Summary
The popular online video-sharing site, YouTube, will be pairing up with Time Warner Inc. and The Walt Disney Co to test a video recognition technology. Youtube owner, Google Inc., was previously sued by Viacom Inc. for more than $1 billion; Viacom Inc. complained that YouTube hasn't done enough to prevent its users from posting up "thousands of copyright clips" to the site. Most of the videos on YouTube are homegrown, copyright content from partners such as CBS and NBC also attract viewers. Some of these partner companies don't like how people are uploading their material and YouTube is trying to resolve this problem. "Protecting those relationships is key for online video." Youtube has tried to help this problem by negotiating with uploaders to remove the copyright content or to purchase a license. YouTube can track down these uploaders by using audio recognition technology and a similar video fingerprint technology. Google found this technology and bought it for $1.65 billion in October.
Connection
This topic is related to Chapter four of the textbook because Chapter four mainly focuses on revenue recognition. YouTube is literally paying people to post up videos. If you post up a video, and it has a certain number of views, YouTube would pay you. Anybody can do it, as long as it attracts viewers, they'll get paid. Some users use the money that they earn to buy new equipment for new videos, others use the money to donate to charities; Some people actually earn a living posting up videos on YouTube! Obviously, there is no cash-to-cash cycle, no acquisition of inventory, no selling activity, no delivery of product, and no warranty service. There is a collection of money when the video has enough views.
Reflection
If NBC and CBS is not happy with people uploading their material, they should make their own account and upload it themselves. This way, nobody would make money off them, and YouTube users would be able to watch episodes they missed on TV. Personally, I don't go on YouTube to watch TV episodes, I only go on to watch music videos and other random clips. There are many other sites that you can watch online TV, YouTube is not the best for that. Even though I don't make videos of my own, I like the idea of YouTube paying uploaders to upload videos; I think this would encourage user to upload videos. I think it's insane how much Google would do to prevent pirated material on their site; I can't believe they spent $1.65 billion just for "video fingerprinting technology."
