YouTube's Plans for a Google-Owned Future 102
eldavojohn writes "Reuters is reporting on Time Warner's approach to YouTube's copyright problems. There has been much speculation that Google will be sued immediately over copyrighted material on YouTube but this is a case of Time Warner actually approaching Google to work out a deal on this issue. It appears artists and labels will have the choice when digging into Google's pockets either through a business deal or lawsuit. Which will they pick?" Meanwhile, the AP is reporting on the possible development of a technology to automatically screen content as it is posted to YouTube, which may sidestep some of these issues and disappoint users.
uhm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Google Market cap: 130 billion.
Yeah, nobody saw that coming. Of course the little guy in this battle is going to wave the white flag. It's about time a tech company put the smack down on the content industry.
Re: (Score:2)
So it's more like a Content company putting the smack down on a content company. Search results are content. They've developed technology to serve their content. So has Time Warner.
They're the same.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Not trying to troll; could you please rephrase that in a language other than Klingon?
Hot air buys more hot air (Score:4, Interesting)
But Youtube? these guys, I just have no idea how it can be worth anything at all. I have a feeling the Google emperor truly has no clothes at all...
Re: (Score:2)
Market cap (capitalization) is the total dollar value of all outstanding shares, and is calculated by multiplying the total number of shares by the current market share price.
perhaps their revenue streams from advertising, selling search services of various kinds and other services are enough to justify it
The shareholders think (hope) so...
Re: (Score:2)
Frankly, Google, while certainly not worthless, is not worth more than Time Warner right now.
Re:Hot air buys more hot air (Score:5, Insightful)
Their revenue last year was 6.1 billion dollars [yahoo.com]. That makes their market cap only about 20x revenue, which is a very resonable number in any book, and simmilar to MSFT and eBay and most other large companies
As for YouTube - while it was private at the itme of sale, it *was* selling ads, and lots of people close to the inside said it was actually turning a profit. This is a rarety for a web start-up nowadays.
POersonally, I thin kif anyone can monetize YouTube quickley, it';s Google. They already have partnerships with Viacom and MTV to sell content via Google Video, so moving those deals over to their YouTube site should be a walk in the park. Combine pay-for content with Google's ability to place relevant ads by the video, and they have a win-win.
This is google; they can think bigger (Score:2)
Re:Hot air buys more hot air (Score:5, Informative)
Still, if you look only at the earnings, you'll have a ~21 ratio for Google and a ~6.5 ratio for Microsoft. A huge difference.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=GOOG [yahoo.com]
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MSFT [yahoo.com]
Since price is a good indicator of how the market feels, my read is that the PEG gives you a way of looking at how the market feels about reward, and P/E gives you a look at the risk. So you take on a whole lot less risk with Microsoft, but sacrifice some upside.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
For fuck's sake! (Score:1, Flamebait)
Goddamnit, I can overlook the atrocious spelling errors and typos, but using the word "monetize" in this way is just plain offensive. Why do people use words they don't understand the meaning of?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How is that offensive?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As it happens, the use of monetize to refer to converting an asset to money is coeval with the invention of the word itself. The economist John Alexander Ferris seems to have first used it in the mid-19th century, both to refer to both the coining of precious metals into currency and the conversion of assets into cash.
But even if people had just last year started using it so, it would still mean converting an asset to money.
Re: (Score:2)
true, but why use such idiotic words? Am I not allowed to object to style used in language? After all, economists could start using "fo' shizzle yo nizzle" or "pwned" in their reports, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
If humans define language, then why should I just roll over when people try to push language in directions that I find o
Re: (Score:2)
OMG, I have to call my broker!
Re: (Score:2)
Go to google, type in 'define: monetize', look at definition 1. I checked before I posted becuse it is true that in the most common usage refers to "creating currency" and I wanted to see if "monetize the transactions" would fit that definition.
"It's offensive because people are using words they don't understand, just to sound flashy. It insults the intelligence of the reader."
