Friday, August 04, 2006

Don't underestimate rights issues

Veoh just got sued for copyrighted content that was on their network.
There's been so much hype about user-generated content. Don't get me wrong, I do see how technology and user-generated content is a new class in itself. But is it the right model for quality entertainment on par with professional films and tv programming? Why doesn't America's Home Videos dominate the airwaves? User-generated content, the clip culture, is just one intermediate step in the evolution of Internet Video.

Just consider:
1) Copyrights:
A large percentage of the content on sites such as YouTube that focus on user generated content is pirated or, at best, are stretching fair-use rules. Whoever owns all those funny SNL clips will want to be able to control their brand and their ability to monetize at some point or another. Yeah, and let's not even get into advertisers putting their ads next to pirated movie clips . . . I wonder how much YouTube and Metacafe have budgeted for legal defense? Probably not enough

2) Amatuer vs Professional:
Professional content producers/owners don't want their stuff presented in the same boat with pirated, amatuer content

3) Quality Experience
Well-written, professionally produced movies and tv shows are in a different world than the user-generated stuff. I believe it'll be more compelling -- just how many episodes of America's Home Videos can you watch?

The winner will be whoever can bring together the technology, content, and business model to make that personalized, high-quality experience available as easily as sitting in front of your tv. There is a long tail of PROFESSIONAL film and tv. Who's going to start making a business out of this?

3 comments:

Aaron Beck said...

Jim- I was setting up my spot to update twitter and FB as per your directions and took a look at your other blogs - thanks by the way for the work setting up the spot to FB update system. I might be checking back in on this blog from time to time, I just picked up the book what would google do, only a few pages into it, but it. I hope you had a good summer in the air, I'm i SV for the league meet weekend but the weather looks like crap. Hopefully we will meet up again next year at a comp or flying site.

Life is grand

A
http://www.aaronbeckphoto.com

Aaron Beck said...

Jim- I was setting up my spot to update twitter and FB as per your directions and took a look at your other blogs - thanks by the way for the work setting up the spot to FB update system. I might be checking back in on this blog from time to time, I just picked up the book what would google do, only a few pages into it, but it. I hope you had a good summer in the air, I'm i SV for the league meet weekend but the weather looks like crap. Hopefully we will meet up again next year at a comp or flying site.

Life is grand

A
http://www.aaronbeckphoto.com

Aaron Beck said...

Jim- I was setting up my spot to update twitter and FB as per your directions and took a look at your other blogs - thanks by the way for the work setting up the spot to FB update system. I might be checking back in on this blog from time to time, I just picked up the book what would google do, only a few pages into it, but it. I hope you had a good summer in the air, I'm i SV for the league meet weekend but the weather looks like crap. Hopefully we will meet up again next year at a comp or flying site.

Life is grand

A
http://www.aaronbeckphoto.com