As Mike Masnick at TechDirt points out, that’s a far-sight better than being jailed for it. He writes:

[I]t’s not clear why ISPs are now doing the bidding of the entertainment industry, and why casual, non-commercial file sharing deserves punishment as serious as losing your internet access completely. About the only "good" thing you can say about this new proposal is that at least it doesn’t involve throwing people into jail for casual file sharing.  

In Francophilic Quebec, the entertainment industry is also busy trying to shut down torrents. Their main target, because it was the only one that provided a name and address, is QuebecTorrent.

The legal departments of some of the largest players in the industry  — Sony BMG Music Canada, Universal Music Canada and EMI Group Canada – are suing Quebec Torrent and are seeking a court injunction to shut down the site. P2P fans fear such a court-approved action will provide the necessary legal precedent for the recording industry to shut other Canadian sites down as well.

But, as often is the case, the recording industry is casting a rather wide net. QuebecTorrent complains that the plaintiffs’ "vision of what constitutes a Peer to Peer website is rather limited. They present Peer to Peer and QuebecTorrent solely as pirates that deliberately infringe upon copyrights and are harmful to the music industry."

And finally, back in the US, entertainment and Internet mogul Mark Cuban, who ironically has invested in P2P companies in the past, is calling for the "quick death" of P2P via a tiered Internet service.

Taking the traditional telco and cable stance against Internet "freeloaders," Cuban called for cable companies to "charge a premium to those users who want to act as a seed and relay for P2P traffic." Doing so, he argues, will speed up cable connections.

Ryan Paul at Ars Technica disagrees:

[W]hat, exactly, is wrong with users saturating their connections? They are, after all, paying for that connectivity, and most ISPs are keen to market their higher-cost, higher-speed services. Dictating how bandwidth can be used will not make bandwidth any faster or cheaper, nor will attempting to play favorites with what kind of Internet traffic is legit or not.

But all three of these examples raise very important questions as to the amount of power we’re willing to grant ISPs to monitor what we do on the Internet and to report to "governing" authorities.

By "governing" authorities, I mean every multi-billion dollar corporation actually in charge of running things, not the band of rats in government now. Just ask Trent Lott and Dennis Hastert. They know how it works.

Mark Cuban Cites Trust As Facebook Edge

Cuban came away impressed with Facebook after talking with the company about licensing its API. On an Internet with countless fake identities populating sites, blogs, newsgroups, forums, etc, he wrote on Blog Maverick that Facebook works at tossing people who are not who they claim to be.

“This simple differentiation makes the membership base of Facebook far more valuable than any other social network,” said Cuban.

He also called his Facebook profile, “the most comprehensive, self maintained database record about me on the internet or probably anywhere. Access to that information times the however many tens of millions of Facebook active users is worth a lot of money.”

Cuban won’t be the one developing something to take advantage of the Facebook API. He has suggested to a contact at Yahoo that they license and build upon it, citing the improved relevance of search and advertising results it could give to individual users.

He might give Facebook a little too much credit for its faux identity scrubbing activities. There are nine Mark Cubans, and a Mark Cubano, on Facebook now. Not all of them may be authentic.

YouTube Lawsuit Gains More Plaintiffs

There is an important point to accusations made by the English Premier League and all of the new parties joining a lawsuit against YouTube. The word ‘encouraging’ has been carefully chosen to describe YouTube’s role in copyright infringement.

As Reuters noted the addition of the National Music Publishers’ Association, the Finnish Football League, and ‘Ishmael’ author Daniel Quinn add their names to the plaintiff list, we see a decision ultimately coming down to a court’s determination of the encouragement, or lack thereof, of copyright infringement.

Encouragement gains importance thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in MGM v Grokster. The justices concluded the defendants encouraged use of their service as a way to get around copyright laws to share work.

Google and YouTube have long held the position that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects their operation. When a content owner complains of something wrongly placed on YouTube, the service takes it down.

The court will have to decide if YouTube’s encouragement of sharing video is tantamount to saying, “go ahead and violate someone’s copyright.” Mark Cuban has long believed this, as do the plaintiffs in this suit.

If a judge believes this, we can’t see how YouTube or any video site could continue to allow any content uploading without checking every single posting. That possibility centers on how the court interprets encouragement to use the service.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass), chair of the committee and sponsor of pro-Net Neutrality legislation, videoed the meeting, an historical first, and put up the video on YouTube.  At another time, Markey interviewed Hurley one-on-one about his sudden success, his hopes for YouTube, and what it’s like be goofy and a billionaire.

