The Writers Guild of America today has 17th most viewed YouTube channel.
In the past two days the Guild has posted ten videos, the fan favorite the clip (above) of the cast and writers of The Office discussing why they’re on strike: “You’re watching this on the internet a thing that pays us zero dollars”
UPDATE: A federal mediator will reportedly intervene in a last chance meeting Sunday morning.
The Writers Guild has authorized a strike and unless they and the AMPTP can find a middle ground between the doubling of residual revenue distributed to writers from VHS and DVD sales under the last contract and the 2.5% of distributor’s gross for re-use writers want for non-traditional media, it will be lights out for talk shows Monday and for scripted TV several months later.
Above: Jon Stewart lets viewers know why he may not be on come Monday
This is potentially a major opportunity for new media producers, as eyeballs go online for new content as an alternative to watching re-runs.
The Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild collective bargaining agreements run out on June 30th, the unlikely failure of all three unions to reach agreements at that point would essentially shut down Hollywood.
The WGA is right to expect a larger share of residuals, they got screwed the last time when VHS and DVD sales became enormous industries. They should fight for a larger share of digital media revenue going forward as online is clearly the future of video distribution.
The cooperation between the major networks (and Veoh and Dailymotion) to create principles for finding and removing copyright infringing content on UGC services is a first for networks previously unable to come together in their digital media strategies. These guidelines are a long time coming.
But getting all networks together to agree on principles for user-generated content and video sharing has resulted in some vague principles and an alliance that leaves room for anticompetitive cooperation down the line.
At a minimum these guidelines will raise the barrier to entry for startups looking to begin file sharing services. I had intended to run through point by point, but it’s dry. So here are the cliffs notes, key points that stood out:
Because there are few standards for what constitutes acceptable ID technology it’s up to the coalition to specify what is “commercially reasonable.” Once the major networks partner with providers the potential exists for these accredited sources to engage in anticompetitive pricing or practices forcing out smaller players in the space.
Notably missing from this group is Google, which is big enough that it can stand up to the rights holders and seems set on their new world order argument that people are using media in fundamentally new and different ways, and that they will set the guidelines for this.
It’s also interesting that Veoh has aligned themselves with broadcast media companies following their dispute with UMG. Television continues to take a much less aggressive, but no less serious stance than the music industry in fighting copyright infringement, choosing engagement and diplomacy rather than all-out attack.
Finally. At last. Phew. About F*&ing Time.
YouTube announced yesterday that they have begun testing an anti-piracy video batching database to protect themselves from copyright infringement lawsuits. The original announcement of the YouTube Video Identification system was back in June.
According to the Official Google Blog, the Video Identification system goes above and beyond the company’s legal responsibilities, but I’m not entirely sure thats the right message for them to be putting out. “We do what we can,” isn’t the warm, fuzzy sentiment that will prevent future lawsuits.
It remains to be seen how well the technology works, and how easily it can be circumvented by modifying basic elements of a video file. Additionally, the burden of the workload seems to be put on the content owners. As with the previous system, where content owners needed to find their protected material among the thousands of clips added daily, the new system requires content owners to upload their original material into the system to be scanned. For large archives, that can be decades worth of video content.
YouTube Video Identification will help copyright holders identify their works on YouTube. We have worked with Google to develop one-of-a-kind technology that can recognize videos based on a variety of factors. As its Beta status indicates, our Video Identification is brand-new, cutting-edge stuff, so we will be constantly refining and improving it. Early tests with content companies have shown very promising results. As we scale and refine our system, YouTube Video Identification will be available to all kinds of copyright holders all over the world, whether they want their content to appear on YouTube or not.
No matter how accurate the tools get, it is important to remember that no technology can tell legal from infringing material without the cooperation of the content owners themselves. This means that copyright holders who want to use and help us refine our Video ID system will be providing the necessary information to help us recognize their work. We aim to make that process as convenient as possible.
Popular Piracy Players Go Primetime
Anyone who has dabbled in downloading music, movies and software has undoubtedly heard of BitTorrent. The technology, originally developed by Bram Cohen, caught fire within the pirate community as the most popular way for sharing large files over the internet.
But BT isn’t just technology used to rip of “the man” anymore. In Februrary of this year, BitTorrent went legit (at least as a company), and opened its doors with content partnerships from leading studios such as 20th Century Fox, Comedy Central, Lions Gate, Paramount and Warner Brothers.
Today, BitTorrent announced that it is extending its content distribution technology - dubbed BitTorrent DNA - to other publishing platforms as well. Their first partnership is with the popular web publishing technology provider, Brightcove.
P2P technology enables publishers to reduce their streaming costs and increase efficiency by delivering streams from multiple content hosts, also known as seeds, rather than delivering from the one original source.
BitTorrent President Ashwin Navin explains the benefit of using torrent technology this way: “Companies spend more than 20 cents an hour to stream video over the Internet, which means they lose money because they cannot pull in more than 20 cents an hour in advertising revenue.”
Other pirate faves are also going legit. Azereus, formerly just the most popular bittorrent client, has also begun signing deals and distributing long-form, high def and DVD quality videos, as well as niche content from leading media companies. They recently announced content deals with Showtime Networks, BBC Worldwide, A&E, History Channel, National Geographic, and Starz Media. Content is distributed using the Azereus Vuze platform.