While your over at google try '
Re: (Score:1)
Are you confusing revenue with profit? A profit of 5% of market value is a reasonable return. When your valuation is 20 times your turnover before any costs any sort of return becomes very speculative without spectacular growth. You quote Microsoft. Their 2005 figures (according to [yahoo.com] in round figur
first google troll of the day (Score:3, Insightful)
By any chance are you typing that BS out of Redmond? Google generated 2.25 billion in the first quarter to March 31, 2006. Google doesn't perform bugus trades between a number of fake companies. It has never been accused or been in court for such thing. To suggest it here suggests to me that you are a trolling.
was Re:Hot air buys more hot air
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
After Enron and Worldcom and the like, people are skeptical. But Google's profits are as real as Microsoft and Apple. YouTube is a little harder to grasp since they are newer and private. However Google isn't interested in their profits but t
Re: (Score:2)
I don't get it. (Score:3, Insightful)
what? Google had its own video too? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google has online video just as Lycos.com has web based email. It really doesn't matter. Youtube is "it", the one with critical mass, the one everyone goes to first. Youtube is to online video what eBay is to online auctions.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft has browser just as Apple has operating systems. It really doesn't matter. Netscape is "it", the one with critical mass, the one everyone goes to first. Netscape is to browser what Microsoft is to operating systems.
Repeat with altavista, AIM, Napster, etc.
Time will tell....
Re: (Score:2)
Calling Netscape's mass "critical" is a huge overstatement. The market for web browsers was in its infancy there because the internet was in its infancy. Microsoft didn't have to get lots of people to switch from Netsape to IE. They simply bundled IE tightly with Windows so that for most people, the first time they were online was with IE.
The online video market may not be fully mature yet, but it's a lot more mature than the inte
Re: (Score:2)
Youtube has ads? (Score:2)
I've never noticed that Youtube even HAS ads in the first place. Let me go check right now: no ads on the main page...oh wait, there's some on the right side in an area of the screen I've never looked at before when using Youtube. Yes, there are ads there, but I had to specifically hunt to find that it even had then. That's pretty low on my annoyance meter.
Re: (Score:2)
It has the dual effect of generating ad. revenue and allowing users to access content which they may later consider buying regularly.
Re: (Score:1)
I think it is interesting... (Score:2, Interesting)
agreements with major music labels (Score:3, Interesting)
Just hours before Google announced a $1.6 billion acquisition of YouTube on Monday, both companies separately revealed agreements with major music labels [pcworld.com] for offering music videos on their respective sites.
was Re:I think it is interesting...
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But wouldn't it then lose its "street cred" - and therefore become less popular, and lose the potential for generating income?
Is this a good or a bad thing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone set us up the President (Score:2)
When did the Supreme Court get involved???
Are they going to change the available formats? (Score:4, Insightful)
At least if they move to Flash 9 it works on Linux by either running IE6 or Firefox under WINE [revis.co.uk] until the Linux flash 9 release but it's not the slickest way of doing it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Then, they can just create an WebAppliance to store, catalog and stream video. And sell this to big media providers as a more reliable, cheaper alternative to WMA(spit!) and REAL(spit!). One that will be automagically compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux and every other platform out there, since it's based on a
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
An interesting read on YouTube/Google/Copyright (Score:1, Informative)
I'll believe it when I see it (Score:4, Informative)
The first time an individual sues Google over YouTube content or makes a business deal for YouTube content, I want someone to e-mail me. My e-mail is John@TheLysts.com (yeah bots, pick my e-mail up. It's all over the place. I use Gmail so you're no problem for me). I say this because I doubt very much any individual content creator will be able to broker a deal with Google without going through a proxy. The fact the slashdot summary says artists will have a choice is just ridiculous. Artists have a choice of what company they sell their rights to. They don't have a choice about sueing Google or making deals with Google (except for future ones who can factor that in when selecting what company to go with).
Re: (Score:2)
The artists have plenty of choice. Not only can they sell their rights to a wide variety of companies, they can also easily choose not to see their rights, and put the content on their own web site (or put it up in one of those indie sites with many artists where rights are preserved). Don't get paranoid.
