Meta: Pardon my French, but "SCREW YOU", Viacom!

[erestor]

Viacom Gets YouTube User Data

Google Must Divulge YouTube Log

Judge Protects YouTube's Source Code, Throws Users To The Wolves

Yes, yes, I know, "meh, what do I care as long as I can still watch videos" - but thanks to Judge Louis L. Stanton in New York (that will become important later on), Viacom has now the means to get directly on the chests of

Comments

[erestor]

Fully agree with you on the RIAA - it's not working, that's obvious. All it does is taking up valuable resources from the legal systems that could really be used differently. The media giants will have to sit down sooner or later and work out a concept that brings their target - making money - into agreement with the wishes of the customers. Sueing them (or youtube) is not the way.

As I mentioned above, shows like "Swingtown" would rake in far more money if the paid download was available *worldwide* rather than just countrywide. People want to see "their" shows now, not with two years delay, cut, butchered and dubbed. Fans of Doctor Who? in Germany or Sweden or wherever will of course turn to illegal ways to watch their favourite show if there's no other way.

The companies ignore how fans (who are in the end the ones who buy merchandise, DVDs etc.) work. They want to discuss a show right after the airing, not one year later. They want to be creative with the fannish material; fanvids, fanfic etc. are promotion. There are so many shows I've never heard of if it hadn't been for my f-list mentioning them. Viacom et al should use this dynamic in their advantage rather than try to kill it off.

With youtube's data, Viacom wants to prove that people basically visit youtube to watch pirated material rather than original content. Ignoring completely WHY there's pirated material there in the first place, that not everything they consider to be pirated really is and that millions and millions of users have their data exposed who never even LOOKED at a Viacom video. "Let's shoot all, the guilty will be among them." Nice principle.