Italian Judge Declines To Dismiss Lawsuit Charging Google Execs As Criminals For YouTube Video

from the bad-law dept

The judge in Italy hearing the ridiculous case charging Google executives with criminal charges (which could lead to jail time) because of a video uploaded to YouTube, has declined to dismiss the case, and will allow it to proceed. The lawsuit is ridiculous on many levels, and it's difficult to see any common sense explanation for why it should be allowed to proceed.

The case involves a video of some kids taunting a boy with Down syndrome, which was uploaded to YouTube. The very fact that it was uploaded to YouTube actually allowed the kids in question to get caught and punished appropriately for their actions. In other words, by any reasonable thought process, the video helped bring these kids to justice. YouTube and Google should be thanked. Instead, Italian authorities are trying to put five of their execs in jail for this. Those execs had nothing to do with the making of the video. They had nothing to do with the uploading of the video. Most of the execs being charged aren't even in Italy. They had nothing at all to do with any of this. Not only that, but Google appears to have acted quite admirably in this situation. Once they were alerted to the video, they had it pulled down off the site within hours.

But, one of the lawyers working on the case against Google states: "The outcome of this will be to determine how big companies like Google should be expected to act." What's unclear is how Google could have acted in any more reasonable a manner than what it did. The reality may be that the outcome of the case will determine whether any service provider will allow their services to be used in Italy. After seeing this case, I would imagine that many online service providers are now considering blocking access to all Italian ISPs. The liability (possible jail time?!?) is way too high for simply allowing people in Italy to use your service.

Filed Under: italy, lawsuits, liability, online video
Companies: google

Online Video Sites Harming Themselves With Geographic Restrictions

from the the-internet,-it's-global dept

Techdirt reader Santiago Crespo recently wrote in making a really valid point about all the various authorized online video sites that seem to employ geographic restriction, much to their own detriment:

I live in Argentina, in South America and am an avid Heroes and House follower, but there's a problem watching those shows in our side of the world. Big network subsidiaries offer cable access to American TV shows, but for some unknown reason they can take up to six months to subtitle them in Spanish, and therefore we're stuck watching last season episodes all the time. I don't need subtitles to watch the series, since my grasp of the English language is decent enough to understand what the show is about.

But every time you want to use any legal video site such as Hulu, the NBC website, Sling.com or even some bits of YouTube (Geo-restricted music videos), it will show an error message saying you're "geographically challenged." So instead of geolocalizing ads (as Google does, since I get ads for Deremate.com, a Latin American eBay clone here on Techdirt) they leave me no choice but to head over to the pirate bay to get my fix ad-free.

And even if your comprehension of English isn't good enough to watch the shows downloaded from Bittorrent, every single TV episode gets fansubbed within 24 hours of airing. I think the big networks are wasting a revenue opportunity by limiting who can watch their shows (6 months from now if you have cable) instead of letting you watch them on-line (unlimited audience potential) with some geo-located ads.

It's a really good point. Some of it may be due to rather old school and silly geographic "rights" issues, where certain contracts allow companies to only have the right to broadcast content in certain geographies so that the content owner can try to resell the same content in other areas as well. Yet, by now it should be clear that geographic specific content makes less and less sense, and really is detrimental to the content owners. Rather than making it easier to score big deals, all they're doing is encouraging piracy.

Filed Under: geographic restrictions, online video
Companies: hulu, sling, youtube

Italy Wants To Put Google Execs In Jail Over Uploaded Video

from the punish-whoever dept

Sometimes you hear about lawsuits that are so bizarre and so wrongheaded, you just have to shake your head and wonder what people are thinking. For example, take this news that Italian prosecutors are preparing to file criminal charges against four Google execs. Why? Not for anything Google, as a company, did. Or anything those executives actually did. But, because four kids filmed themselves taunting a disabled boy in a classroom and that film was uploaded to Google. The four kids in question are also facing criminal charges -- which is perfectly reasonable.

But under what distorted sense of justice does one somehow have to have to think that Google executives also deserve criminal charges over this event?

The fact that the video was uploaded to Google gave the prosecutors the evidence necessary to go after the kids in question. Google, itself, had no proactive role in uploading the video. Neither Google, nor the executives in question, had anything to do with the video whatsoever. In fact, Google took the video down within hours of being alerted to it. It serves no viable purpose under any justice system whatsoever to charge Google executives for the content in the video. The report notes that the kids in the video hit the disabled boy with a pack of tissues as well. I would think that the tissue company has just as much, if not more, responsibility for the video than Google. Will we soon see charges against its execs as well?

