YouTube is obviously swirling the bowl now, what seems to be the next site that will take over what YouTube used to offer people? Do you think that lawsuits will kill new YouTube type sites?
I fail to see how removing Viacom’s content constitutes “swirling the bowl”. Personally, I think YouTube would be vastly improved if all content produced for TV was removed.
Make that all stolen copyrighted content and I’ll agree.
Not seeing a problem here. YouTube will survive quite handily.
After reading that article, I’d say Viacom is the company “swirling the bowl.” They won’t be able to continue making money doing nothing forever, yet they’re still desperately clinging to the old way of doing things. I give it a couple years before they come crawling back to Youtube, eager to take whatever they can get to put their goods on display.
Jeez louise, don’t scare me like that! Without Youtube I dont know what I’d do with my life.
argh…this pisses me off…MTV won’t allow Sifl and Ollie to be released on DVD, and now they will have to be taken off of youtube also
I like this OP better as an IMHO. Moved from General Questions.
samclem GQ moderator
I’m puzzled by your statement that Viacom do nothing. Don’t they make shows and stuff?
No, they just control the way those shows get seen. They are the intermediary between the creative people and the public. But with the rise of the internet, pretty soon we will no longer need those intermediaries (I would argue we don’t need them now, and they’re just getting by on inertia) and the creative people who make the shows will be able to get them to the public on their own without having Viacom take a huge percent of the profits.
Now how will I watch The Daily Show? I’m not home when it’s broadcast! Blaaah, I say!
YouTube’s biggest problem is its success.
I used to work for a major film studio and they have been contemplating how to use the Internet for ages…and one of their biggest dilemma was always: “Is the Internet a lucrative, new outlet for us, or will it cause the demise of film studios as we know them?”
On the one hand, it could be a huge market (how do we charge and how do we go about it?) but on the other hand, it could be the pirated film leak from hell (crap, our film is barely in the theaters and already showing for free on the Internet in China!!!).
So YouTube comes along and, bam - huge success. Now film studios and broadcast networks know people are interested in viewing film on their computers, and suddenly things start showing up…television shows from last night, films just released! Hmm…this could get out of hand real quick.
Every film studio and television network has assigned a team of lawyers to look into what they can do. They also have new departments to determine how they can create their own versions of YouTube; one that they have control over; one that can turn a profit; one that will be innovative, but at the same time, keep the status quo.
One only need look at the sorry state of affairs in the music industry to see what can happen when there is free reign and access over the Internet. The film studios and television studios see the writing on the wall, and I doubt they like what they are reading. They know they have no real choice in the matter - it is either join in, or die.
Look to see all sorts of new ways to view films and television shows in the very near future - and I won’t be surprised to see new films being released on the Internet (for a price) about the same time as the film is released in theaters.
But in the meantime, their best approach is to keep vigilant, and watch what happens - and trust me, their are paralegals in Hollywood who now do nothing but surf the net in search of their product and report to the lawyers and studio executives.
YouTube is no longer under the radar, and unless they want to be hit with some major lawsuits, they are going to have to be vigilant as well. It will be interesting to see where this all leads.
Oh No! Without Youtube, where will I get,
Countless videos of teenaged girls sitting in their room singing R & B songs
Videos of some dork playing the tetris song on a piano…badly
Thousands of “A picture every day” videos
The incredibly entertaining video blogs of dudes complaining about their roomates and other things that I am so deeply concerned about
Here’s a few links, from the most viewed pages, either monthly weekly, etc…
Face it, 90 percent of all youtube created content is crap. The first way to know that I don’t want to watch it is if the background is some kid’s room. I’d honestly think, though with all the people out there some would actually produce something good, kind of like the Lonely Island, but the closest thing I can think of is Chad Vader. Myself? I simply look for stuff like, The Office clips, etc.
How idiotic is Viacom? I’m pretty sure there’s no full episode clips that remain there for any length of time. Basically they are missing out on free exposure. NBC got on the ball and released “Dick in a Box” to youtube after realizing that the “Lazy Sunday” thing was handled badly. To this day it can still be hard to find.
So yeah, I only watch professional content on YouTube.
The article did say that they have an agrement with Google Video, so it isn’t that they are ignoring the video distribution on the internet, just that they are trying to keep it under control.
Record it? To tape or dvd? Like we used to do in the old days? 
It’d be a bummer if it was all banned. Handbanana was kind of amusing.
www.comedycentral.com posts most of the show online
Ohmigod, how can I get that job? Spending all day surfing YouTube and other video sites? That’s all I do all day anyway, and nobody pays me for it!
What is this strange magic you speak of? re…cord…hmm
Call them and ask, if you are a paralegal and serious about it. I know the paralegals hated doing it…they got a list of trademarks and copyrighted titles and did searches and had to mark down who, what, where and then create reports on the infringements according to most serious…and as soon as they were finished, they went right back to the top of the list and started all over again in case new sites and clips were being shown. And the lists got bigger and bigger. For instance, if you worked for Disney, you had every Disney cartoon character, every film title and even titles and characters that were not yet used, but in the pipelines. And then you had to do it in foreign languages versions. It was endless. I think they thought it was fun for about two days and then it got to be a pain.