Cuban has a freaking awesome post from a supposed insider on the the GooTube Merger that includes this incredible highlight.
The second request was to pile some lawsuits on competitors to slow them down and lock in Youtubes position. As Google looked at it they bought a 6 month exclusive on widespread video copyright infringement. Universal obliged and sued two capable Youtube clones Bolt and Grouper. This has several effects. First it puts enormous pressure on all the other video sites to clamp down on the laissez-faire content posting that is prevalent. If Google is agreeing to remove unauthorized content they want the rest of the industry doing the same thing. Secondly it shuts off the flow of venture capital investments into video firms. Without capital these firms cant build the data centers and pay for the bandwidth required for these upside down businesses.
Indeed less than a week after the Google Youtube buyout we saw Universal start to sue Youtube competitors. So the story definately has some weight!
It also talks about how the recording labels figured out a way to fuck the artists out of any of the royalty moneys related to the settlements:
The media companies had their typical challenges. Specifically how to get money from Youtube without being required to give any to the talent (musicians and actors)? If monies were received as part of a license to Youtube then they would contractually obligated to share a substantial portion of the proceeds with others. For example most record label contracts call for artists to get 50% of all license deals. It was decided the media companies would receive an equity position as an investor in Youtube which Google would buy from them. This shelters all the up front monies from any royalty demands by allowing them to classify it as gains from an investment position. A few savvy agents might complain about receiving nothing and get a token amount but most will be unaware of what transpired.
Google accomidated all of this.
Dont be evil . . . MY ASS!
This would absolutely be front page of slashdot if it were Microsoft instead of google. Will we see something resembling balance from slashdot digg or the rest of the blogosphere on this issue?
Lets wait and see. . .