Filed Under: italy, lawsuits, liability, online video
Companies: google

Putting Metadata In Video For Search Purposes? Patented! Microsoft Sued

from the it-never-ends dept

The last time we wrote about a small company called Gotuit Media, it was in 2003, when the company was suing TiVo for an excessively broad patent about recording TV while playing back TV concurrently. Apparently, the company is still in the business of suing other companies that are putting obvious ideas into practice. For example, it's now suing Microsoft over its implementation of Silverlight-based videos for the Olympics on NBC's website. Microsoft's crime? Apparently the videos are going to include some metadata that will make them searchable, allowing users to search and find specific content. And, that, according to Gotuit, is patent infringement.

Of course, that's ridiculous. If you were to tackle the problem of how to create a search engine for video, one of the first things just about any competent programmer would think of is adding text metadata to the video that would then be used for search. But, thanks to the patent system, apparently you can only do that if you've agreed to pay Gotuit a licensing fee.

Filed Under: metadata, online video, silverlight, video
Companies: gotuit, microsoft

And You Thought The Next Generation Video Standards Battle Was Over?

from the we've-got-a-new-one-coming-on dept

If you thought the questions about what technology standard we'd be using to watch movies was settled when Blu-ray won the next generation DVD standards battle, then you're in for a bit of a surprise. In taking nearly half a decade to decide which standard would make it, the DVD camps left open plenty of opportunity for online competitors to start making their moves. The technology for delivering movies online has been rapidly improving. But, of course, what we didn't count on was that it would just create a huge new mess.

Earlier this week, there was all sorts of talk about Netflix streaming movies to the Xbox as part of Netflix's effort to get consumer electronics companies to build in support for Netflix streaming. As we warned when that announcement was made, it's a bad idea for Netflix to focus on a proprietary streaming solution, as it's only going to set up another standards battle. And, indeed, Blockbuster is working on its own such solution. Then, of course, everyone knows that Apple's in the market with the AppleTV. And don't forget Sony, which is selling a special (extra expensive) TV for downloading movies. And, of course, there are countless startups in the market as well.

Oh, and how could we forget Amazon? The company is now announcing its own proprietary online store for streaming movies and TV. This one piggybacks a bit on Sony's awful plan (meaning if you buy that super expensive internet-connected TV, you'll also be able to stream movies from Amazon).

But the end result is a total mess for the entire market, and that doesn't help anyone. All of the players should take a look at how badly the multi-year DVD standards battle hurt the industry. It makes people unwilling to buy certain hardware, as they don't want to be stuck with the "loser" a year from now. What's wrong with coming up with a single standard for streaming movies from any particular service to various TV-connected devices and computers? Then let the different providers compete on actual services provided? That would increase adoption, and let these companies do what they do best, rather than fighting a can't-win battle against too many other competitors.

Filed Under: movies, next generation, online video, standards, streaming, television, video
Companies: amazon, apple, blockbuster, microsoft, netflix, sony

Google Admits It Still Hasn't Figured Out How To Make Money From YouTube

from the keep-trying dept

When Google shelled out $1.65 billion for YouTube two years ago, you had to figure that the company had some plans on how to make money with the site. Apparently not. Google is admitting that it's still not quite sure how to make money with the property, though folks seem sure there must be some way. Still, from this discussion it appears that the massively hyped video overlay ads haven't really lived up to expectations.

To be honest, it still seems like the wrong thing to do to figure out how to stick ads on YouTube -- because no such ad is going to get very much attention. People come to YouTube to watch the videos they want to watch, not to be annoyed by an irrelevant ad. Instead, the real focus should be on the fact that YouTube videos themselves are advertising -- the question is just: for what?

