05 September 2011
Gordon Gecko Gets to YouTube
Unfortunately, YouTube/Google has decided to prevent anyone from downloading any videos from its site. When I first began using DARPA, internet's predecessor, in the 1970s, the purpose of free communication media was the betterment of everyone through sharing among academics, not just those who could afford the time and money to purchase a book, attend a convention or write a letter using distribution lists that were wasting paper, postage and time.
For the past several years, YouTube functioned in the same manner, i.e., without boundaries, enabling millions of people to expand their knowledge of the world beyond what television and films allow. As of Saturday, anyone trying to compile a video database using downloaded YouTube videos is out of luck. Further, trying to find the content owner presents quite a challenge on a public media forum that suddenly decides that downloading equals stealing of intellectual property. No one forced individuals to upload any videos, so it seems obvious that anyone wanting to protect copyrighted material would not upload it to YouTube. Are subscriptions for full access to Wikipedia next?
Of course, there probably is some stolen content in some of the videos uploaded to YouTube, but to banish downloading from YouTube seems a bit late in the property protection game.
Many videos are advertising for subscription site owners, for movie trailers and other vendors who haven't thought how Google might react to their complaints that "their" copyrighted media was being stolen off of YouTube by downloading.
As of September 6th, once you delete your YouTube account, you can never open another YouTube account using the same username. Did I hear a tear drop softly? It wasn't my tear; I feel rather liberated that Google has one less point of access to me and about me.
Now I am looking for an alternative blogging site, since Google owns blogspot.com, too.
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For the past several years, YouTube functioned in the same manner, i.e., without boundaries, enabling millions of people to expand their knowledge of the world beyond what television and films allow. As of Saturday, anyone trying to compile a video database using downloaded YouTube videos is out of luck. Further, trying to find the content owner presents quite a challenge on a public media forum that suddenly decides that downloading equals stealing of intellectual property. No one forced individuals to upload any videos, so it seems obvious that anyone wanting to protect copyrighted material would not upload it to YouTube. Are subscriptions for full access to Wikipedia next?
Of course, there probably is some stolen content in some of the videos uploaded to YouTube, but to banish downloading from YouTube seems a bit late in the property protection game.
Many videos are advertising for subscription site owners, for movie trailers and other vendors who haven't thought how Google might react to their complaints that "their" copyrighted media was being stolen off of YouTube by downloading.
As of September 6th, once you delete your YouTube account, you can never open another YouTube account using the same username. Did I hear a tear drop softly? It wasn't my tear; I feel rather liberated that Google has one less point of access to me and about me.
Now I am looking for an alternative blogging site, since Google owns blogspot.com, too.
Labels: DARPA, Google, Intellectual property, Uploading and downloading, Wikipedia, YouTube
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