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Mike-O-Matic on GooTube and The Power of Branding

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mouser:
Another clear smart essay by Mike Arace.  His Blog is a daily read for me.

By the way, this kind of stuff, where marketing and brand name recognition dominate decisions and success, depresses the hell out of me and makes me wonder if there isn't a better way to run a world.

Some people have asked why Google would purchase the service when they had their own well-received competitor, Google Video. Others wonder how they could justify a $1.6 billion pricetag for a website with no substantial revenue model and huge copyright violation concerns right around the corner.
The answer is simple: branding.
...
I always looked at websites based on their technical merit.
...
It doesn’t even matter if they are technically better anymore. They own the mental associations that matter, and it will take a long, long time to change that.
From a competitive standpoint, Google realized that trying to hold back the tide with Google Video wasn’t getting them what they wanted. So they wrote a check.

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http://mikeomatic.net/?p=97

app103:
What people don't realize is that everything uploaded to YouTube, the uploader has agreed to give certain rights to YouTube and any company that might buy them out in the future...certain rights...among them to reproduce, distribute, make derivative works from your content, and profit from it... without ever compensating you for it.

That means, for example, that a small time independent band can make a music video and upload it...and YouTube can take the music out of it and sell the rights to use it to some company and the band's song could end up being used in a commercial for hemorrhoid cream.

YouTube, or any company that buys YouTube (in this case, Google) would be the sole entity to profit from this. The band would become famous for their one-hit advertising wonder...but never receive a dime for it.

Or even worse if something like this were to happen:

An artist creates and uploads a short animation featuring a really cute bird with a coin. YouTube sublicenses derivative works based on it to Disney, which makes a full length feature movie based on the bird character and makes billions on it. Then they make even more off the merchandising, the tv series, dvd's, etc. The bird becomes as well known as Donald Duck.

YouTube gets their cut. The original artist gets nothing, except maybe a mention in the credits, if he is lucky.

Is it fair? no

Is it legal? Yes, because they AGREED to it when they uploaded the video. Their agreement says "exploit me" all over it.

Be really careful when you agree to things...make sure you know what you are getting yourself into.

For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successor's) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. -http://www.youtube.com/t/terms
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nudone:
nightmare. :o

JavaJones:
I'm with you mouser. It's sad that branding and recognition are everything. This quote says it all It doesn’t even matter if they are technically better anymore. They own the mental associations that matter, and it will take a long, long time to change that.
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But that's the way the world works, and hey isn't a good part of that due to human nature? I mean it's the interaction of the understanding of marketing and modern technologies, but the reason it works is human nature.

So how do you change that? Do you mandate that marketing must be kept within certain boundaries? Well, we already do that to some degree (laws about libel, truth in advertising, and especially certain more regulated industries like supplements and food). So maybe that's an answer. But I don't really like legislation and eventual resulting litigation as an answer to anything unless absolutely necessary.

I don't see a clear way out besides educating people I guess. But that hasn't seem to work so far. Everyone has just gotten used to the marketing we had but remains susceptible to new forms of it, even as they remain similar to the old. Novelty has high appeal. And ultimately most of it appeals to certain primal reactions we have which will be difficult or impossible to get rid of even with years and years of learning and "evolution".

- Oshyan

mouser:
yeah i think it is human nature.
i try to tell myself when i go shopping - don't believe the marketing hype - don't get affected purely by brand name recognition.

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