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Exploding TV (continued)
Two comments from my post this morning:
Just a matter of time before the happy go lucky times of share any video you can get your hands on is brought to a screeching hault by the media companies who have ownership over these properties. The writing is being etched on the wall as we see HBO already beginning to petition congress to prevent anyone from copying any HBO video.
The MPAA thought they could avoid it, but we are seeing a repeat of the napster file sharing network days...almost page for page.
I just wonder if sites like YouTube or Google will suffer the same fate as Napster and it's kin.
And:
So is posting copyrighted material on your website fair use? All these new video services popping up may very well be experiencing a surge in growth but when you take away the massive amounts of copyrighted material from their website, a dropoff in viewership is likely, no... definitely going to occur. I like to call this the napsterization of video with services like youtube and the like offering full episodes of shows and even clips from the winter Olympics when it specifically says near the end of the Olympic broadcast that no clip can be recreated or shown without the explicit consent of NBC, and yet you'll find these videos online. Now that these networks are making money off of these shows, it's only a matter of time when the MPAA and other regulatory boards bring the hammer down on these video services. Youtube will be no more...
I don't think its quite the same as the Napster case because the courts have ruled that these services have to be built with the specific intent of sharing copyrighted material in order to be deemed complicit in the illegal act. That is not and was not the purpose of Youtube, Vimeo, etc. They were built and are being used to share personal videos.
However, it is trivial to share copyrighted material as I did this morning in my post. You can see the Olympics logo in the bottom of the YouTube video proving it is owned by NBC.
But one thing is for sure, people want to share this stuff and people want to watch this stuff. The TV companies need to learn the lessons of Napster. You cannot put pandora back in the box.
The television companies need to make this stuff available on the web in a free and easy manner. They need to give us the embedded flash player code to put on our weblogs to show the video. It should contain a pre-roll and post-roll ad. The ad should be short, like 5-10 seconds, so people don't fast forward through it.
Because if they don't adopt this new model of video sharing, they will have another Napster on their hands and this time the legal precedents have been set and they don't look good for them.
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Tracked on Feb 28, 2006 6:53:09 PM
Posted February 14, 2006 in Venture Capital and TechnologyComments
"It should contain a pre-roll and post-roll ad. The ad should be short, like 5-10 seconds, so people don't fast forward through it."
Who cares how long the ad is, as long as it is interesting and relevant? I've pretty much stopped watching live TV, and only watch pre-recorded shows via DVR. Well over 99% of the ads are skipped because I know that they are either not interesting or not relevant.
How about tv stations using discretion and judiciousness in the ads they show? Then maybe I'd be inclined not to skip through them.
Never have I seen an industry as clueless as the advertising industry.
Posted by: Dave | Feb 14, 2006 9:20:08 AM
dave,
you make a great point about relevancy.
and we are working on trying to make ads more relevant.
but the creators of this content need a business model or they won't keep making it.
ads seem like the best one i can think of.
Posted by: fred | Feb 14, 2006 9:26:06 AM
Fred,
Let's not throw the URL out of the window just because we're talking video and not text. Why does the video audience have to stay on your site to view other people's content? We have a system that works great for copyright text - it surprises me that bloggers can't learn to respect video copyright given that we've done so well (on average) with plagiarism.
To avoid DRM in video, publishers need to respect each other's content's rights. If you find a cool clip, by all means review it / link to it / screencap a few stills; but asking to play it for your audience on your site is stealing (IMO).
Posted by: David G | Feb 14, 2006 10:41:10 AM
You can see the Olympics logo in the bottom of the YouTube video proving it is owned by NBC.
The problem is the footage isn't owned by NBC, it is owned by the IOC. NBC payed the IOC an obscene amount of money (I think it's billions) for some subset of the broadcast rights.
Posted by: Erik | Feb 14, 2006 11:00:46 AM
There's still a large gap between what should be, and what is.
I'm sure the legal issues will all be sorted out in time, with the market driving the end result.
In the meantime, theft is theft, regardless of what 'should be'.
Posted by: jackson | Feb 14, 2006 11:13:35 AM
Maybe in 2 years, you tube et al will partner with the IOC to get highlights out there for all to see, without commentary. I think a lower banner ad is acceptable and prefer it than an intro/extro.
Posted by: kip | Feb 14, 2006 3:26:13 PM
I just put a comment up at a blog called KernelPop which picked up on my comment above, so I'll put it here too.
Essentially, what I am saying is that we hear from advertisers all the time about how their ads enhance brands, make them relevant to people, etc., etc., etc. Yet when I watch TV all I see (for the most part) is ads for things that have no relevance to me (cars, miracle cleaners, George Forman grills, etc.) Or, if the item in question is not irrelevant, then the ad is so annoying and cloying that I mute the TV or skip through the ad (think ads for soft drinks or beer, etc.)
If advertisers are so concerned about reaching the elusive well educated person with money to burn, then stop peddling crap and address the sophisticated audience that advertisers claim to want.
Here's a thought. Most people who write and read blogs are well educated consumers that advertisers salivate over. How many of those desirable customers are influenced by ads? I would say the blogosphere and people's acquaintances are far more influential in purchasing decisions than are ads shown on TV.
I do not understand how the ad industry has survived as it has for as long as it has. But then there are a lot of industries like that, whose surival I don't understand. Publishing is another example.
Anyway. Food for thought as they say.
Posted by: Dave | Feb 14, 2006 5:15:29 PM
dave, i share your frustrations but i think your comments overlook two essential truths about advertising:
1) there are thing that you want or will decide you want regardless of whether they are "relevent" to you? maybe you dont want a george foreman grill. but do you want, say, great food ideas? isn't it possible the foreman grill is that (many people, even in the, ahem, desirable demographics, think it is.) and how can you know if its relevent without being shown it?
and in a similar vein, how about movie advertising? do you know exactly what movies you want to see? has there never been a movie you saw accidentally that you liked? or a movie you thought you'd hate but loved?
and don't your tastes change and evolve over time?
advertising can be annoying, but i don't think we want to use technology, no matter how smart, to take the unexpected or surprising experience out of life.
2) ads often don't stimulate demand, they create it. coca cola is not "relevent" to anyone. and no one needs it. but advertising 100% created that globe straddling financial juggernaut consumer phenomenon. ditto madonna. ditto ditto ditto. and do we really want to create a world (as if we could) where people only offers goods and services to others which are pretested or preordained to be "relevent"? what happens to circuses? lollipops? pet rocks? faux fur? frisbees?
Posted by: steve | Feb 15, 2006 9:25:43 PM
You heard it here first. You Tube has pulled all it's NBC Olympic video form it's site.
Posted by: Greg | Feb 17, 2006 4:00:31 PM
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