Filed Under: advertising, business models, online video
Companies: google, youtube

All The YouTube MeToos Combined May Not Be Worth $1.65B

from the the-best-laid-plans... dept

As YouTube got super popular and eventually sold to Google for $1.65 billion, a bunch of other startups tried to hop on the bandwagon and become the "next YouTube" in order to cash out as well. In fact, some of them had actually been around since before YouTube, but morphed to make themselves more and more like YouTube, so that there basically are a large number of clones out there that don't offer very much in the way of differentiated functionality. Of course, through all of this, YouTube has continued to thrive and grow, meaning that these MeToo(b)s haven't found enough interest to really get very far. Some have a lot of traffic, but hosting all that video is expensive (as YouTube was all too painfully aware, as it needed to borrow $15 million just to pay the bills before the Google deal closed). So, now with so many MeToo players out there, and no one looking to swoop down and pay $1.65 billion for their traffic and indistinguishable technology, many are expecting something of a shake-out, as there are way too many players in the space, they're losing a ton of money, and none of them have done much to stand out or build something that others want to buy. Plus, with YouTube opening up its APIs it may be even more difficult for these clones to stay afloat.

Filed Under: online video
Companies: youtube

French Court Tells Google To Do The Impossible: Stop People From Uploading Copyrighted Material

from the and-if-it-can't? dept

What do you do when the court orders you to do the impossible? The French High Court has apparently told Google that if someone alerts it to an unauthorized video being uploaded to Google video, not only does it need to take the video down, but it must prevent that same video from ever being uploaded again ever. It seems that some people still believe that this really is possible, but despite some companies claiming they offer filters that will block certain uploads, none have been shown to be all that effective. There's always some way to mask or change the content enough that these filters won't work. The question that comes up again, though, is why is this Google's responsibility? If there's liability, it should be on the person uploading the unauthorized content. If someone is clever enough to get around any filter, then why should Google have to pay for that?

Filed Under: france, liability, online video
Companies: google

CBS More Focused On Keeping Fans Happy

from the keep-the-fans-happy,-and-business-models-work-out dept

It's fascinating to watch the different approaches that competitors NBC and CBS are taking to dealing with the online video market. NBC has seemed almost to have a new strategy every day, happily putting videos up on YouTube, pulling them down from YouTube, being happy with YouTube, being upset with YouTube, putting videos on iTunes, pulling them down from iTunes. It's as if NBC doesn't have a real strategy at all -- or, at the very least, different factions within the company "win" every few weeks or so. In contrast, you have CBS, who recognized the importance of online video at nearly the same time as NBC. However, rather than going with a constantly shifting target, CBS's strategy has evolved in a pretty straight line. The company quickly realized that distribution and awareness was a lot more important than protection and focused on getting videos available wherever people wanted to view them (not just where CBS could control everything). That meant syndicating the content as widely as possible and even embracing the benefits from people sharing CBS content on YouTube and other sites. That's why it's not too surprising to hear CBS' Les Moonves respond to questions about NBC's decision to take its content off iTunes by saying that CBS is thrilled with iTunes and sees no reason to follow NBC's decision. The really telling statement is this one: "We look at iTunes as much as a promotional vehicle for our shows as a financial vehicle." That's why NBC is focused on putting up barriers for viewers, while CBS appears to be focused on taking them down.

Filed Under: itunes, online video, piracy, tv
Companies: apple, cbs, nbc

Will Google Face Patent Battle Over YouTube's New Ad Format?

from the pssst,-Google,-buy-us...-sincerely,-VideoEgg dept

Google and YouTube got a ton of press coverage for releasing their new video ad overlay program on Tuesday evening. However, despite some amount of fawning from some tech publications, many people noted that the ads were remarkably similar to the format the startup VideoEgg launched nearly a year ago. The folks over at VideoEgg are trying to figure out what to do in response -- which apparently includes potentially filing a patent lawsuit against Google. VideoEgg has apparently applied for patents on just such an advertising system -- though the patents haven't been granted yet, so there's not much VideoEgg can do on that front for the time being. Of course, you could argue that what they're doing isn't all that different than ads that have been on TV for years... but we'll let the patent office sort that out. So far, however, VideoEgg seems to have figured out the best strategy: using this to get much more attention for itself. It's been making sure that people know it had the idea first, and (as of right now) changed its website to say in HUGE letters "Welcome, YouTube. Seriously." Then it notes that it's nice to see the rest of the market catch up. Hopefully this won't descend into a patent battle -- as VideoEgg is right. It is nice to see the rest of the market catch up, and hopefully this will drive many of the players in the market (including VideoEgg) to improve upon the offering even further. That's what competition is all about. Update: In the meantime, it looks like plenty of others are out there claiming that they came up with the idea first, once again showing how many different "inventions" are really just the next obvious step, as so many different parties come up with the same thing at once. Hopefully, that's evidence enough to deny a patent.

Filed Under: advertising, online video
Companies: google, videoegg, youtube