Ben Adds: Bittorrent’s accelerator follows on the heels of similar products such as Swarmcast’s Autobahn and Speedbit’s Video Accelerator. These products can improve user experience by providing a smoother, often higher quality stream while lowering the cost of delivery for distributors but network providers appear to be the losers and have so far been hostile to them.
Increased P2P traffic as a result of these kinds of applications will increase the load placed on networks by end-users on flat-rate data plans and ISPs will react. Network capacity is a zero-sum game. If P2P lowers costs for distributors like Brightcove while increasing traffic and network congestion for providers, ISPs will be forced to raise rates in new places.
If you enjoy watching online video and expect to use a lot of upstream bandwidth, be prepared to pay more for that privilege in the future.
It took a Minnesota jury only 4 hours after 2 days of testimony to find single mother of 2 Jammie Thomas guilty of copyright infringement. She is now responsible for the $222,000 judgment for re-distributing 24 songs.
This, the first RIAA lawsuit to go to trial sets a major precedent for the music industry. Sharing music online is illegal, the law is immutably clear and a jury when presented with proof has no choice but to enforce it.
That said, Thomas’ lawyer Richard Gabriel’s defense: “Someone used her name and IP address—it’s not impossible.” was pretty weak. There are still major challenges to the recording industry to come in the form of the society has changed argument employed by Google, Veoh and DivX that media is being used in fundamentally different ways.
Major League Baseball is testing Teletrax digital watermarking technology reports Broadcasting & Cable. MLB becomes the first sports league to protect its content this way and joins broadcasters CBS, FOX, ABC & NBC already using Teletrax.
A division of Medialink, Teletrax enables broadcasters to embed an invisible digital watermark “by subtly manipulating the noise that naturally occurs in moving images”
The company also provides global monitoring, providing “full details of the station and location where your video was aired as well as the section of your footage used and the duration of broadcast.” So you can send them an invoice.
Teletrax has this down to a science for broadcast, showing how successful digital watermarking can be. But when you compare that to the state of online DRM, there’s still a long way to go.
The Purple One, Prince, plans to sue YouTube and other online outlets in an attempt to “reclaim his art on the Internet,” according to a Reuters report.
“YouTube … appear(s) to choose not to filter out the unauthorized music and film content which is core to their business success,” according to a statement.
We couldn’t agree with you more, Prince. We’ve been critical of YouTube in the past for their lack of content filtering, be it copyright material or hate speech. One of these days they are going to get tired of fighting these court battles, and just buy some filtering technology that really works.
What happened to the copyright detection technology that the GooTube announced back in April?
Clearly it isn’t working very well.
Whether or not you believe that all content should be free, the law says it ain’t. The sheer volume of open copyright infringement on video sharing sites is outright appalling.
DivX today filed suit against Universal Music Group, following Veoh’s lead and becoming the latest company to preemptively sue to protect their rights as set forth by the DMCA. The weight these cases will play in the future of media cannot be understated.
DivX has quickly become one of the most widely respected companies in online video, a result of the strength of their codec and their online video site Stage6, which has become of the top 200 sites in the world.
The argument put forth by DivX mirrors that of Google and Veoh: UMG is unfairly targeting DivX. Stage6 is in complete compliance with current laws, and entitled to safe harbor under the DMCA.
Said David Richter, EVP, Corporate Development and Legal:
“We are taking this legal step to protect Stage6 from groundless claims and unreasonable threats brought by UMG. UMG’s pattern of attacking innovative online service providers is discouraging and will ultimately hinder innovation and the development of new technologies”
There is a fundamental transformation that has taken place as a result of the development of digital media and the lower cost of distribution that has resulted. Mainstream media is aggressively defending their cause in this disrupted environment.
The entertainment industry has rallied together, filing briefs in support of lawsuits against Veoh and YouTube. If more new media companies stand up to them, we may well see a turning of the tide in control of media.
While current intellectual property law should not be thrown out, there is a strong case to be made for re-evaluating a segment of the law now filled with gray areas.
The more companies assert their rights in this new media environment, the more visible this debate will become, and the more likely the law will be adjusted to reflect the current state of media and American society.
A month after Veoh preemptively sued Universal for relief against what they felt was an impending suit, Universal has followed through reports Bloomberg, though I can’t find the complaint anywhere online yet.
Yesterday, UMG filed briefs in their defense in the initial suit citing cases againstGrouper Crackle, Bolt (remember them?) and MySpace as precedent for dismissal, stating in a notice:
Specifically, all of these actions involve copyright infringement claims by UMG against defendants’ “user-generated video” websites.
These actions assert that defendants’ websites directly, vicariously and contributorily infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights by allowing users to upload files containing Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, copying those works and then facilitating and encouraging further infringement of those works by third parties all over the world.
Let’s hope Eisner still knows some good lawyers from his Disney Days.
Meanwhile, the Veoh blog is down and their PR folks have been working public opinion with a statement saying “It’s unfortunate that UMG prefers to continue their pattern of litigation rather than contribute to the important discussions going on within our industry.”
All posturing aside, this is a discussion that will need to take place in a courtroom sooner or later, and hopefully Veoh will have the balls to fight it there now.
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