In a world where almost all of us have heard of services like Youtube, Veoh, and such, there are many people trying to upload videos onto these online services illegally. For many years, companies have tried to combat the piracy problem, but it hasn't worked out well. However, NBC now has found a way to stop this, at least it's working for them.
Piracy was and still is a big problem. NBC is putting great efforts to discontinue piracy and their anti-piracy techniques seem to be working. How is it working? Take a look at when the olympics games were broadcast on MSNBC. At NBColympics.com and MSNBC, when the olympics were broadcast live, many people tried to upload videos to Youtube and other networks, but most people still went to NBColympics.com and MSNBC to watch the olympics online. This is because Youtube took off videos almost as soon as they went on.
NBC is clearly taking some big steps to team up with other organizations to stop piracy of videos. NBC partnered up with Youtube in order to get rid of copyrighted material as quickly as possible, and also worked with the Chinese during the olympics to stop the piracy of videos in Chinese video sharing sites. But it doens't stop there, because NBC is also promoting their own services as alternatives to piracy.
The heavily promoted their own site, as well as Hulu, so that these could be alternatives to watching videos on Youtube. Hulu became a place for viewers to find full length videos in higher quality than Youtube. By doing this with their own site and Hulu, they could make viewers stop going to Youtube for the video, and go redirect them to their own sites instead.
It's obvious that things are now changing, and NBC has started to work with companies like Youtube, instead of against them. It's a much more effective approach.
"Historically, there was a period where the conversation focused on the capability of technology to provide wondrous new access and wondrous new distribution," Cotton said Monday in an interview with CNET News. "In that old conversation technology's capability to define the rules of the road was dismissed, I would say by self-interested voices. But technology has an enormous amount to contribute in setting rules of the road."
"What people learned very quickly was what would stay up at YouTube were still photos of the (events at the Olympics)," Cotton added. "They could find photo galleries at YouTube and for video they went to NBCOlympics.com."
By this, we can see that viewers are finding good use for both services, and also in the right ways. Undoubtedly, as technology continues to advance, we will be seeing more of this in the future.
Why would these efforts be a big impact on the Internet and piracy? Because NBC is setting an example here, and it's a good one. The days of Youtube, Veoh, and other networks showing copyrighted material without authorization all the time are slowly disappearing. Many companies will likely to follow in NBC's lead, and battle piracy in this new way. There will always be people who will upload copyrighted video, but if enough copyright holders work together with services like Youtube, there will be significant change to us all.
Interestingly, Youtube is also going to make some Youtube only videos, but we'll see what comes of that. It's obvious that times are moving, and companies now see that an approach of suing Youtube like Viacom did may not be the best idea.
When you can't fight it, join it, and maybe it'll help you.
What do you think of this? Would you prefer to use services like NBC's own site and Hulu? Do you think video piracy will begin to stop? Give us your comments below.
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