I don’t like Viacom, I really don’t…
July 3rd, 2008News today broke out the Google was being forced to divulge information about it’s YouTube service to Viacom, owner of Paramount and MTV. According to the BBC Google are to give Viacom over 12 Terabytes of data containing viewing statistics of all of its’ videos.
This data contains IP addresses (the address of your computer on the Internet, basically). If Viacom get hold of this information they can potentially personally identify your viewing habits. I think this is a bit beyond acceptable.
As you can tell from this Blog I regularly use YouTube throughout the day and to now be told that a media giant is going to be pouring over which videos I’ve been watching to see if YouTube owes them any money disgusts me. In my opinion, much in the same was as file sharing software I believe that the blame should lie firmly on the shoulders of the sharers, not the share platform. YouTube (YT) is a perfectly innocent forum for sharing videos and works brilliantly for the millions of users who watch videos on it every second of every day; naturally, however, there are always going to be some people who exploit the system.
I think a reasonable resolution would be to say that it is the responsibilty of YT to remove and seek reparations from publishers who flout copyright law. This keeps YT in business and keeps the media distributors like Sony, Time Warner, Viacom, etc… happy - afterall their content is now being actively sought out and removed from YT.
Premium Clips
Surely though, this opens up a potential new business angle for YT. If they could introduce a two-tier system of use, where the copyright-free media (Vloggers, etc…) is all viewable for free but premium content (i.e. Family Guy episodes, movies, etc…) is viewable for a fee (for example, say £2 per movie for a 24hr period?). That way media distributors could be paid a fee for their content and would have an already matured and richly populated platform to share their media. Think of the revenue that could be generated by effectively legalising the distribution of copyright material via something like YT! Also, by introducing a premium service YT is guaranteeing users high-quality material instead of something that is recorded poorly from a TV set.
I think there are a number of ways out of this situation that would benefit everyone I just hope that the long arm of the media market doesn’t flex its’ muscle too much and take away all our fun. God knows everyone is sick of hearing about the RIAA and their latest antics - lets not turn this into the same attitude towards Viacom.
James
Collab Info
July 2nd, 2008Ok, this is just a quick run-down of the conditions:
- 10 second video - pack it as much as you can; if you’re interesting I might let you go on a bit longer!
- MOV, WMV, AVI, MP4, etc… accepted. I’d prefer MOV or WMV but I’m easy!
- E-mail your videos to: collab@jamesbmarshall.com.
You’ve got until Midnight (0000hrs BST [GMT+1]) Tuesday July 8th 2008 to submit your entries at which point I’ll put them together and post up the finished article ASAP.
I’d really love for this project to be successful. I know other vloggers do collabs either with one other person or a large group, but often you only get a quick glimpse of other people but with this project I want my small number of viewers to have longer on screen!
James 
Two new videos coming today / tomorrow…
June 28th, 2008I have just bought a new camera - a Panasonic NVGS230! It’s on it’s way here from Argos and I’ll make videos as soon as I get it. One to review the camera, and the other as a response to Jazza’s latest on .XXX.
I figured out what was wrong with the other camera: I broke the internal firewire port! 
Oh well… C’est la vie!
James
New cables arrived!
June 26th, 2008YAY!
I looked in my tray in work to find a small grey jiffy bag with my cables in! I will test them when I get home…
