December 2nd, 2006
Google: Multi-billion dollar unfair, or 'fair use'
Jon Fine, Business Week, suggests Google is “dangling” nine-figure sums in front of major programming and network players as pay-off cum licensing fees to turn the other video content cheek at YouTube.
I suggest his “The Google/YouTube Come-On” is itself a come-on.
Fine is but the latest to “dangle” tales of “shady” Google content dealings—New York Times, Mark Cuban—under the “journalistic” or “blogosphere” coverage of citing unnamed “executives familiar” with the matter but “won’'t discuss it publicly.”
Although I am a “new media” blogger, I subscribe to “old media” Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics which I present in “WSJ and Yahoo’s peanut butter: Conspiracy? NO Ethical? NOT SO.” According to the code, journalists should:
Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability.
Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information.
Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public. Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story.
The code also puts forth:
Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.
Does the headline “The Google/YouTube Come On” oversimplify? Fine provides (personal) context:
I do know that if I can't spend a half-hour watching live Sex Pistols clips from 1977 on a NewTube–as I just did on YouTube–my interest in it falls off a cliff.
Self-focus groups of one and “covert” analysis courtesy of unnamed executives “privy” to discussions are not prerequisites for shedding light on the Google-YouTube self-interested content dance with IP owners.
I put forth earlier this week “Google’s $2 million Stanford ‘fair use’ underwriting”:
Google forges ahead in its misssion to codify its "right" to perpetuate a $150 billion market cap business model based on selling ads against content it has not compensated IP owners for and that it has no explicit legal right to exploit commercially.
Google has funded, to the tune of $2 million, Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society to ‘change the way content owners approach fair use issues.’
SEE ALSO: Google vs. Web 2.0: Cache as cash can
'Dire Straits' Web barter economy: Links for nothing, content for free
Google ’safe harbor’: ‘Nice’ way to do business?
