News: Media mogul Barry Diller has commented on the whole Viacom-copyright issue. I just wrote a lengthy post about YouTube’s intensifying copyright problems yesterday. Diller doesn’t think that any greater content restrictions will happen with video, but instead “everybody’s going to make everything available.” More from Investor’s Business Daily:
“Diller says such pricing and compensation issues eventually will be worked out and that online video content will be freely available. He says online video is such a potentially lucrative business that no one in the media industry wants to stop it. ‘Everybody’s going to make everything available’ when it comes to online video, he said.”
Analysis: This is exactly what I was talking about yesterday when I said video is here to stay. As Cisco CEO John Chambers said, video is the next “killer app.” That’s why many media companies want to get the piece of the action at YouTube, the leader in video–even while some complain about copyright issues. In the grand picture, even those media companies that complain about alleged copyright infringement on YouTube probably see greater financial benefit in the site (at least the potential) than any putative losses from infringement by third party users on YouTube. Diller’s comments are significant in backing the current “open” approach to video. He’s a smart businessman, so I think the smart money would be on his prediction.