Okay, so the last question never happened.

In a video also posted on YouTube, Hurley expressed his desire that YouTube become the Internet’s Town Hall, and a bastion of democracy. Check out the video for more back-patting, ego-stroking, and grandiose delirium.

After all, getting your own audience in front of United States lawmakers, and your behind smooched by a Congressman – on video no less – is bound to inspire some dreamy grandiosity.

It wasn’t all spits and giggles for Hurley though. Cuban and others were present at the committee hearing to rain on his parade a little. Shortly after Markey’s introduction, Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-NJ) pressed the young executive about YouTube’s lax copyright enforcement.

Hurley offered up a DMCA defense, to which Cuban let out a terse balderdash! Cuban accused YouTube of ignoring infringements by hiding under a DMCA blanket.

On his blog, Cuban continued the criticism:

Which puts Youtube in a position of acting just like your typical big market radio station or music radio network.

Youtube immediately went from a small, but interesting community for its original content, to basically being just like Clear Channel. Responsible for programming its different "formats" with the "best" possible content that creates the greatest number of eyeballs and maximizes advertising revenue. Its big business, just like Clear Channel

Which leads to the question of who is going to do something about it? Who is going to take the responsibility of protecting that content that Youtube is paying for?

He ends sentences with prepositions because billionaires can do that, and he also doesn’t think any of the pervasive Net Neutrality fears will pan out, because billionaires can think outside the bandwidth. Cuban’s touted fiber as the key to mooting Net Neutrality points as the virtual world evolves beyond coaxial cable and telephone wires.

Both ArsTechnica and CNet have their own creative coverage of Mr. Hurley’s trip to Washington, be sure to check them out too.

Can’t Touch This: Yahoo, Comcast, And Video

It’s a bigger deal than the humble statement issued by Yahoo let on to readers. Yahoo gets an exclusive multi-year deal to deliver ads on Comcast.net, and Comcast gets the benefit of Yahoo’s branded advertising experience.

It’s almost enough to make YHOO shareholders forget about the $71.66 million pay package CEO Terry Semel will receive from the company, along with his $1 salary.

Mark Cuban called it the deal of the year, heady praise for an online deal in the wake of Google’s $3.2 billion DoubleClick purchase.

"The one thing that Google doesn’t have is a contained network. Comcast does," Cuban wrote. "The implications are significant."

In Cuban’s opinion, it isn’t an Internet deal, but a non-Internet deal, since Comcast delivers its content via cable to its private network of customers. Comcast customers also have set-top boxes, from which the company can pull in plenty of customer data.

"The two companies can work together to leverage customer data (within privacy limits) to deliver ads that are not only personalized, but also can evolve to be "over the top" of the set top box," said Cuban.

High-quality video means high-quality video ads. No weird pixellations a la YouTube or other online video providers. If it plays out as Cuban predicted, he thinks Google and Microsoft will have to follow the path set by Yahoo and Comcast.

To do that, it seems those companies would need private networks where, like Comcast, they can control and monitor the quality of service. Google could partner with Time Warner Cable, or even fulfill the dream of many a tech pundit by launching a fully-owned private network.

How about Google Network over power lines? The company has invested in broadband over power line technology. In that case, one could forget about cable networks. Google would be in the infrastructure of any building that can power a nightlight, should BPL truly develop.

But for now, Yahoo’s deal on Comcast’s private network is one Microsoft and Google can’t touch.

The first is explained by “maverick” entrepreneur Mark Cuban…

For the first time, an advertising monetization platform, such as Yahoo’s Panama, can be integrated into a NON internet video platform. When Comcast serves video from comcast.net to its own high speed data customers, those are NOT internet customers. They are private network subscribers…in short, Yahoo and Comcast can start working together to develop video content and ad platforms that Google can’t touch.

It’s also another blow to the chances that Comcast will renew their search advertising partnership with Google.

Comments

Mike Arrington, meanwhile, seems more than a little bemused to be the spark for this little journalistic contretemps, which apparently started with some interviews for a story involving him, and figures Wired probably won’t do the story now. And Wired makes fun of the whole “ironic” thing in a blog post, pointing out that it plans to get some pneumatic tubes installed so it can be more hip. Some people, including James Robertson and Dan Gillmor, don’t think Wired’s response was too funny.

