Viacom vs. Google: Who's The Daddy?

The key question in the Viacom v. GooTube war is who-needs-whom more?  The best way to answer this question is to study the percentage of "views" on YouTube that consist of Viacom (and other big media) content.  If the percentage is low, Viacom's hardball tactics will fail.  If the percentage is high, Google will probably have to make some major concessions. 

Importantly, the critical fact here is not the percentage of clips posted, but the percentage of clips viewed.  If Big Media content accounts for only 5% of the clips, but 95% of the views, then Google will need to have its attitude adjusted. 

The first data point suggesting that Big Media content does NOT account for anywhere near this percentage of views is that the folks at Google know exactly what the numbers are...and they are not morons.  If YouTube really needed Viacom's content, the GooTube folks would presumably be down in LA sucking up to Sumner and his fish.  Instead, they're acting the way someone holding a full-house does when bullied by a guy with three-of-a-kind.  (And remember: Google knows exactly what hand Viacom is holding; Viacom, meanwhile, is just guessing).  Is Google bluffing?  Could be.  But I think this is unlikely.

Second, Google has already struck distribution deals with several other big media companies and hundreds of small ones.  Big Media's best chance to create a command-and-control Internet media economy is to unite.  But Google has already done an excellent job of fragmenting the opposition.

Third, although I haven't yet seen detailed YouTube stream data (again, I'd be grateful if someone would pass it along), at least one external data source suggests that the Big Media percentage of online video views is nowhere near as high as many observers think.  A company called VidMeter tracks the top videos across all the top sites, and presents the results on both a "daily" and "all time" basis.  Based on a quick analysis of the top-200 all-time videos, I think it's likely that Viacom's content may actually represent a very small percentage of YouTube clips viewed.

One problem with such analyses (and with online video clips in general) is that it's often difficult to tell who owns the copyright of a particular clip, and because I don't spend much time getting familiar with Viacom content, I may be under-counting.  So let me say up front that my count is very much a back-of-the-envelope estimate and that, for all I know, VidMeter's methodology and counts are wildly inaccurate.  Please feel free to peruse the list yourself and weigh in.

VidMeter's Top 200 all-time videos range from the "Evolution of Dance," which has been viewed 54 million times, to an Anna Nicole Smith clip viewed 3 million times.  Of these Top 200, I did not see so much as a single clip that I was certain was Viacom content.  (The only Jon Stewart clip in the top 200 was his appearance on Crossfire, which I assume is Time Warner content). 

I saw plenty of music videos and movie trailers, which I hope the copyright owners aren't dumb enough to lock behind a license agreement, and I saw plenty of talking cats, lonelygirl-wannabes, and other predictable stuff.  I saw some FOX clips.  I saw a lot of mash-ups, which I assume (hope) are legal.  I saw a lot of stuff that obviously originated on TV and may or may not be licensed.   In short, I'm sure there's some Viacom content on that list, but if so, it didn't jump out at me.   

The upshot?  Based on a scan of the VidMeter list, I see nothing to change my opinion that, in this negotiation, Google is the Daddy.   

Thanks to Niki Scevak of Homethinking for suggesting Vidmeter.

Comments

[Bruce Hamm]

The essential point here - let's not forget - is not just what percentage of views is non Big Media...it is which content can be monetized. You can have all the user generated, prosumer content you want, but what matters is what you can sell and Google needs quality content to sell against "at this moment" as no market for auction based video advertising has emerged.

[Still Inside]

Is there an echo in here?

Once again, the percentage of content is absolutely irrelevant as the fight is over the overall YouTube model and Viacom could easily kill it.

See my previous post on this.

SI

[Michael Stone]

Henry,

Your point about which videos get views and which do not is spot on.

The point you're missing is that Google will have an extraordinaryly difficult time monetizing the "user gen" stuff. They need the quality videos to get massive numbers of plays. If they don't have unique video plays that rival search queries in terms of quality, they'll never turn YouTube into a multi-billion dollar revenue stream.

[TallTroll]

>> Viacom could easily kill it

SI, do you not understand the difference between a distributed P2P system that can be given falsely flagged content and rely on user idiocy to propagate it, and the Viacom board authorising excplictly criminal activty that would warrant jail time? If they start hacking YT servers, they lose, now and forever. I think it would actually destroy the company.

Despite what Big Media would like to believe, their days are numbered. Professionally produced content is all fine and dandy, but peoples attitudes to how IP "works" are changing. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what the lawmakers legislate, if a sufficiently large number of people flout copyright law, the law is dead. You can't prosecute one without prosecuting all, and you can't lock up 100 million US citizens for watching 6 month old "Comedy Central" clips.

Ah, but you can go after the enabling distributors, I hear you cry. Well, we have this thing called the "inter-net" now - it lets people in one country (and legal jurisdiction) access "com-put-ers" in other countries. That can make it hard for a US IP owner to pursue legal challenges, since what so outrages their US based legal team may even be perfectly legal in say, Uzbekistan.

The joke therefore, is that if Viacom somehow win this case, they lose. The YT idea won't die, it'll just move out of US jurisdiction, and Viacom (and the other Big Media IP owners) lose absolutely the last shred of control they have over any of it.

YT and its peers are the beginning of the end for the Big Media model, in it's entirety. The smart ones will adapt and move WITH the new distribution platforms, and ultimately make out like bandits, because they'll be able to put their expensively produced content in front of the right people, at the right time

[Still Inside]

If "big media's" days are numbered, then all creative activity's days are numbered. The Internet doesn't care about scale. If the "Big Boys" lose, so do all of the "little guys". 1,000,000 * 0 = 1 * 0. If you zero out IP value, you zero it out for everybody.

Except of course if there's a company in the middle making a lot of money off of people's stolen property.

Hey artists, great news! Google is actually a kind and gentle dictator and, if you ask nice, they might actually give you some money for your work. On their terms. If they feel like it. If you are huge enough to even get a meeting with them. For now. Oh and by the way, if you don't like their terms, they'll steal your stuff anyhow and give you nothing for it. That's ok though, since without copyright laws your work probably won't be attributed to you much longer anyhow.

What a wonderful world the freetards (and their profiteers) have in store for us...

For the record, the "hacking" I was talking about is perfectly legal and in practice on other networks by many companies trying to protect the hard work of their constituents. If YouTube is a free-for-all with no rules, then the lack of rules applies to everybody.

SI

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