NBC, News Corp. gang up against YouTube

[rebel with a cause]

Source: CNN Money.com

By Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney.com editor at large
March 22 2007: 2:47 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Media giants News Corp. and NBC Universal announced Thursday that they will create an online video site that will rival the popular YouTube.

News Corp. (Charts), which owns the Fox television and movie studios, and GE (Charts)-owned NBC Universal said their site will include online videos from the company's two film and TV libraries. But it was unclear from the announcement whether the new site will also allow users to create their own videos.

<snip>

The companies did say that the new site would feature personalized play lists, social networking functions as well as mashups, which let users create their own videos based on copyrighted content.

<snip>

The announcement comes a week after another big media firm, Viacom (Charts), said it was suing YouTube and its parent company Google (Charts) for copyright infringement and seeking more than $1 billion

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/22/news/companies/nbc_newscorp/index.htm?cnn=yes

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It is interesting to note that viacom supports the new venture by the two media giants. Can this be another attempt to control the internet? I don't know enough about the subject to have an informed opinion, but following the latest uproar over something posted on YouTube, it does make you wonder. What do the rest of you think about this?

[robinlynne]

1. yes. of course. probably more from a profit motive than a political one , but control

nevertheless.

[silverweb]

2. Of course.

"Can this be another attempt to control the internet?"

Absolutely. They hate losing control.

[Initech]

3. Good ol' copyright gestapo at it again!

:grr:

[Ian David]

4. Excellent! I'll upload copyrighted material to MurdochTube every day, and then report it myself! n/t

[wilt the stilt]

5. Murdoch has never

had a single original idea.

[depakid]

6. Propaganda outlets aren't going to do well on the net

Their days are numbered- even if they don't know it. Who's going to want to watch a bunch of crap from Fox & NBC?

Neither of those outfits has any street cred.

[Ignacio Upton]

7. I wonder if they'll allow us to do mashups critical of them?

The incumbent media companies (in both TV, movies, and music...especially the RIAA and Viacom) want to retain total control over what they put out. They don't want the consumers to have access to everything because they didn't tell them so. Hollywood has a "father knows best" attitude towards consumers that is stubborn in the more democratic and egalitarian age of digital media.

Oh...and don't expect users of this future site to be able to watch or post this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIWjSGQKEJc

[rebel with a cause]

8. I loved school house rock!

that was very educational! And I agree with you that no such things will be allowed posted on their site.

[Ignacio Upton]

9. I wouldn't be surprised if they try shutting down bloggers

who post excerpts of their shows or news articles for criticism. Yes it's fair use, but they have deeper legal pockets. Or, they could always bribe Congress to give them a "deluxe DMCA" that abolishes Fair Use online altogether, simply by wording the law vaguely enough for the lawsuits to commence.

[R_M]

10. I will not be using their service.

This is just another attempt for the media monopolies to gain control of the internet.
I assure you, they will not allow any films/posts critical of their businesses.
NBC will not want to see anything that is critical of GE's business practices.

I'll stay with youtube.

[Ignacio Upton]

12. Well you have a point

Comedy Central already makes clips of TDS and Colbert available (as does iFilm.com, which is also owned by Viacom) but YouTube has generally been the place to view clips from those shows...which is why Viacom had YouTube pull them and sued. Since Viacom has put in a lot of effort to create their own video sites, they see YouTube's very ability to host clips from their shows are an affront not only to copyright, but to their ideological goal of making the internet into a clone of cable.

[annabanana]

11. Well that pretty much proves that they STILL don't "get it".

If it's top down, it's same old same old.

From the bottom up is the new paradigm...