Re: (Score:2)
Which I clearly said.
I'll assume you mean sell. And that has what to do with sueing or trying to broker a deal with Google? My point is Google won't deal with individual content creators, and they won't be able to sue Google successfully. You instead talk about what content creators can do without respect to Google. Talk about off-topic.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Alternative? (Where's Spacey as Neil Young)? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
No real copyright problems (Score:2)
Here's the deal: Somebody posts a copy of a Sienfeld episode on Youtube. It staya up for a while until the Seinfeld owners send a DMCA takedown request to youtube. The only way that a copyright lawsuit will happen here is if youtube doesn't take down the episode. If it does, it's inside a safe ha
Re: (Score:1)
The DMCA safe harbor isn't a steel curtain (Score:2)
The only way that a copyright lawsuit will happen here is if youtube doesn't take down the episode.
That may not be true. The DMCA safe harbor for ISPs is not blanket protection. If more an more of the content provided on YouTube winds up being material posted without the copyright holder's approval, copyright holders could argue that there is *so much* unapproved material on YouTube that it is too much of a burden on copyright holders to monitor YouTube for violations. My guess is that if anyone does ta
Re: (Score:2)
I know the position you're taking -- you're effectively arguing that although YouTube might qualify for protection under the the DMCA's "safe harbor" (in 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(1)(A) and (C)), it still have a 512(c)(1)(B) problem, which says it can't make money "directly attributable to the infringing activity," even if it's otherwise inside the safe harbor. But, that cannot mean what you think it means -- the word "directly" HAS t
Re: (Score:2)
I sincerely hope you're right, and that the safe harbor provision is as strong as you think it is. Personally I think it would be great if a big media player were to sue YouTube/Google for infringement, only to have the safe harbor save them. My primary point was that only very rarely is anything truly iron-clad in the law, particularly when you're dealing with tectonic shifts in the marketplace, and the huge amounts of money thereby involved. Big Media can bring enormous legal resources to bear, as we've a
Napster 2.0? (Score:3, Insightful)
YouTube has the same problem Napster used to have, back when it was wildly successful - its success rests on a lot of material being present on the site, but a lot of that material has copyright problems. (A guess would be that a lot of the higher quality material has copyright problems, for a few reasonable definitions of "higher quality".)
I think any online site of this nature is going to have the same problem. The availability of vast amounts of copyrighted material is one of the things that will build the popularity of this type of site. But if the copyright holders didn't release that video then it will just make trouble in the end.
I don't think people are really all that interested in 1000 videos of people in their living rooms trying to act. TV shows, music videos, natural disaster footage, and all the usual stuff that gets put on TV will be what draws people to any online video site (why do you think it got put on TV in the first place?) Google is making a few deals with some of the big players, who perhaps have realized that it is better to try and cope with this in its current form than have it move somewhere more underground, but there are undoubtedly thousands of copyright holders who would have a case and not all of them will agree. A massive scrubbing will have to take place, and I think once it is over YouTube will be about as interesting to people as Napster was after the lawsuit dust settled. It might do slightly better since there are a few types of home video that people find interesting (uploaded individual videos from major world events, for example) and a few companies are making deals to provide content but I think the "buzz" will fade. The very elements of Napster that made it popular were also what made it illegal, and I'm afraid the same thing will happen here.
Re: (Score:2)
The record companies just don't get it! (Score:4, Insightful)
If I was a musical artist, and I discovered one of my songs in a YouTube video that had a million views, I would write a letter of personal thanks to YouTube for promoting my song! Where else am I going to get that widespread promotion without hiring a record company to help negotiate with Big Radio? And besides, even with a really good hit record, record companies have to pay to play [about.com] and promote almost anything now days. But YouTube is completely free. You can't get a better deal than that.
