Viacom has lost a milestone court battle against YouTube.  

The (evil) conglomerate has been attempting to sue Google since 2007 for copyright infringement, claiming that YouTube has always been aware of copyright protected materials being posted by users and that it has, in fact, been using it to their advantage, knowing it generates spikes in traffic.

The court disagreed, and rightfully so.  The court stated that as long as YouTube (or any user-posting site) implements reasonable takedown procedures when they become aware of infringing posts, they are not liable. Duh.

Of course Viacom, with the backing of several Hollywood studios, intends to appeal the court decision.

I have to say, YouTube is pretty good about yanking copyrighted materials.  I regularly find shells of video posts when looking for specific clips.  I think man other people have had this experience: search for a clip, find it in the listing, click on it, and… black screen with the message saying the video has been pulled due to copyright infringement.

What more do the Hollywood studios want?  YouTube can’t possibly implement a way to preemptively stop users from posting any given copyrighted material (Google Future™ coming in 2012).  What the studios really want is for YouTube to cease to exist.

Do all the major studios (movies and music alike) have retards running them or what?  Someone needs to tell them that the internet has arrived.

The digital revolution is upon us; the old industry models for generating revenue no longer apply.  They just keep fighting, trying to hang on to this antiquated business structure and it is so clearly not working.

What they should be doing is licensing the materials to sites like YouTube and making sure their content is easily found and is the best possible definition and fidelity.  If they did that, there would be no reason for YouTubers to post material that are already there.  Viewers would no look no further, especially when so many user posts have terrible video and/or sound quality.  

If the studios did this, they would easily monopolize the YouTube views of the materials they own.  When you have millions of people watching your videos, there are tons of ways to make money.  License fees, advertising, product placements, sponsors.

Furthermore, when viewers regularly watch your materials, you create fans.
There’s tons of ways to make residual  income when you have fans. Merchandise, limited editions/special collections, live performances, to name a few.  For god’s sake, fans hold and attend conventions!!!
This is another case of why dinosaurs must die.  Even Charles Darwin said, it’s not the strongest species that survive, it’s the species that is best at adapting.  I can’t understand how such powerful executives who should understand business can’t see how they aren’t adapting and how it will be their downfall.  

How can they not see all these alternate methods to make money while others do?

At this point the creative community just needs them to finally keel over so we can finally get on with the future.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100624/media_nm/us_google_hollywood