Funny or not, the thing I can’t get my head around is why the writer didn’t want to do an email interview. I love it when people want to do email interviews, because it’s a lot faster, and you know you’re going to get what you want without as much potential for misunderstanding . And I can see why certain people — like Mark Cuban, for example — like to do it that way, so that they don’t have their words twisted (yes, that occasionally happens in journalism).

Ian Betteridge makes a good point in his post, which is that a phone interview can produce something different than an email interview because the discussion can go in different directions. And that is definitely true. But there’s a lot to be said for the speed and accuracy that email brings too.

Update:

The Wired writer, Fred Vogelstein, has responded to Jason and the kerfuffle (or is it a brouhaha?) on the Epicenter blog, and has posted the email trail with Calacanis. Ironically, he says that he doesn’t do email interviews because there’s too much room for interpretation — but he agreed to call Jason and tape the interview and then send him the file. Jason’s reaction is here.

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But seriously, is anyone surprised by this? I’m willing to admit that Viacom might have a point about a few things, such as the copies of copyrighted material that pop up right after a clip is taken down, or the inability to search for more than 1,000 clips, etc. But those are really technicalities and Viacom knows it. It doesn’t even seem to be trying to make a real case under the DMCA.

I still think that the lawsuit — which Cynthia Brumfield at IPDemocracy correctly describes as “puffy and fluffy” — is really just another case of negotiation by other means, just like the notice and takedown letter about the 100,000 clips. I would also agree with Henry “I used to be a famous Wall Street analyst” Blodget that it is unlikely to be successful.

I also think that, regardless of the merits of the case (which are not nearly as strong as Viacom’s blustering press release implies) my friend Paul Kedrosky is right, and this lawsuit is fundamentally just dumb. Not necessarily wrong in a legal sense — but still dumb.

Comments

Viacom Sues Google, YouTube

That the speculation can now be put to rest. Today, Viacom has filed suit against Google and YouTube for $1 billion dollars.

In its official statement regarding the suit, Viacom outlines the reasons behind the commencement of legal action:

YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google. Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws.

In fact, YouTube’s strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site, thus generating significant traffic and revenues for itself while shifting the entire burden — and high cost — of monitoring YouTube onto the victims of its infringement.

Critics of Google’s decision to buy YouTube in October 2006 predicted the purchase would create an enormous legal liability for the Google. Mark Cuban’s inevitable ‘I told you so’ post should be entertaining if nothing else. Even though Google reportedly has over $11 billion in cash lying around, Viacom’s asking price for damages still represents a substantial chunk of change.

Google has issued the following response:

"We have not received the lawsuit but are confident that YouTube has  respected the legal rights of copyright holders  and believe the courts  will agree.

YouTube is great for users and offers real opportunities to rights holders: the opportunity to interact with users; to promote their  content to a young and growing audience; and to tap into the online advertising market.

We will certainly not let this suit become a  distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube 
and its ability to attract more users, more traffic and build a stronger  community."

 So, early word out of Google basically contends that they are not in violation of copyright laws, Viacom can ‘go fish’, and the plan seems to be business as usual for YouTube.  This one promises to be interesting.  

Nearly six months later, however, YouTube’s sparkle is beginning to fade amid the copyright complaints that are plaguing Google’s legal department.

Mark Cuban, among others, predicted that the acquisition of the popular video-sharing sight would be a legal nightmare for Google, and while the implications of the partnership may not be leading to an epic downfall for the search giant, the fact remains that protecting copyright lingers as the most significant obstacle to monetizing YouTube.

When Google bought YouTube, the company promised that technology to prevent copyrighting material from being uploaded would be in place by the end of the year. January has come and gone, and YouTube remains without any such technology.

Seeking to appease video content producers, Google is promising that copyright protection technology for YouTube is close at hand.

"We are definitely committed to (offering copyright protection technologies)," Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in an interview with Reuters. "It is one of the company’s highest priorities," he said.

"We just reviewed that (issue) about an hour ago," Schmidt continued. "It is going to roll out very soon … It is not far away."

For both Google and YouTube’s sake, the technology had better not be too far away. Already both Viacom and CBS have backed out of content agreements with YouTube, while competitors such as Joost and MSN Soapbox eagerly await the opportunity to benefit by inking deals with major media outlets that are unhappy with YouTube.

All is not lost, however, as the BBC is looking to reach an agreement for the distribution of its content on YouTube.

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