NBC Still Booming on YouTube: Google Lawsuit Next?
Liz Gannes, NewTeeVee/GigaOm, labels the entertainment conglomerate “hot-tempered,” Mike Masnick, TechDirt, lobs the “hate” word, knowingly declaring that NBC will “piss off more (non-paying) fans,” and Om Malik asserts that when “big media” ignores YouTube in favor of their own profitable (and legal) business models, they not only reveal themselves as retrograde “inward looking” old media, but are “lining up against YouTube and Google” to boot!
Malik is on the eve of his first real-world conference, which he hails as “helping the online video industry’s evolution,” but GigaOm has been rooting for NBC Universal, and subsequently News Corp, to fail in their own (rather than on behalf of Google’s YouTube) joint try at “the Web video revolution.”
Before Malik’s conference date neared, the GigaOm homepage gleefully counted down to a Malik assumed NewCo (now Hulu.com) “wreck,” as the bright red graphic illustrates. NBC Universal is NOT scheduled to speak at the Malik conference.
Malik, et al, are off the mark.
Since June, I have reported and anlayzed the impending NBC-Universal/News Corp. joint venture following first-hand presentations and Q & A with top NBC Universal execs at diverse media and tech conferences in Manhattan. SEE: NBC: Millions in Upfront Video Ad Sales andWho Needs YouTube: Good NBC, ABC Stuff Free AND Legal!
In NBC on Why Hulu.com IS a YouTube Killer: OMMA Report last month I cited a confident George Kliavkoff, NBC Universal’s Chief Digitlal Officer, in laying out an intelligent Hulu.com business model strategy based on the premise that “quality” always wins out.
I also asked Kliavkoff point blank about NBC’s intentions with YouTube (see NBC’s Defense Against YouTube IP Abuse? Carrot, NOT Stick: OMMA Report). Here is the exchange:
BOGATIN: “You seem to have twice indicated NBC’s unhappiness with Google’s DMCA business model. Isn’t it time for NBC to give Viacom some real support by also suing YouTube for copyright infringement?”
KLIAVKOFF responded that NBC belives in IP “carrots, not sticks,” without seizing the opportunity to point out to his Google Media co-panelist, Eileen Naughton, what it is that NBC wants YouTube to do!
NBC had been stradling the YouTube copyright infringement fence for more than a year, playing a good cop, bad cop routine designed at maximizing “free” YouTube promotion for NBC content while at the same time publicly needling Google with pointed anti-YouTube business model commentary and serving as a supportive “friend” in YouTube copyright lawsuits brought by others.
To date, NBC can not bring itself to go all out against YouTube, as Viacom has. Perhaps that day is nearing though, as the NBC YouTube “channel” is now history.
The NBC YouTube problem lives on, of course, due to the Google DMCA fueled copyright content should be free for the taking, as long as Google can profit from it, “business model.”
In Google To World: Give YouTube Your Videos, NOW! I point out Google’s latest “anti-copyright infringement” YouTube charade.
ALSO: How Google Library Hamstrings Librarians: Book Search (not so) Fine Print and Click Forensics CEO: Click Fraud Hits 28% for Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network
PLUS: Google Nielsen TV Ads STILL Blurry: NOT AdWords for Television