I'm tempted to say that Viacom's $1B lawsuit over "massive" and "intentional" copyright violations on Google's YouTube is a battle for the soul of the Internet.
And it is, but it's only the latest in the unending series of tussles between the technologists (Google in this case, previously Napster and BitTorrent) and the "owners" of content (Viacom, but previously the RIAA and the MPAA).
In my opinion, the suit has the ability to destroy YouTube-as-we-know-it, which is no big deal to me personally. It also has the ability to seriously slow the Web's development as the place to go for video -- see my earlier post. If Viacom succeeds, the Web could become nothing more than Cable TV with more channels. To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, "infinite channels and nothing on."
As a content creator myself, I certainly understand Viacom's desire to protect its ability to make money. They're scared, and they're lashing out.
But lawsuits are not the way. Over and over again, the Content Industry is fighting the wrong battles. Instead of fighting to protect the money they used to make, they should be scrambling to figure out how to add value in the new world.
For some ideas that might work better than lawsuits, they might want to check out the State of the News Media report I posted on earlier this week.
There is an interesting post on the Compete.com showing the changes in traffic patterns to YouTube and Viacom since the conflict between the two began. Interestingly, there don't appear to be big changes since the Viacom content was pulled from YouTube. I wonder if this will effect the amount YouTube/Google may have to pay. Check out the post... http://blog.compete.com/2007/03/14/youtube-viacom-suit/
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