Saturday, July 5, 2008

Did Not Have Viewing Relations with that YouTube


"After YOU..."

Viacom would like to review the usage patterns of YouTube viewers in its lawsuit against YouTube and Google. The music industry went after individual users and it will be interesting to see how this wrangle between an old communications behemoth and a relatively new kid in the digiverse affects the viewers who have been getting their daily dose of uploads and downloads. What would be an ideal result of this litigation is a way for artists to get royalties for their copyrighted material that is being freely distributed on YouTube. After all, it would be fair for YouTube to share a portion of its revenues with the original content providers of copyrighted material. While this could result in a complex math to determine the exact share due to an artist, it's still worth exploring. The downside might be that YouTube, strapped by legal straightjacket, would lose it free-wheeling flavour in order to safeguard its bonafides, similar to the new Napster.

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