Tuesday, 2 January 2007

YouTube

YouTube is a popular free video sharing Web site which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. Founded in February 2005 by three employees of PayPal, the San Bruno-based service utilizes Adobe Flash technology to display video. The wide variety of site content includes movie and TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging. Currently staffed by 67 employees, the company was named TIME magazine's "Invention of the Year" for 2006. In October 2006, Google, Inc., announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for $1.65 billion USD in Google's stock, the deal closed on 13 November 2006.
Accessibility
On YouTube: Users may submit videos in several common-file formats (such as .mpeg and .avi). YouTube automatically converts them to Flash Video (with extension .flv) and makes them available for online viewing. Flash Video is a popular video format among large hosting sites due to its wide compatibility.

Outside YouTube: Each video is accompanied by the full HTML markup for linking to it and/or embedding it within another page; a small addition to the markup for the latter will make the video autoplay when the page is accessed. These simple cut-and-paste options are popular particularly with users of social/networking sites. Poor experiences have however been cited by members of such sites, where autoplaying embedded YouTube videos has been reported to slow down page loading time or even to cause browsers to crash.

General Concerns: Videos can be downloaded off YouTube's website and viewed offline with various video player applications; however, this may be a violation of copyright.
Download Quality: With the update to Flash G.U.I (Graphic User Interface) file formats, YouTube has had problems with videos loading altogether on the Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox web browsers. No news has been given for when this will be repaired
Index sites: Recently many sites had started to bloom while offering an index service, which arranges the content on YouTube by relativity, i.e. links arranged by order of seasons and episodes of a certain show. Some of the sites, such as TvLinks or the recently shut-down Daily-Episodes, gather around them a rather large community of users, which make requests and report bad links.

http://www.youtube.com/


On YouTube: Users may submit videos in several common-file formats. YouTube automatically converts them to the H.263 variant of Flash Video (with extension .flv) and makes them available for online viewing. Flash Video is a popular video format among large hosting sites due to its wide compatibility.
Outside YouTube: Each video is accompanied by the full HTML markup for linking to it and/or embedding it within another page; a small addition to the markup for the latter will make the video autoplay when the page is accessed. These simple cut-and-paste options are popular particularly with users of social/networking sites. Poor experiences have however been cited by members of such sites, where autoplaying embedded YouTube videos has been reported to slow down page loading time or even to cause browsers to crash.
Downloading videos: YouTube itself does not make it easy to download and save videos for offline viewing or editing, but several third-party applications, browser extensions (e.g. the UnPlug and VideoDownloader Firefox extensions) and web sites (SaveTube, VideoDL, KeepVid, ClipNabber, Javimoya ) exist for that purpose.
Index sites: Recently many sites had started to bloom while offering an index service, which arrange the content on YouTube by relativity, ie links arranged by order of seasons and episodes of a certain show. Some of the sites, such as TVLinks, NetworkOne Australia, and WikiRemote which gather around them a rather large community of users, which make requests and report bad links.

ISSUES

Violence
On their 6:30 PM bulletin on June 1, 2006, ITV News in the UK reported that YouTube and sites like it were encouraging violence and bullying amongst teenagers, who were filming fights on their mobile phones and then uploading them to YouTube. While the site provides a function for reporting excessively violent videos, the news report stated that communication with the company was difficult.

Domain name problem
YouTube's immense success has unintentionally affected the business for an American company, Universal Tube and Rollerform Equipment Corp., whose website, http://www.utube.com, has frequently been shut down by extremely high numbers of visitors unsure about the spelling of YouTube's domain name. At the beginning of November 2006, Universal Tube filed suit in federal court against YouTube.
Utube, based out of Perrysburg, Ohio, has requested as part of their suit that the youtube.com domain be transferred to them.

Banning
On December 3, 2006 Iran blocked YouTube and several other sites in an attempt to impede "corrupting" foreign films and music.

COPY RIGHT


YouTube policy does not allow content to be uploaded by anyone not permitted by United States copyright law to do so, and the company frequently removes uploaded infringing content. Nonetheless, a large amount of it continues to be uploaded. Generally, unless the copyright holder reports them, YouTube only discovers these videos via indications within the YouTube community through self-policing. The primary way in which YouTube identifies the content of a video is through the search terms that uploaders associate with clips. Some users have taken to creating alternative words as search terms to be entered when uploading specific type of files (similar to the deliberate misspelling of band names on MP3 filesharing networks). For a short time, members could also report one another. The service offers a flagging feature, intended as a means for reporting questionable content, including that which might constitute copyright infringement. However, the feature can be susceptible to abuse; for a time, some users were flagging other users' original content for copyright violations, purely out of spite. YouTube proceeded to remove copyright infringement from the list of offenses flaggable by members.
On October 5, 2006 the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) had their copyright complaints regarding Japanese media on YouTube finalized. Thousands of media from popular Japanese artists (such as Tokyo Jihen and various other music including Jpop) were removed.
When CBS and Universal Music Group signed agreements to provide content to YouTube on October 9, they also announced that they would use new technology that will help them find copyrighted material and remove it.
TV journalist Robert Tur filed the first lawsuit against the company in summer 2006, alleging copyright infringement for hosting a number of famous news clips without permission. The case has yet to be resolved.
On November 9th, 2006, Artie Lange said his lawyer was in talks with YouTube, after finding his entire DVD, It's the Whiskey Talking, available for free on their site. Artie said he will either demand money from them, or else he will sue.
Content owners are not just targeting YouTube for copyright infringements on the site, but they are also targeting third party websites that link to infringing content on YouTube and other video sharing sites. For example QuickSilverScreen vs. Fox Daily Episodes vs. Fox and Columbia vs. Slashfilm. The liability of linking remains a grey area with cases for and against. The law in the US currently leans towards website owners being liable for infringing links although they are often protected by the DMCA providing they take down infringing content when issued with a takedown notice. However, a recent court ruling in the US found Google not to be liable for linking to infringing content.

POSSIBLE TO CONTROL

IMPACT FOR THE GOVERNMENT

CONTROL OVER ITS USE

Synergy

How a media institution tries to use its various products to sell one another (e.g. film and soundtrack and video game, etc.)

Personalisation

Enjoying a personalised media experience through your laptop, mobile, Yahoo page and by setting favourites in your free digibox, Sky digital, etc.

Connectivity

The ability for technology to connect to the internet.


Trojan horse

Getting one type of technology into the home via another and thus generating consumer interest (for instance DVD via PS2).

Hegemony

To possess hegemony means that a producer’s ideas or products dominate a particular market, audience or consumers. For instance, Apple dominates the MP3 player market.

Democratisation

Wider availability of media technology through cheaper prices, libraries, convergence, etc..