Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Last week, a US court heard that YouTube "hoped" to have its long awaited copyrighted content filtering system by September, according to an Associated Press report. The key questions are will Google once again fudge its self imposed deadline and, more importantly, could YouTube survive with such a system in place.
Last year, YouTube was supposed to implement a
copyright filtering system by the end of the year. Then early this year
a rumour surfaced that YouTube would license content filtering
technology from Audible Magic. Then in April, Google CEO Eric Schmidt
said YouTube would soon release a copyright filtering system soon.
Now once again Google, under attack from a triad of content producers
lead by media giant Viacom, is seeking to assure the US authorities
that it is doing its best to implement technology that will curb the
excesses of its copyright infringing posters. Out of the other side of
its mouth, however, Google continues to invoke the Digital Millenium
Copyright Act (DMCA), with which it says YouTube has always complied.
The issue is of course that the DMCA is one the main enablers of
YouTube's growth into what it is today. It is also from a major content
provider's point of view totally unworkable for a site like YouTube
which has so many video clips on its site and new ones posted every day.
YouTube complies with the DMCA and takes down infringing videos when
copyright holders complain. However, copyright infringers often simply
re-post the same videos again later. For content providers it takes
considerable resources to keep track of videos illegally posted to
YouTube. Hence, the legal suit launched by Viacom and others, including
the English Premier League.
Regardless of the outcome of the court case, an issue for YouTube and
its owner Google is whether putting copyright fingerprinting technology
in place, could YouTube survive without all those illegal posts of
episodes of Lost and music videos? Is YouTube stalling because its
owners know it can't?
Interesting questions to be sure. However, looking at the number of
times legally posted videos that have made it to home page have been
viewed suggests that YouTube is not just a refuge for copyright
infringing content posters and viewers.
The argument may continue to rage but the attraction of YouTube as a
site to easily post amateur and semi-professional videos, as well as a
site to show off legal copyrighted videos from major content providers
who have struck deals with YouTube, will ensure its survival and
prosperity. For Viacom and others, they will realize sooner or later
that YouTube is a killer app and it's better to join them rather than
spend money and resources trying to lick them.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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