The FInancial Times reports that Universal 'music' has sued two video sharing sites for copyright infringement.
This is the same Universal 'music' who has already squared off to the new GooTube (Google owned YouTube) claiming that they would not hesitate to sue them for copyright infringement. Of course it would be cheaper for them to ask Google to take down the infringing videos, but there you go.
Universal is well within its rights (legally if not morally) to sue the two video sharing sites. After all as the article states:
In separate lawsuits, Universal alleged that Grouper.com – recently acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment – and Bolt.com had built up traffic by encouraging users to share music videos from its artists without their permission.
Well fair enough then, people have been sharing these videos on line, without permission even. Thats theft right? I mean everytime someone watches one of those videos online a DVD dissapears in a puff of smoke frm the stores of Universal 'music'. Right?
The article goes on:
In one incident, it claimed a video for the Mariah Carey song “Shake it Off” was viewed more than 50,000 times on Grouper without the company’s permission.
50,000 infringements of copyright. Universal 'music' must be bleeding and walking funny after that surely!
But hey! Wait a second here. Did they just say that 50,000 people watched a Mariah Carey video? Without having to be medicated and propped up in front of it? And more than that, it actually cost Universal 'music' nothing, zilch, nada, diddly-squat to achieve the grand figure of 50,000 viewers?
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE UNIVERSAL 'MUSIC'!!
What the fuck? Do you know how much marketing dollars it takes to make one person watch any video, never mind Mariah Carey? And in this case you have a targetted audience! Captive even (if not captivated). WHY NOT SELL SOME MARIAH CAREY CRAPOLA TO THEM WHEN THEY ARE WATCHING THE VIDEO THAT COST YOU NOTHING TO GET IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES?? Ok it costs money to produce but the distribution cost are nothing!!
ARE THEY FUCKING INSANE? AM I THE ONLY PERSON WHO SEES THAT THERE IS A BIG NEW WAY TO MARKET TO THE AUDIENCE HERE?
You can lead a horse to water......
So what does this mean for Google? Nothing? Everything?
Google are a bunch of pretty smart guys who might even catch on to this an put some pressure on the media companies - make them an offer they cant refuse - and get some brain cells firing in the right way.
Regardless, there are interesting times ahead for us all. If Google has the balls (and more importantly the money) to flaunt the media companies intellectual property rights in an attempt to show them the one true path then we might get somewhere. Maybe even some CEO's might take a chance liten to the lower management and ignore the upper management and drop the dead donkey of DRM and stop treating their customers like criminals. Amen brother
OR, the media companies might just continue with business as usual and bring down Google, the internet, World of Warcraft, for shame.
Damn if I dont need a walk in the sun smeling some flowers right now.
