Viacom Turns to Joost, Spurns YouTube 139
Vincenzo writes "Viacom has signed a deal with Joost that will see content from MTVI, Comedy Central, and CBS distributed on the new P2P distribution service. The move comes just two weeks after demanding YouTube pull over 100,000 videos offline. 'Joost's promise to protect their copyrights was a major factor in Viacom's decision, and also a stumbling block in their discussions with YouTube/Google. At the moment is it quite easy to download and store video content from YouTube, but no such exploit for Joost is known to exist.' It's also a 'secure' distribution medium in the eyes of many in the entertainment industry, since users can't upload content themselves.'"
Great thinking guys (Score:5, Insightful)
The lack of executive foresight never ceases to amaze me. Did they ever consider that no exploits exist for Joost because:
1. Joost isn't yet available to the public at large. (You need to sign up for a beta.)
2. No one cares about Joost?
If Viacom signs a contract with Joost, the "security" of their distribution method will change in a hurry.
The amazing part is that a simple trip down the hall to the IT department would have told these executives this. It's just too bad that execs never trust their own technology staff. As far as they're concerned, we're just a bunch of whiners and worry-warts.
Besides, someone might save that 2 minute Craig Ferguson clip to their hard drive. OMG, OMG, OMG! The world will end! What will they do?!? (Shh! No one tell them about VCRs!)
That being said, I'm sure this move is actually more political than technical. Which only makes Viacoms position that much worse. Do they really want to cover over their political maneuvering by making themselves look uneducated?
From the Joost website:
And that would make us, YourJoost(TM)! Which you can watch on a tube. Sort of like a... YourTube(TM). Or something.
Who writes this stuff?
Re:Great thinking guys (Score:5, Interesting)
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the competition (Score:3, Informative)
sure, but where do I see money? (Score:2, Interesting)
Nope, the distribution model is fucked. All
Re:sure, but where do I see money? (Score:4, Interesting)
we're working on that (Score:1)
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I have two thoughts. First, if an online show (on YouTube or elsewhere) is popular enough, maybe viewers would want to (try to) produce their own online shows (remember, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery)? If so, you might argue that the show implicitly advertises whatever equipment is used to produce it, and assuming the imitators would want to have the same equipment as is used by the original show (to achieve the same level of technical quality), the
Wayne's World (Score:3, Funny)
You mean like that part in Wayne's World? [youtube.com]
-metric
I disagree; internet video commercials work. (Score:2)
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Yes, people could recut the video and post it elsewhere, but is it really going to be worth the time and effort? If the video is already on a top tier video site (YouTube, Goo
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How short-sighted! If Sarah Michelle Gellar never got a dime for doing Buffy, she's still rakin' in the bucks for whatever cosmetic company she does commercials for all the time. Sure she won't be rolling naked in quite as large a pile of money as before, but shit, it's still good coin.
Oh, you mean financial incentive for the *producers*? Well, maybe
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If, for example, Jolt Cola wanted to pay Star Wars Kid up for commercial appearances, they'd do so solely because he was perceived as a "famous" person that could push a product, in spite of the fact that he's not an actor or earned money elsewhere.
Now.... if your
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I never said they did. The point is that she's famous because millions of dollars have been spent directly or indirectly to make it so.
"If, for example, Jolt Cola wanted to pay Star Wars Kid up for commercial appearances, they'd do so solely because he was perceived as a "famous" person that could push a product, in spite of the fact that he's not an acto
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So the whole concept of mass media screaming about individuals of no great worth being the greatest or of being famous for being famous is pointless. The whole point of advertising as ne
Eh...er... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Can't say the same thing for a 100,000 other actresses.
Time will tell if she gets paid well for her time.
Re:Great thinking guys (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it is probably ill-conceived, and the touted 'intellectual property' reasons are more secondary cover - than they are prime motivator.
Everyone is afraid of GOOG - telcos, TV and Cable channels, Hollywood and Microsoft. Watch them position and align to marginalize and even criminalize them. It is pretty pathetic. The 'content providers' especially. They want a 'pay at the gate' scenario, and will compromise/misunderstand every technology to get there.
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In ten years we'll look back at Google and wonder what all the fuss was about.
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Re:Great thinking guys (Score:5, Informative)
The video was below SD quality, but if it was greater I could have done multiple captures and stitched the frames together given enough overlap. You don't even need timecodes when you have jump cuts.
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Re:Great thinking guys (Score:5, Insightful)
You're forgetting that their response was almost identical when VCRs first came out.
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Thanks for trying to point that out, though.
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Re:Great thinking guys (Score:5, Insightful)
Mass media isn't so profitable if everyone can participate. That's what it's all about and that's what it's always been all about. Everything else is misdirection.
