Kode ( 102755 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:37PM (#16870828) Journal
    Why you ask would an owner of a sports franchise care? Because he isn't just the owner the the Dallas Mavericks. He is a media guy who owns HD-Net. An broadcasting and media company that creates HD media and of course the last thing he wants is his media to appear on YouTube. He is a wannbe Ted Turner/Rupert Murdoc.

  • A stupid billionaire vs 'the people' (Score:3, Insightful)

    by unity100 ( 970058 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:41PM (#16870910) Homepage Journal
    Who do you think will win ?

  • Too much free time (Score:3, Insightful)

    by future assassin ( 639396 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:46PM (#16870990)
    Image if people put that much effort/money into helping out their communities instead of childish vendettas.
  • My studio is maybe 2 blocks from his loft in Deep Ellum (art neighborhood in dallas). He's known for being "out there" and he's the butt of a lot of jokes around here but deep down everyone loves him. Our neigborhood association president knows him and thinks the world of him.

    it's awfully ambitious but if anyone can pull this off it would be him.

  • What a jerk. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Qwavel ( 733416 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:49PM (#16871040)
    There are lots of people out there throwing the little bits of money they have at charities and other causes that they think will make the world a better place.

    Contrast with this guy.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually Cuban donates shitloads to charities. Every fine he's endured as a NBA Team Owner he's matched by donating to Charity. So according to my calculations, he's donated well over $500,000.00 dollars to charities just from getting fined from the sidelines.

      So when was the last time you donated some money to charity? Who's the jerk now? The one who speaks without knowing a little more background info.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by centerfire ( 741520 )
        That's .038% of his net worth, which according to Forbes is 1.3BIL. I'll bet most people have given far over that percentage to charity, on an annual basis.

  • Crazy, but right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by realmolo ( 574068 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:53PM (#16871102)
    YouTube and Google Video *are* full of copyrighted material. They *should* have some liability.

    Don't get me wrong. I think that the so-called "content-providers" should be HAPPY about the free advertising they get when clips of their stuff are posted on those sites. But we all know that they can't stand it, and that it is illegal. It probably shouldn't be, but it is.

    And you know what? It doesn't seem fair that in a world where the RIAA is forcing grandmothers to cough up thousands and thousands of dollars for unknowingly sharing Britney Spears tunes from their PC, that big corporations like Google get a free ride.
     

    • Re:Liability (Score:3, Insightful)

      by decipher_saint ( 72686 )
      Google/YouTube did not upload copyrighted material to itself and it is not responsible for policing itself. If a copyright holder finds material they report it and it gets pulled.

      The counter-argument is that should there be a system of active moderation? Well, I look at this way. Should Ginsu send a man 'round to every customer's house every now and then to ensure that no one is misusing their Ginsu knife?

    • Crazy, and wrong (Score:5, Informative)

      by Per Abrahamsen ( 1397 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @01:18PM (#16871564) Homepage
      The DMCA is supposed to mean that YouTube and Google are not responsible for what their users upload, but are obliged to remove all copyrighted material when requested to do so by the copyright holders.

      This is one thing the DMCA got right, without such a protection of service providers, it would be impossible to run a site like /. where anyone can upload copyrighted material.

  • Knockon effect. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by malkavian ( 9512 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:59PM (#16871226)
    If Cuban is successful in getting a judge to rule that takedown is no longer good enough to prevent a site being sued for copyright infringement, how long do you think it'll be before no site allows anything to be uploaded, as they can no longer afford the resources to work out if it's copyright or not, and can't afford the legal fees for even a few infringements?

    This would be disastrous for the net. And for everyone in general, apart from those big media conglomerates who only transmit on their own content. This could, in one fell swoop, turn the internet from the mass of information it is now to just another broadcast mechanism for the big distribution channels (*IAA etc).

    • "This could, in one fell swoop, turn the internet from the mass of information it is now to just another broadcast mechanism for the big distribution channels (*IAA etc)."

