Google: Copyright Lawsuits?

Article: YouTube's New Deep Pockets

This article is from BusinessWeek Online and discusses Google's new acquisition. Google has recently purchased YouTube for a whooping $1.65 billion in stock. YouTube is a growing website which allows users and member to exchange and view online videos. According to the author of the article, Catherine Holahan, YouTube has become one of the most visited web sites on the Web in a small timeframe of a year and a half. Google executives viewed this opportunity as a way to become more diversified and a "global media powerhouse".


The biggest concern for Google is copyright infringement lawsuits. The biggest lawsuits would come from media companies. The big deal is instead of YouTube being a privately owned company it is now owned by a huge moneymaking machine, Google. So YouTube decided to deal with these types of problems before the announcement of the buyout. The "YouTube executives said they had struck content deals with CBS, Universal Music Group, and Sony BMG." This allows YouTube to circulate approved copyrighted material from its partners. The price of these deals is a share of the advertising revenue.

This leads to the question, "How will YouTube and Google handle copyrighted material in the future?". One of YouTube's policies is that the company will remove copyrighted clips once they are alerted about their existence. Not only that, but the company has also established a 10 minute limit to videos. This is in hopes to prevent users from uploading entire television episodes and movies onto YouTube. Currently, YouTube is in the process of trying to implement technology, which would allow the company to "fingerprint" and block copyrighted material so it never makes it online.

Unfortunately for Google, the threat of copyright lawsuits will always remain. The challenge for Google will be to balance its threats (lawsuits) with its opportunities (estimated advertising income). Taking too many precaution, rules, and delays in uploading content for users could potentially cause YouTube's current audience to lose appeal. After all, freedom to exchange videos and content is why YouTube has become so successful and attract the millions of users it currently holds.

Online Gambling: Legal?

The article: Despite Crackdown, Online Gamblers Aren't Ready to Fold

The Wall Street Journal posted this article on October 3, 2006. The article addresses online gambling in the United States and whether or not it will remain legal.

According to the article, Congress passed ports legislation in the end of September which included a provision that would forbid Internet casino companies from accepting US financial transactions. In other words, US banks and credit card companies could no longer process payments meant for online gambling.

Currently the United States accounts for 76% of the revenue for the world's biggest online-gambling company, PartyGaming. Other online-gambling companies, which would suffer a loss if the act were signed, are 888 Holdings (which the US generates about half of their revenue) and Sportingbet, both based out of the U.K.

But can this piece of legislation really stop online gambling? According to industry experts the US cannot stop online gambling completely. One of the reasons is due to the private companies who use intermediaries such as Neteller.com. These intermediaries are the companies which transfer money from a bank account to online for a fee. Though this may put a temporary halt to the existing intermediary companies more are likely to spring up in order to compensate and gain market share.

For some gamblers this is means that their leisure activity has been put to rest or is now regulated. For others, they cannotfathomm the thought of online gambling being illegal considering they make their living off of online gambling.
For me, regulating instead of banning online gambling seems more feasible. Instead of imposing compliance costs on financial institutions and banks, it seems it would be more cost effective to place regulations on the process or on the amount of US transactions flowing to foreign online gambling companies.