Young Writers Society

I found this on etrade, but couldn't find a freely available news story on it, so my summary will have to do

As everyone knows, Google recently paid $1.65 billion for YouTube, which is an astrominical figure considering that YouTube does not, as yet, generate a profit. Even more astounding, though, is that according to the article, Google paid $48 per monthly unique visitor to the site (using the figure of 34 million visitors a month).

Now, if I use that figure, then YWS is worth $140,000! That is, 2915 unique visitors a month at a dollar figure of $48 per person. Come on Google!!!! I want my money!

heh

XD!

Yes, but then you'd have to sell up and we'd lose our independence, uniqueness and ultimately control over who and what junk was posted here...

I am slightly wondering where YouTube's going to be heading after this. Could be interesting in a good or bad way. Might just not go anywhere, of course!

Google may just end up being sued over and over and over by companies who's material can be found on youtube.

I really think Google's made a bad deal. The copyright issues are no small matter, and now you have this whole business of possible censorship against conservatives on YouTube. Plus, YouTube doesn't even make any money right now. With a $1.8 billion price tag, I think you'd expect a lot more.

Censorship against conservatives? If you're talking about the WebCameron spoof that was removed, I think you've got it backwards - it was posted by a Labour MP mocking the leader of the British Conservative leader (and, quite likely, future Prime Minister) David Cameron. So this was actually censorship in favour of the Conservatives .

Sureal wrote:Censorship against conservatives? If you're talking about the WebCameron spoof that was removed, I think you've got it backwards - it was posted by a Labour MP mocking the leader of the British Conservative leader (and, quite likely, future Prime Minister) David Cameron. So this was actually censorship in favour of the Conservatives .

If I say something, I can back always back it up with several examples, but in this case, I prefer the topic to stay on track rather than having it degenerate like so many other threads because people cannot help but try to point out perceived fallacies in another's post. This thread is about the Google & YouTube deal, not about censorship, which I only brought up as one point among many as even perceived censorship, whether it exists or not, can be severally detrimental to any business. It's something Google will need to deal with, even if said censorship does not exist, or YouTube's credibility, along with its revenue stream, will be crippled. Excuse me if this is over the top, but I'm getting really tired of threads being turned into debates by a few select people on YWS. Not only is it frustrating, but it hurts the site.

Now back to the topic at hand, it's simply a bad deal. It's not like the News Corp and MySpace deal for in this one Google actually faces possible lawsuits. Plus, YouTube needs large amounts of data capacity, which requires large amounts of money that they have not been able to even come close to offsetting with ad revenue. But then again, it is Google, and they usually get it right. Of course, sometimes they get it very wrong.

Sorry if that came out as the wrong way - it wasn't meant as a debate, nor was I attacking your post or any points you mad. I was just commenting that it was censorship against the Labour party, not the Conservatives - if that was indeed what you were talking about - (it probably sounded like I was trying to start a debate as the subject matter involved politics).


Anyways, it's only just occured to me - google has had google videos and not had any trouble (as far as I'm aware) over the copyrighted material on there. So maybe they won't have any problems?

Sureal wrote:Anyways, it's only just occured to me - google has had google videos and not had any trouble (as far as I'm aware) over the copyrighted material on there. So maybe they won't have any problems?

'tis okay, it was just a pre-emptive measure before others join in.

I think google video benefits from that it's not very popular. Either that, or google has some code in place that restricts certain material. For instance, I'm able to find a full length episode of the South Park season premier on YouTube, but not on Google video.

Really? I find the exact opposite - I can only find clips on YouTube, but on google videos I can often watch entire episodes of shows (eg. I recently watched the entire episode of the latest South Park on google videos).

haha, that's funny.

I'm pretty sure (I might not be thinking straight right now...quite possible) that the copyright issue only comes in to play if YouTube and google videos were making a profit. Or is this like the Napster issue?? (No debative intentions. Just happy questions.)

Either way, I don't know why Google needs YouTube. What on earth can they gain?

advertising revenue, mostly.

Google only stands liable if they produce and sell the information. Since its all user posted, and google isn't making money on that material directly, there isn't much in the way of legal claims other can make and support.

If google were posting the copywrited information, that would be different. But they are not responsible for what the user base posts, and cannot be expected in any realm of reality to minitor each and every video that comes in, just in case it might have intellectual property on it.

Actually, not entirely true - YouTube basically took legal advice that told them if a user posted a copyrighted piece of material and someone *asked* for it to be taken down, and it wasn't, then they could be sued.
That means if anyone has reported it, no matter who they are, and it hasn't been removed, the host can be sued the pants off.

However, YouTube is beginning to make money and get around the copyright issues already - recently they signed a deal with... uh-oh, can't remember... I think it was Sony, one of the bigger music distributors at any rate, to stream all their music videos for free. They're also beginning to get permissions for select TV episodes and 'tasters' of series' - basically, they're beginning to get paid for hosting and promoting.

So, pretty good business, in my opinion. Whether it's worth 1.6bn, not sure; but then, that's part of the reason I'm not an executive at the biggest dot.com in the world...

I think in this case, the copyright question comes into play if they are selling advertising next to the content. Shouldn't matter if they're making a profit as long as they're making even just a small amount of money.