      Although I agree this guy sounds like a douche (except for the comments here about people who live in the same hood as him), but no one is going to "kill" the internet. What would most likely happen is that the internet would fracture. One half being a corporate based ad laden myspace tie-in shopfest, and the other being an underground fre

  • Just speculation but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by niola ( 74324 ) <jon@niola.net> on Thursday November 16, 2006 @12:59PM (#16871236) Homepage
    Mark Cuban made his money selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo, so is it possible he still has a stake in Yahoo and this is nothing more than a territorial piss and moan contest at the competition?

  • Mark Cuban Declares War on GooTube
    Tomorrow's headline: Slashdotters Declare War On Mark Cuban!
  • geez....now this is proof that he's a nut case.
    he's gonna waste his time and money on something as stupid as this?

    why doesn't he spend it on his Dallas Mavericks?
    According to the NBA Conference scores page [nba.com], his Mavericks are getting creamed by the LA Clippers... (3:4 for the Mavs, and 5:2 for the Clippers)
  • ...when you are caught with your foot in your mouth.

    Well it seems like Mark Cuban thinks the solution is to insert your other foot as well ... oh, and your wallet.

    He was way wrong on Google & youtube the first time and I'm sure that he is even more wrong now.

  • Cuban seems like what most /.ers want to be (Score:5, Informative)

    by paladinwannabe2 ( 889776 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @01:06PM (#16871334)
    According to Wikipedia, Mark Cuban [wikipedia.org] was a software salesman who became rich through selling his company. He's a libertarian and objectivist. He's not a moron, and certainly not a suit. I may disagree with his attack on Google here, but that doesn't mean I think he's stupid.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DragonWriter ( 970822 )

      He's a libertarian and objectivist. He's not a moron...

      Wait, which is it: "He's a libertarian and objectivist" or "He's not a moron"? You can't have it both ways. Okay, I'm joking a little there, but...

      ...and certainly not a suit.

      Wait, you say he's a "salesman who got rich selling his company" and then you say he's "not a suit"? That's, um, well pretty common for a "suit". Indeed, most people would say that if your a salesman that got rich selling a company, and now own an NBA franchise, you are clearly a

  • Nobody has mentioned that all of YouTube has been down for "scheduled downtime" for "new concoctions and formulas" for about 24 hours now. Something drastic is happening over there. That's far too long for a simple site update.

    A frantic purge of copyrighted content may be underway. They already had one purge, right after the acquisition. They were down for most of a day for that one, too. This downtime is already much longer than the last one.

    Cuban might be right.

  • Sorry, that's a new one. Gootube? Is that the time machine the Gooback's came through in that one Southpark episode? Are there Goodita's involved? Is Google becomming so powerful that we need to start studying Goospeak? Are we going to need to start calling it Goo/Linux? If Google wins, can we call him Mark Gooban? Mark, you goo baby!
  • The last competition I heard of form Mark Cuban was going up against The Apprentice with his own show. Needless to say, it bombed. Trump himself said "I killed him", and he(Trump) also beat out Branson's similar show.
  • Mark Cuban owns HDNet. Video over the internet becoming popular is a direct threat to his current holdings.
  • This guy used to be a Maverick.

    Now he's just an ass.
  • self-fulfilling prophecy.
  • Mr. Cuban got his money in almost exactly the same way YouTube just cashed out -- Broadcast.com was going to keep Yahoo! on the top, remember? But today Broadcast.com is a distant placer among today's user-controlled video distribution systems. Letting users upload files instead of waiting for behemoth megacorporations to join the 21st century has been a total revolution. Cuban must be jealous because he didn't think of it first.

  • Never! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Phoenix666 ( 184391 ) on Thursday November 16, 2006 @02:55PM (#16873146)
    Now listen up, Fi-del, you and your Cubans will NEVER take down GooTube as long as one drop of blood flows through our red, white, and blue veins!

    Stick THAT in your cigar and smoke it.

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