Viacom’s suing of Google for $US 1 million is laughable. Copyright is such a massive issue in this age of digital distribution and it appears that copyright holders are getting increasingly desperate in their attempts to plug the dike.
Viacom and Google were obviously unable to reach a compromise in their negotiations so Viacom decided to become the schoolyard bully who didn’t like it when he got pushed around and ran to the head master.
“After months of ongoing discussions with YouTube and Google, it has become clear that YouTube is unwilling to come to a fair market agreement that would make Viacom content available to YouTube users,” Viacom said. “Filtering tools promised repeatedly by YouTube and Google have not been put in place, and they continue to host and stream vast amounts of unauthorized video.”
It is slack, lazy, opportunistic, unnecessarily aggressive and ultimately foolish for Viacom to pursue Google over this. GoogTube certainly isn’t the only place in the world where Viacom’s copyright is being infringed but they are the only target because they have the deepest pockets.
Seems to me that Viacom’s legal department have spotted some low hanging fruit and they are heading in for the harvest.
Massive news today that Adobe are planning to release an online version of Photoshop within 6 months.
This is an enormous leap and highlights the potential that Ajax and Flash driven rich interfaces have to change the way we use computers.
One of the more interesting points is that Adobe plan to make this online Photoshop free for consumers. They expect to make revenue from advertising on the site, acknowledging that if it works for Google, then it can work for us. I have been a fan of picnik but I fear that when presented with a choice of online photo editor, the peeps will vote for the Photoshop brand.
Great to see Adobe coming out on the front foot with this one, instead of trying to protect their shrink wrapped products. I think it will prove successful. Microsoft – are you watching?
Peter Cashmore over at Mashable is convinced that Google are doing evil by embedding GOOG Video in the SERP’s.
I beg to differ. I think this is a classic example of the ‘tall poppy syndrome‘ and a case where Peter is only kicking up a fuss because it is Google.
Let’s break it down a little bit:
- Google doesn’t appear to be skewing the organic results to inflate Google Video or YouTube content.
- Google isn’t serving other people’s content directly on the SERP.
- Google are merely providing a service that enhances the user experience by delivering its content on the SERP, thus removing the need to go to a new page or open a new tab.
Evil? No. This is merely a company trying alternate ways of serving its own content. Nothing evil in that.
Smart? Yes. By enhancing the user experience, Google are more likely to keep their users happy.
Bad for competitors? Can’t see how. As long as Google continues to fairly index all content then its competitors have as good a chance at a high SERP ranking as a Google owned property.
Good for consumers? Yes.
Nice one Google!
