4 ms·

I don't think I am reaching at all. According to In The Plex, the reason that Google bought YouTube was because that race had been won by YouTube at that point,

by ericd 15y ago

I don't think I am reaching at all. According to In The Plex, the reason that Google bought YouTube was because that race had been won by YouTube at that point, and Google had come to that realization. There are also parts in there that quote the founders talking about their lax attitude towards copyright infringement being a good thing, and it also attributes part of Google Video's failure against YouTube to their over-worrying about making sure that copyright was appropriately respected, while YouTube was letting things run wild. The tough-on-copyright-infringement behavior of YT came later. I'm not equating them with MU, I'm saying that you're dead wrong about YouTube's past.

billpatrianakos 15y ago
But YouTube's past isn't relevant to my argument. Since Google bought YouTube they've been very consistent about respecting copyright and taking down content very promptly considering how much content is uploaded every day. You can't argue this based on how the service used to be. Let me give you a weird example. I used to be a heroin addict. I did a lot of unethical and illegal things with my friends who were addicts as well. Since then I cleaned up and have consistently sober and living well for three years while one friend hasn't. Now if that friend gets arrested and put in jail over his problem is it fair to argue that I should also be in jail because back when I used I did similar or worse things than my friend? No. Of course not. What I'm hearing is "YouTube and similar sites should be taken down too because they used to have lots of infringing content". That no longer matters. I'm sure that if YouTube continued to operate as it once did that they could be in some hot water too but arguing their past is a flimsy argument. MegaUpload had every opportunity to at least try to look like they didn't encourage infringement but they didn't. I don't see how we can compare yesterday's YouTube with today's MegaUpload.
- ericd 15y ago
  By being lax on copyright enforcement, we allow huge, beneficial things like current-day YouTube to grow and prosper.

by ericd 15y ago

billpatrianakos 15y ago

But YouTube's past isn't relevant to my argument. Since Google bought YouTube they've been very consistent about respecting copyright and taking down content very promptly considering how much content is uploaded every day. You can't argue this based on how the service used to be. Let me give you a weird example. I used to be a heroin addict. I did a lot of unethical and illegal things with my friends who were addicts as well. Since then I cleaned up and have consistently sober and living well for three years while one friend hasn't. Now if that friend gets arrested and put in jail over his problem is it fair to argue that I should also be in jail because back when I used I did similar or worse things than my friend? No. Of course not. What I'm hearing is "YouTube and similar sites should be taken down too because they used to have lots of infringing content". That no longer matters. I'm sure that if YouTube continued to operate as it once did that they could be in some hot water too but arguing their past is a flimsy argument. MegaUpload had every opportunity to at least try to look like they didn't encourage infringement but they didn't. I don't see how we can compare yesterday's YouTube with today's MegaUpload.

ericd 15y ago
By being lax on copyright enforcement, we allow huge, beneficial things like current-day YouTube to grow and prosper.