Search Engine Watch editor Elisabeth Osmeloski received a call this morning from Viacom, the parent company of MTV Networks, with a breaking news story.
Earlier today, MTVNetworks instructed Google and YouTube to remove “unauthorized” content from their systems. According to MTVNetworks, that unauthorized contentis made up of over 100,000 clips accouting for about 1.2billion video streams.
Metamend CEO Todd Hooge sent a copy of the article over. We had been talking about the addition of video advertising to YouTube video streams at a meeting last week. Here is a bit of my reply to his email this morning.
–
My first reaction is: This is not going to end well for professional content creators, at least not in the short-term. Free entertainment content is too readily available, as witnessed by the faked Bridezilla video from last week. (warning – strong language) That video, which was entirely scripted and staged, has seen over 2.5 million downloads in a week. While the SuperBowl will top that in viewers, 2.5million is in the ballpark of average viewership of a successful sitcom.
As long as Google and YouTube have a frequent flow of free content, and can make deals with a few of the major studios, they will have a money printing machine. The only catch is; the users are attracted to YouTube because they can see professionally created items such as Justin Timberlake offering creative holiday gift-giving advice. Those professional videos help inspire amateur content producers to create the bulk of the stuff seen at YouTube.
In other words, by not playing fair with the professional content creators, Google/YouTube might be creating a Catch22 conundrum in which all content is free but nobody is watching because the good stuff is found on TV, where it can be easily controlled and monetized.
–
Copyright, distribution and fair-pay are going to remain interesting issues for years to come.
Have a question and need quick answers? 