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They lie about the products they market. They lie about the quality of the content they produce. The lie about the the true nature of the people they use to present those products.
They lie about politicians that will suppor
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Uh... the control is about the money. The copyrights are about the money. Even the money is about more damn money. Maybe that's what you meant by "mass media isn't so profitable if everyone can participate"... but that's not what you started out to say.
Re:Great thinking guys (Score:4, Funny)
You're looking at it from the wrong angle. See, they know it will be secure because no one cares about Joost. What better way to keep people from "stealing" your IP than to create a new service that is a clone of already popular and well-established services so that no one cares to use it? Genius, I tell ya.
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Isn't completely unfounded. Many IT people are just that unfortunately. People on a power trip who want to call anything and everything a security hole without first stopping to think that not every network resource be as tight as a nun's twat. Case and point, I ( and others I know ) have had conversations with IT people something like:
"I need an FTP server set up so someone can send me some data".
"No, it's a security hole" say
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"We need to have an FTP server to get some files from an outside company."
"Ok, we already have something set up to do that. Here's how to use it."
"That's too much trouble. We want to use our own."
"Well, we don't usually do that, but if you really need it, we'll need to get authorization to place it in our DMZ - it'll take about two weeks."
"Why do I need to put it there? We're already running one here - why can't you just let our customer co
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There's no known exploit 'cause nobody's cared (Score:5, Insightful)
Enough to make one. If there's content people want, they'll break joost too.
It's as if they never learn...
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Why bother?
This doesn't mean you won't get the same content on YouTube, exactly like you can today. It just makes an alternative source for one type of content, namely, music videos.
This doesn't even relieve Viacom of their burden under the DMCA to find and fire off a takedown to Google for each infringing video. They apparently have confused "we won't license this to you" with "people will stop uploading infringing material
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the point? (Score:1)
That and most music videos are shite anyways. Just some half-naked plastic whore dancing around to music that other people wrote. The actual quality song and accompanying video are fairly rare nowadays...
If I wanted to look at naked women via the web, I wouldn't turn to shitty music videos.
Tom
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I've been watching the lectures from Beyond Belief 2006 [beyondbelief2006.org] using Google Video and the audio and video quality are pretty good, and are very interesting and intellectually stimulating. If it hadn't been for Google Video, I probably wouldn't have seen this footage. Hosting video is extremely expensive and
In other words, there's more to internet video than naked women.
/me waits for the inevitable "You must be new here" reply.
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Then you got the other shows, one with a bunch of people at a beachside house, I don't even get what that show is about.
Oh then pimp my r
p2p video is not grainy or low bitrate (Score:2)
Since the bandwith costs for the uploader don't scale with number of users, you can easily stream video with the same quality as the average DVD rip.
1.65bn in stock later (Score:2)
Probably a lot of angry stock holders is my future bet.
I hope they have something big in the works because its sure a lot to pay for a site that is suddenly looking mighty bare.
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Re:1.65bn in stock later (Score:4, Insightful)
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Big companies naturally tend towards stifling development. Stratification comes in quickly, there's not as much motivation to produce quickly and excellently, and the tried and true features absolutely must
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because, y'know, google stockholders hate making money.
when google announced their intention to purchase YouTube (including the cost), GOOG was at about $426. by the time the acquisition closed, GOOG was a $489; most of that jump was in the two weeks after the announcement, around the middle of october - a period during which there was no other significant news. granted, things have slowed down a bit since then, but the trend still remains significantl
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Is the smaller audience more beneficial? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm still not sure why there is such a big deal about copyrighted video on YouTube. The advertising you get for your show being uploaded to the site is probably worth much more than the marginal lost you may have incurred from it being uploaded. I don't anyone is interested in archiving the lower quality flash video files from their site. Pirates will always get the shows from bittorent or other P2P services. The only thing I can think of is they are worried about loosing web traffic from each shows website. Why not cross link to the videos on YouTube from their websites?
The entertainment industry really needs to start getting creative. They need to learn to work with these new technologies and trends, rather than against them.
Re:Is the smaller audience more beneficial? (Score:5, Interesting)
Realisticly, it's an attempt by Viacom to place pressure on GooTube to do what they want. What they want is for Google to offer ultra-restrictive access to their... [my] precious... video content. Furthermore, they want Google to invent a foolproof copyright checker (as if such a thing is possible) to prevent average users from uploading Daily Show and Stephen Colbert clips. They're using the Joost deal as a bargaining chip to make Google do what they want.
In reality, this will end one of two ways:
1. Google will reply with a big, "So what?" and Viacom will only pay lip service to their Joost contract. A year down the road, Viacom will come back to YouTube with a cry of "me too!" when they notice how well the advertising is working for their competitors.
