Even though YouTube is drawing all the kids away from bloggging and into gawking, I like it. It is simple to use, provides me with access to most every video I can think of from my university days and even some sports events that I enjoy remembering. Its days, however, may be numbered:
Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record company, contends the wildly popular Web sites YouTube and MySpace are violating copyright laws by allowing users to post music videos and other content involving Universal artists. “We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars,” Universal Music CEO Doug Morris told investors Wednesday at a conference in Pasadena. “How we deal with these companies will be revealed shortly…bwa-haha” [Ed.: ok. I added the “…bwa-haha”.] Universal’s talks with YouTube Inc. have deteriorated and the recording giant is set to file a copyright infringement lawsuit against the video-sharing company if no agreement is reached by the end of the month, according to a person familiar with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the confidential nature of the negotiations.
Is anyone surprised? If I owned video that I received revenue from and found it was avaliable for free on the next website, I would be gutted as well. And while Napster was all about peer to peer sharing care of a bit of software, YouTube is centralized and therefore far more prone as a concept to being shut down. That is in addition to the question of its unclear business model and how the YouTubians make a buck.
Yet in celebration of what it is and what it soon will be was, I give you the Pretenders playing “Middle of the Road” live (song circa 1983/84, concert much later):