Google

Mark Cuban Admits He Was Wrong But GoogTube Might Still Be In Trouble

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googtubelogo3.JPGA few weeks ago bloggging tech mogul Mark Cuban wrote that anyone who bought YouTube would be immediately sued by the media companies whose copyrighted materials make-up so much of the most popular material on the video sharing website. Now he’s admitting that not only hasn’t this happened following the acquisition by Google, but it wasn’t ever likely to happen.
But not because the media companies don’t care about their copyright. And not because they just love YouTube so much they’ve decided to let the kids play with their content. It’s because they are suing smaller video sharing websites, building legal precedent favoring strong copyright enforcement and gaining leverage for negotiations with GoogTube.

If they can win some judgements saying these little sites are not protected by Safe Harbor rules, then they have all the leverage in the world to dictate licensing terms to sites that until now have not proactively enforced copyright but have instead chosen to rely on rightsholders takedown notices. If one of those sites has deep pockets, then it could turn into a payday for rightsholders, whether via lawsuit or licensing terms.

I Was Wrong [Blog Maverick]

    • 12 Oct 2006 at 10:18 AM
    • Google

    Google-YouTube: Another Day, Another Nerd’s Virginity Lost

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    googtubelogo3.JPGTwo Three Kings:

    For Jawed Karim, the $100,000 or so he would have to spend on a master’s degree at Stanford was never daunting. He hit an Internet jackpot in 2002 when PayPal, which he had joined early on, was bought by eBay.
    On Monday, still early in his studies for the fall term, he got lucky again. This time he may have hit the Internet equivalent of the multistate PowerBall.
    Mr. Karim is the third of the three founders of the video site YouTube, which Google has agreed to buy for $1.65 billion. He was present at YouTube’s creation, contributing some crucial ideas about a Web site where users could share video. But academia had more allure than the details of turning that idea into a business.
    Mr. Karim, who is 27, became visibly uncomfortable when the subject turned to money, and he would not say what he stands to make when Google’s purchase of YouTube is completed. He said only that he is one of the company’s largest individual shareholders, though he owns less of the company than his two partners, whose stakes in the company are likely to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to some estimates. The deal was so enormous, he says, that his share was still plenty big.

    Big enough for choice grade hookers AND mint condition Star Wars dolls, we’d imagine. Not that we’ve crunched numbers on this kind of thing. But it’s big enough, we hear.
    With YouTube, Grad Student Hits Jackpot Again [NYT]

      Did YouTube Cost Less Than Nothing?

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      googtubelogo3.JPGWe pointed out the other day that Google had bought YouTube for about 1% of its equity. The Big Picture takes the analysis one step further, noting that after the rise in Google’s share price following the acquisition, Google essentially picked up YouTube for free.
      And if the stock keeps climbing, well, then Google picked YouTube up for less than nothing. The market is paying Google to buy YouTube.
      Google Buys YouTube — for Free [The Big Picture]

        • 10 Oct 2006 at 10:30 AM
        • Google

        The Two Kings

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        Chad and Steve talk about Googtube. They are so goofy and normal it will make you hate them even more. Because It. Could. Have. Been. You.

          Mark Cuban Still Thinks Google Is Dumb

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          googtubelogo3.JPG We have to admit that sometime in 2001 we became convinced that the era where you could start an internet company and two years later sell it for hundreds of millions was over. After the first internet bubble burst we assumed that companies located on WWW street would forever be discounted by big money burned in the bubble.
          But we were wrong. A smarty pants website can still make you rich, especially if it’s user driven and counts as two-point-oh. Does this make sense? Mark Cuban, at least, think Google is kind of dumb for buying YouTube.

          It will be interesting to see just how google reconciles selling videos like Crazy in Love from Sony, when the same video is available as a user upload for free from youtube.
          it will be interesting to see how Fox reacts to this deal Fox owns content. Neither google or YT does. Could Fox, the owner of Myspace put GooTube in a huge hole by being legally aggressive and going after every video of Stewy from Family Guy , American Idol, any of their TV shows ? The same with their movies. Beyond just Gootube, (and I mash them together with nothing but love :), Fox could make them look real bad by using supoaenas to go after individual Gootube users. Fox is also a stickler for DRM, they aint gonna like having their content floating DRM free around the net. Sure, myspace would have to clean up some of their own videos, but it would be a far easier chore than Gootube has. Now that would be a celebrity lawyer match worth watching.

          I still think Google is crazy [BlogMaverick]

            • 09 Oct 2006 at 5:05 PM
            • Google

            Some Quickie Thoughts On The Google Conference Call

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            googtubelogo3.JPG Okay. The conference call just ended. There will no doubt be lots of commentary on the deal over the next few days and weeks. Here’s our quick take on the call.
            Search: Sergey Brin twice emphasized the “search” potential of including video. It’s clear that Google’s founder is still very focused on Google’s core competence. That should be reassuring to Google shareholders who might be worried the company is going astray with recent product developments and acquisitions.
            Social Networking: Google has been only moderately successful in social networking. Orkut never really took off. Dodgeball (which was founded by a friend of DealBreaker) is amazingly useful to its users and is popular among certain cutting-edge urban users but hasn’t yet deeply penetrated our broader cultural fabric. YouTube took off in part because of its social networking potential. Google seems interested in further penetrating this internet space.
            Independence: YouTube is keeping its name and will continue to be run as a separate business unit. GoogleVideo is not going away either, and plans to further integrate it with Google’s main search will continue. So YouTube users probably don’t have to worry that they are going to have to open Google user accounts anytime soon.
            Advertising: The potential for integrating Google’s advertising capabilities with YouTube were downplayed on the call, treated as definitely secondary to integrating the power of Google’s search capabilities with YouTube.
            Copyright: This was one of the big things that led some, like Mark Cuban, to say that only a moron would buy YouTube—so much of the most popular content on YouTube is owned by others and posted on the site in violation of the owner’s copyright. Of course, today’s deal comes only hours after YouTube announced content sharing deals with Sony BMG, Universal, and CBS (and Warner a couple of weeks ago). With Google’s muscle behind it, YouTube should now be even more attractive to producers of video content who are looking for new ways to bring their content to users over the internet, according to the GoogTubers.

              • 09 Oct 2006 at 4:08 PM
              • Google

              Google Buys YouTube for $1.65 Billion In Stock

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              googtubelogo3.JPG Yep. It’s on.

              Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has agreed to acquire YouTube, the consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos through a Web experience, for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.

              It’s a bit unusual for Google to do this as an all-stock deal. But it makes sense here, where any cash component would probably create huge tax liabilities for YouTube’s owners. It also means that Google just picked up YouTube for about 1 % of its equity. That’s the power of a $125 billion market cap.
              To access the conference call, dial 800-289-0572.
              Google To Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion in Stock [Google Press Center]