2. Google will appease Viacom with special features like: Prominent display of their content on the YouTube front page. Viacom will gruffly agree (when that's really one of the outcomes they were hoping for), but "only if you guys crack down harder on copyright violations!" Joost will get dropped like a rock.
Now if this was the Google of old, I'd say they will go with the first option. But given the slow progress of Google toward becoming Just Another Big Business(TM), I'd say it's just as likely that they'll take door #2.
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1. Bargaining chip with Google/YouTube
2. They actually think their content is so desirable that everyone will come rushing to Joost when that's the only place you can get it.
If they're smart it's #1, but we've seen them operate based on #2 before as well, so I'd say it's anybodies guess at this point.
Color Me Stupid but: (Score:1)
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Joost is basically a locked down Bittorent with some big ass servers to provide data when there are no peers available with the content you want. Content is only placed there by commercial interests, NOT users - that's the bid draw to the Viacoms of the world. Joost is using it's users' bandwidth and disk space; users get free content with 1/100th the advertising as regular TV (so the creators say).
My opinion - it
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It seems to me like this would be a problem... Nobody is going to want to give away their bandwidth to Viacom. I suspect the hack to prevent uploading will be swift.
another one sided distribution system (Score:2, Interesting)
although the summary focused on the "guarantee" of security joost represented for viacom, i think the one-sided distribution model is the big difference. i think, fundamentally, google's business plan revolves around letting end users become the content providers, and google just indexes all of the content -- they make it possible to navigate. this is a view orthogonal to what we're seeing with the media companies, of course. they want to create the content, own it, and control it. they don't want to se
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My theory is that Google is going to use YouTube as it's platform for jumping into Video-based advertising.
Everyone knows that they're an advertising company. Their purchase of dMarc last year c
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Ladies and Gentlemen!!!! (Score:1)
Correction (Score:1)
Something Lost (Score:3, Insightful)
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That is why Vista is big on signed drivers and devices that compl
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Seems pretty clear to me... to get get away from user creations that made YouTube popular and focus on something else that might make them popular. A different niche... like television length content. I wouldn't mind something like that. YouTube is fine for a quick clip of something funny, but I'd like to go to a place that had (legally) all the Saturday Night Live skits, or other TV content, some
The real story here (Score:4, Insightful)
Regardless of your position on the fair-use/control of content (by fair-use I mean being able to play content you legally on whatever device, etc. you wish), this statement smells of "monopolistic" activity. Unlawful activities do not start at users uploading content. They start with users uploading content they don't own (or even before that). The idea that an organization would believe it is appropriate to say a service is only 'secure' because we're the only ones who can submit content to it goes against everything that a free-market society believes. That one single quote does not say that users can't pirate content; rather, it says that we're the only organization with the rights to create and distribute our content.
In my opinion, that is the big story here. Not the decision to choose one delivery method over another.
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So by "fair-use" you mean something that has nothing to do with Fair Use [wikipedia.org]?
The Fair Use clauses are all about allowing partial reproductions for the purpose of research, criticism, review, and/or parody. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your desire to enjoy a song off a CD you bought on your iPod. Not that this is a bad thing. It just has nothing to do with Fair Use.
Wow, this says it all, if anything does (Score:1)
Of course. Only big content providers should be allowed to upload anything at all. Don't give these people a dime, please. "Don't feed the bears".
What exactly is Joost's interest? (Score:2)
Re:What exactly is Joost's interest? (Score:4, Insightful)
IIRC, Joost is the diametric opposite of YouTube. The user experience in YouTube is P2P, but the technology is B2C. For Joost, the user experience is (I am guessing) B2C, but the technology is P2P.
Again , I don't know a lot about Joost (I'm not a TV watcher), but it sounds to me like something that would be attractive to content providers because it offers a familiar business model. It's like Joost is a cable network that delivers over the Internet.
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Despite the familiarity of the business model, it's a considerable change from the network's point of view. By playing, say, "Lost" on Wednesdays at 9 PM (or whenever it is) they can focus their marketing around an event, and a regularly scheduled even
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And has satellite/broadcast/cable TV lost subscriber base because they don't let you broadcast your own content? Nope...because they have exclusive content that people want, and can't get anywhere else.
If anything, that's the model to compare Joost to; and it wins over conventional TV because it allows high-def, 100% on-demand content, with minimal delay between request and viewing. People go to YouTub
Viacom != CBS (Score:2)
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Frankly, I think CBS has the right idea with youtube; Short clips are a great way to advertise your TV shows, and also people will sit through 5-10 seconds ads in order to get the known quality of a specific uploader (i.e. CBS in this case). Right now, the only thing hurting them is that you can't do a youtube search limited to a specific user, and any random Joe can put "CBS" in his tags. I would expect google to fix that eventually.
