A discussion about the software industry and their coders

Valuations for YouTube have attracted a lot of attention. Part of the reason is that analysts recently valued MySpace at 15 billion USD (in 3 years) and it is the leading online video site. YouTube is the 3rd largest online video website in the world behind Yahoo! Video and MySpace.

Mark Cuban, the chairman of HDTV and founder of several companies says that only a "moron" would purchase the company. His explanation is that YouTube will run into trouble due to copyright violations. YouTube users have uploaded parts of copyrighted videos onto the website. According to Cuban, YouTube would eventually be "sued into oblivion" because of copyright violations. Cuban went on to say:

They are just breaking the law...The only reason it hasn't been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue.

Cuban has explained the intricate copyright issues related to YouTube on his Blog Maverick:

The two things I dont think will ever change is that big media companies want to control where there is content is seen, and how their content is monetized. They have absolutely no problem suing to gain that control or sicking the MPAA or RIAA or both on anyone or thing that threatens that control...

So rather than guess about Youtubes future, lets think about the implications if Youtube can go about doing their business as is. That anyone can upload anything they want and the worst that could happen is that the copyright owner sends a notice to Youtube that they own the copyright of a video and they want it removed, and then Youtube removes it.

So then what ? Does anyone really think that the big media companies will say "oh its ok, we like youtube..Lets just move on. " ?

Of course not. There wont just be one Youtube, there will be millions. Youtube limits the size of the uploaded video. But thats their choice, probably for cost and performance reasons. Youtube2 wont necessarily do that. So if its legal to upload 100mb of copyrighted materials, then it will be legal to upload 100gb of copyrighted material. Which means any movie, any anything. Convince everyone you know to upload every movie or video they ever bought to Youtube2 and then just offer the video from your blog. Or better yet, tell all your friends to upload those movies and videos on Youtube2, then go to your website and just use the html code to present all those movies. It will be a buffet of all the movies you can watch , and Youtube2 pays the cost of bandwidth and deals with all the takedown notices.

John Battelle has posted similar views about YouTube on his blog http://battellemedia.com/archives/002745.php:

This NY Post item caught my eye - YouTube was the toast of Herb Allen's Sun Valley conference, and therefore is now worth $1 billion. I don't buy it. I don't think the founders are smoking this shit, I think the media is - at least I hope that's how it is. Why? Simple really. While YouTube is an amazing service, with extraordinary uptake, I've been told (and it seems obvious on first glance) that its core content is mostly copyrighted material. (I make this statement after being told as much by two very senior folks at major media companies who have studied content patterns on YouTube.)