Why We Hate Viacom Or Something

Pete Cashmore, writing for Mashable, asserts the following about the recent Viacom v. YouTube/Google lawsuit:

You either hate Viacom or you don’t. It’s that simple. We’re all trying to make factual arguments about whether YouTube really was stomping recklessly on copyright law, but in the end your reaction is a gut instinct, rather than a serious attempt at debate. We hate Viacom, the record companies and “old media” because they’re slow, because they litigate rather than innovate and - let’s admit it - because they’re taking away our access to oodles of free content. We’re spinning furiously…and just like Fox News, the blogosphere is preaching to the converted.

They make the point, for instance, that YouTube purposely turned a blind eye to copyrighted clips in the early days because those would help them grow.

Here is what I have to say, in brief, because it is late:

Perhaps. But Viacom sure waited a long time themselves to deal with this. Just long enough, say, for suing Google/YouTube to be profitable to them, perhaps.

It’s clear, I think, that what’s at stake here isn’t the old vs. the new, or big vs. little, but one company becoming frustrated that licensing negotiations weren’t going as planned and trying to force the other to concede. Legality aside (because I’m not qualified to interpret the application of the DCMA to the particulars of this case any more than 99.9% of the blogosphere), this suit is a lot like Cisco v. Apple (”Hey, you’re popular, let’s work together…you don’t want to at that price?…Fine! We’ll MAKE you!”).

We back Google not because they’re small (they are definitely not small), or are even sticking up for us (because the whole point of Google’s defense is that WE are responsible, not them, after all), but because copyright is broken, because “Old Media” isn’t producing content we feel justified “paying” for, and because we’re afraid they will come after us - levying fines for our hard work giving them free advertising.

Check out the rest of the post on Mashable here.