Others will jump on the bandwagon when they
None of this is tangible in any way--all for PR (Score:2)
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Ho-hum (Score:2)
it sounds like the usual crap (Score:4, Interesting)
So I've been waiting for IPTV. Technically, I don't understand why it would be so difficult to do. I mean, Comedy Central's Motherload already does it. Only crappily. You can't actualy get the full show, and the picture is *really* *really* small. But I guess there are other reasons that I may never fully understand. Though, in my naivate, I'm going to suggest greed as being on the top of the list.
And as the article pointed out, Youtube and Joost serve two different purposes. I mean, I guess it would be nice to get anything I wanted on Youtube, but the clips I've seen are never the full show, and once again, that is what I'd like. Watching short clips of a funny show just aggrevate me.
And so I'm actually excited about Joost. I mean, I still am not exactly sure how it will work, since the details seem to be a bit skimpy, but at least it has the potential. Then I skim over some of the shows that Viacom is releasing, and it all looks like crap. Especially since I don't see the Daily Show on their list. It's a 'will include' list, but that usually means what they don't list are only crappier crap.
Perhaps it's something as simple as them testing the market, and not wanting to release their 'prized possessions', but that seems stupid to me. The shows they have listed, I, nor do I suspect most people, care to see. So they'll run it for a while, claim low viewership, and end the program. And then they'll cite the stats as to why they'll never do anything with the interweb again. Assholes.
It's not that I think all their claims are invalid
It's not that it's impossible to come up with a new sales-model. They just have no interest in doing so.
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Actually I think pay-per-view in general and Joost in particular is just an extension of the movie theatre model. You pay each time you want to watch a movie, which is effectively "renting" a viewing and is in line with the overall movement to rent software in general by means of crap like so called "Product Activation" (as well as remote product DE-ACTIVATION), DRM, etc., rather than sellin
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I would be a much more willing to pay a subscription fee to 'rent' an unlimited number of videos, somewhat like the Napster model. I should note, I think th
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---So I've been waiting for IPTV. Technically, I don't understand why it would be so difficult to do. I mean, Comedy Central's Motherload already does it. Only crappily. You can't actualy get the full show, and the picture is *really* *really* small. But I guess there are other reasons that I may never fully understand. Though, in my naivate, I'm going to suggest greed as being on the top of the list.
---And as the article pointed out, Youtube and Joost serve two different purposes. I mean, I guess it would
IPTV is here (Score:3, Interesting)
Ignoring the player app (a typical Fl
Download and store video? (Score:3, Informative)
Sure there is. Its just not as direct as they are thinking. Since its digital media being displayed on screen, all ya gotta do is dump the video memory of the screen area where its displayed to disk. Instant saved video. There are numerous software packages out there to do this, some free, some not, but all designed specifically for this. Similar to using a tape recorder to record the music from the radio, or a camcorder to record a TV show, but in pure digital fashion, since its pulling the direct digital image from ram. Just another tech developed to fuel the pr0n industry, mostly used for people to record webcams ;)
Tm
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This is the problem execs have, they're out of touch with the whole engineering side of their projects, and when it comes to "plugging the analog hole" they can't just say "stop people from downloading it". The moment you start streaming the content you're caching it, at lea
"no such exploit is known to exist" (Score:2)
3... 2... 1...
(Also: "exploit", huh?)
It's amazing how none of you get it (Score:3, Insightful)
here we go again (Score:2)
Joost to be ignored by larger net population (Score:2)
Exactly why Joost is destined to become irrelevant.
It'll be more secure all right... (Score:2)
zudeo is the only one that has it right: download quality clips, now that I'll do...when they get something actually interesting... streaming post stamps? I've got better things to do with my time...
Bah! (Score:2)
Just as clueless as the music industry (Score:2)
All of these shows are normal TV shows that are broadcast over the air/on cable. Any show on TV can be (and most are) digitized and uploaded to P2P sites after having all the commercials stripped out. In fact, since pirates usually digitize the HD streams of TV shows, they offer much higher quality than either YouTube or the iTunes store.
It looks like the TV people are just as d
CopyFight is Good Business (Score:3, Interesting)
But more importantly, it puts copyrighted content into a YouTube competitor that can challenge YouTube if YouTube has the content. That means that YouTube's copyright enforcement doesn't happen in an vacuum of arbitrary claims and baseless decisions. When Joost complains, it will have a copy of the content and a copy of the contract with the content owner. The process to enforce copyright between the two corporations can take place in the well understood realm of corporate negotiations and lawsuits.
Of course, it would be better for everyone (including Viacom, and especially YouTube and Joost) if copyrights didn't slow down every media transaction. But until copyrights actually are peeled back to a legitimate scope, duration and enforcement regime, getting competitors with paper trails to manage it is the best we can do, and better than nothing.
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