I thought the 2 lads got out at just the right time and made a fortune from it (fair play to them too, cannot knock them for the way they developed it.) What's the story with the YouTube inventors? They didn't have adverts on it did they and they sold it all exclusively to Google. I'm confused. Surely the 2 guys handed it all over onto the new buyer Google when they sold it. Or not? Or are they still involved? If this (lawsuit) goes through YouTube will have to remove thousands of files (or hundreds of thousands) and the two lads that sold it would IMO have sold it at exactly the right time and for a fantastic price too. Whatever, the fact remains that at least 50% of the content on YouTube is copyrighted, more peeps want to see the latest pop video than they do some unknown idiot singing in their bedroom or some people making an ass of themselves.
Yup. However, I heard they have been sued by some content contributers (don't know the status on that). And they had some investors initially to repay. It's probably a bit complicated. I don't know if they have any involvment now, but they seem to have given this problem (and potential opportunity) to Google to sort out. Took the money and ran, so to speak BTW, I don't remember seeing any ads on YouTube before they sold it to Google.
Yup. Perfect timing. They probably received more cease and desist letters a month than thousands of people receive in spam emails in their lifetime but weathered the storm until they had offloaded it for a pretty penny. Me neither. But they (Viacom) are still banging their heads off of a brick wall because one thing they will never ever stop is P2P. So instead of an instant and convenient medium like YouTube peeps will just download their favorite stuff off of torrent sites. They are in a no-win situation to be honest.
Yeah, and you can still upload on YouTube and tell all your buddies to check it out before it gets deleted. And/or head over to other sites as you said. Seems to me like Viacom should just accept things, or at least not go overboard with a crackdown and instead try to get some of the ad revenue. That's why Google could be good for Viacom. They have the internet business sense to potentially make this work out. Or course, I could be missing something here, which is why I'm not a billionaire.
I agree, that would be their best option buddy. Considering Googles size and influence on the www it is a great option too.
It seems to me that google has a policy on copyrighted stuff. They even say they'll remove it. Is this suit about them not removing content or not changing things to police their website themselves.. If its the latter I think they'll win hands down.
Back that up with statistics and I'll worship you for the rest of my life. I mean come on... seriously, don't EVER try and give statistics without proper research, it misinforms so many people and might even cause them problems in the future. On topic: It was inevitable. IT