But unfortunately, record companies have always been like hawks seeking their prey, and a million song views in their eyes is like a million field mice all waiting to be swooped down on. A million views means a lot of royalty money that could be earned if royalty deals were in place. They control music distribution via radio, TV, movies...but darn that blasted internet.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously you don't have a musical bone in your body if you have the pie-eyed idea that an artist is only interested in the exposure and not getting money from his or her work. And don't even try to start arguing the exposure will result in long-term cash. That only works an extremely small percentage of the time. You're trying to make an excuse for leeching artist's materials and not having to pay. Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if all the artists were l
Re: (Score:1)
Videos of the quality youtube/google video provide are basically disposable content, anyways. A fan who's truly interested in an artist is probably more likely to buy the DVD/CD after seeing something that interests them on youtube.
The on
Re: (Score:2)
I could have used a less contrived example, but still... Artistical integrity may mean you refuse to be associated with Ma Bell, but also to Greenpeace, Republicrats, pro-whatever, dental flosser or even WoW.
Now, I think a company has no soul and very little artistic integrity so it shouldn't be allowed to refuse under
Foot in the door (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
A key point to remember is that the $1.6 billion buyout is in Google stocks only. There is no cash being exchanged. If Google feels that their stocks are badly overvalued, hypothetically by 300%, and that their stock prices are peaking then this makes sense. If, by the end of 2007, Google's share prices tumble to a more reasonable $140/share, then the Youtube purchase is a more reasonable $550 million purchase (abo
Re: (Score:1)
youtube = napster (Score:2)
Google can afford the gamble of course. But at this point you can see their basic strategy, buy a brand then exploit it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:youtube = napster, google = microsoft (Score:1)
Maybe, maybe not. A lot of people will argue in favor of each side of the arguement.
For the majorities interest, though, what is critical is that dependancies on proprietary business do NOT become developed. In the OS world, this has led to the near-complete entrenchment of Windows.
I would argue that it is in the best interests of the majority that the online conten
The real rason why Google bought YouTube... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
No, Google's market cap is so high because the company is one ridiculous cash-generating machine. Which, in the end, is all that matters.
YouTube was doing Time-Warner's bidding... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
You want to know how I feel? (Score:2)
That said, I think anything that has passed into the public domain or has been issued with a Creative Commons license allowing sharing should be allowed onto YouTube, and t
Who Chooses... (Score:3, Interesting)
Generally, in business, it depends on who's doing the choosing.
Sadly, any CEO in a publically traded company knows they have to trade for the fast buck, not the long term one (despite their constant assurances to anyone listening that that's exactly the opposite of what they're doing).
Why? Because shareholders generally aren't in it for the long term. They want a buttload of money to come in today, that'll temporarily massively jack up the share price, and then let them get out (or at least reap the dividends). The way the system works, they don't (and arguably shouldn't) care about long term earnings anywhere near as much as the short term ones. As a result, the CEO knows he'll be replaced if he's ever foolish enough to choose long term profits over payouts for investors today.
It's for exactly this reason that the Google guys refused to sell a controlling interest in Google and awarded their own stock 10 times the voting rights of everyone else's - it allows them to make the right decisions for the company rather than the right decisions for the guys who want to take a profit and then move their money to take a profit from the next company.
Long term, successfully killing music videos on YouTube is a horrible idea. The people there today get rich from the infringement lawsuit, the next generation of artists get no ongoing royalties. A much better solution would be to take 20% of the money you could get from a lawsuit every year and keep getting it long past 5 years' time.
So, if artists vote, they'd take the long term rewards. If TimeWarner's CEO votes, he has no choice but to take the massive payout today or get replaced by his shareholders. If TimeWarner execs vote, they have to do the same or deal with a seriously pissed CEO. If the RIAA votes... Who knows. They're supposed to represent the artists, they really represent the companies and they're mostly interested in the souls of babies.
I don't dispute a long term royalty structure is vastly more profitable. But long term profits aren't necessarily what motivate modern business.
New Opportunity (Score:2)
The sad thing in all this is much is said about how much the studios will make, the artists will make, and Google will make. Nothing is said that the people who are making YouTube what it is -- all the contributors who are giving of their own time and effort, will make anything at all! They seem to be essent
Why should they care... they're getting paid!? (Score:2)