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The intellectual property question of ownership of material submitted to social media sites is heating up as corporate acquisition talks for YouTube and other startups catch fire....
Interestingly, you don't own the rights to material you submit to video contests, or to YouTube, but you do own the rights to coding you do at Second Life.
The market for real goods created from the digital objects coded in virtual reality could be enormous in a virtual world like Second Life, where the creators own the rights to the objects that they make, Michael Buckbee told Wired.
Robin Good says of participatory sites like YouTube, MySpace: "While paying lip service to the democratic, free sharing of information, then, services like YouTube reserve the right to co-opt, edit, repackage and sell on the citizen produced media that they distribute. Likewise, sites such as MySpace gather information on their users to use in future marketing campaigns, or sell on to interested parties. The choice of which service you use to distribute your homemade productions can, then, have a huge impact on how they are accessed and who has control over them, not to mention the ways that they might be swamped in advertising, sidelined by sponsored content or used to promote products and services entirely beyond your control."
Good says the issue is corporate control of online media, but really, it's even bigger than that. The issue is reminiscent of the early days of recorded music, film and television, when artists signed contracts giving up their rights to the money earned from their creations. I'm constantly astounded at the quality work that people are willing to do for free in hopes of achieving a wide audience and the fame and fortune that can come with that (or not).
New media provides new tools that equal the playing field somewhat, allowing individuals to create remarkably professional videos and code, but the little guys still don't have access to legal advice to protect them from exploitation. Watch this one closely.
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Comments
so, the little guy that creates his/her own content doesn't own the rights to it and when a little guy posts protected material the site (YouTube) gets traffic that allows them to be sold for $1.6 Billion. Doesn't seem fair now does it? It seems that everyone but the person that generates the content (professional or not) is getting money out of this deal.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
Posted by: Eric Frenchman | 10.10.06
BL,
Thank you for sharing. I don't understand how YouTube et al work. I'm a words guy and my copyrighted material secures my ownership wherever I choose to share that material. I never give up my rights. How is it different with video? Do those who post on sites such as YouTube sign a waiver to their rights? And if they do, does that make the site owner the bad guy or the person who signs away their rights a willing participant?
Lewis
Posted by: Lewis Green | 10.10.06
Hi B.L.,
Provocative post. So why did Google cough up $1.6 billion for a property that two 20 somethings cooked up at a dinner party (pun intended) a couple of years ago, that has yet to turn a profit? Just curious, and interested in the "why" of this transaction.
Posted by: Claire Ratushny | 10.10.06
Hi Claire,
I was just interviewed by the AP about this. Here's what I said, in essence. Google is trying to expand it's ad inventory (basically, they make money off of advertising) and YouTube provides a great deal of ad inventory. Plus, this gives Google a strong foothold into the online video market.
Now, is this worth the money they paid? Only time will tell.
Posted by: Allen Weiss | 10.10.06
Among the more than 6,000 comments on the video message that YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen posted a video message about their acquisition by Google, was one that said "Bye-bye YouTube. I suppose now we'll see "Ads by Gooooogel" all over the friggin' place. And then you'll have to watch an ad before you can watch your iMovie flick. Not that I blame you for selling out for $750,000,000 each . . . . but it will never be the same now. Oh well, it was great while it lasted."
As for whether people realize that they give up their rights when they post to YouTube, etc, I'm sure most never read the small type.
And millions don't care because they believe that if a big enough audience likes what they post they will achieve fame and fortune. And that's been true for at least half a dozen people. :>)
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | 10.11.06
Hi B.L. & Allen,
All I know is that the issue of acquiring these new video sites has been likened to the dot.com boom in the business press. And we all know that the boom was followed by a very large dot.com bust. I laughed when I heard that Mark Cuban observed a few months ago that only an idiot would buy You Tube. Oy, vey!
Posted by: Claire Ratushny | 10.17.06