Monday, May 21, 2007

Copyright battle to escalate

In case you hadn't heard, everyone's friends over at The Pirate Bay are starting a Youtube competitor...streaming video, and you KNOW they're not going to take down any copyrighted work. The lawyers will steadily increase their retainer size, though my question remains: how many torrents of copyrighted material have they been able to take down from The Pirate Bay?

Answer: ZERO!

I have no idea when the site will be up, but I'm willing to bet money that it blows youtube out of the water...they're starting with a knowledgeable installed userbase, which should give them a definite advantage.

This will lead to an interesting love triangle between the MPAA, GooTube, and TPB. MPAA sends cease-and-desists to Youtube, Google complies. TPB does not comply. Youtube loses viewership to TPB - what will Google do? Demand that the MPAA go after them more rigorously? Or does the MPAA wake up and realize there is little they can do about pirated content and seek alternative revenue streams from that content? Yeah right...

EDIT: The Pirate Bay folks are also coming out with another website called Playble. Basically, you download all the music that you want for free, artists also sign up, and you can pay whoever you want directly. Seriously. If I could invest in the Pirate Bay, I would. They're going to change the landscape of digital distribution...intellectual property and copyright laws will have to adjust to THEM, not the other way around...

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