A View on View :: Mark Cuban Rocks

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Mark Cuban Rocks

by Mark Evans on Fri 29 Sep 2006 09:04 AM EDT | Permanent Link | Cosmos

You have to love Mark Cuban, who says it like it is. At a conference yesterday, he said only a "moron" would buy YouTube. "They are just breaking the law," CNet reported. "The only reason it hasn't been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue." Cuban's no-lawsuit theory may be right but isn't a little curious YouTube has escaped the wrath of copyright owners so far while Napster, et al incited a wave of lawsuits and attacks on consumers? Here's my theory at when it comes to television programs being downloaded. While people are accessing them for free, there is still advertising on them. Maybe this gives copyright owners the luxury of figuring out whether they can work with video-sharing services such as YouTube rather than suing them.
Update: Something I didn't know until today is YouTube a 100MB upload limit, which means only 10 minute video clips can be shown - perfect for segments from the Daily Show and Bill Clinton interviews on Fox; not good for The Sopranos or House episodes. Maybe this is why the TV and movie industries haven't given YouTube a difficult time legally because 10-minute clips are more marketing vehicles than threats. For more thoughts, check out Don Dodge, a former v.p. with Napster, who takes issue with many of Cuban's ideas about YouTube. The New York Times also weighs in with a story on YouTube.

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Comments

Re: Mark Cuban Rocks

by Anonymous on Fri 29 Sep 2006 12:44 PM EDT | Permanent Link

You are absolutely right. While many people wave the flag of intellectual property rights to appear righteous, the secret is that they want their cut of the money. If you are making money (be it advertising or whatever), very few people actually care how their content is used. When there is money to be made, everyone wins.

I believe the net is going in the direction that we will be able to get anything, but always at a price. Share an idea, make a buck.

Re: Mark Cuban Rocks

by JPWP on Fri 29 Sep 2006 09:10 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

He has a good argument about the murky legal waters YouTube treads in but perhaps Mark Cuban is negative on the company because he is now, in effect, a major media mogul himself. He's a significant shareholder in Lions Gate Entertainment, 2929 Entertainment [which financed "Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room", the George Clooney directed "Good Night and Good Luck" and many other films] and a significant portion of his wealth is directed toward these kinds of content creation industries as well as distribution companies [HDNet]... so as he morphs from "Maverick" to "Mainstream" of course he'd say that about YouTube.

Re: Mark Cuban Rocks

by AGORACOM on Sat 30 Sep 2006 05:03 AM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Hi, Mark. Been away for a while launching the new sites...but you know where I stand on this issue. YT is a non-starter in its current form. They need a busines model that doesn't put the entire enterprise at risk, which is exactly what they have now.

I've often wondered why YT doesn't create a B2B revenue stream by charging businesses anywhere from $9.99 to $99.99/month to host their videos. For example, I was at a recent conference for publicly traded small-cap resource companies. I'd love to take quick video clip interviews of CEO's on the floor and make them available to investors around the world as a way to promote my brand - and would gladly pay $50/month to have YT host and serve them. Perhaps, as a paying customer, I get my own customized corner within YT that I can use to promote my brand.

I suspect there would be thousands of companies that would do the same. YT generates a steady revenue stream at a substantially lower cost b/c you can bet my interview with Don Bubar of Avalon Ventures isn't going to be streamed anywhere near the latest clip from the Daily Show.

YT has the technology, the platform and the brand. Now they just need to build a real business model around it that doesn't depend on "borrowing" other people's content.

Until then, Mark Cuban is right.

Best,
George

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\n"; $url = parse_url ($this->AD_SERVER . $this->AD_SERVER_FILE . $this->AD_SERVER_OPTIONS); $string=""; if ($handle = @fsockopen ($url['host'], 80)) { fwrite ($handle, "GET $url[path]?$url[query] HTTP/1.0\r\nHost: $url[host]\r\nConnection: Close\r\n\r\n"); while (!feof($handle)) { $string .= @fread($handle, 40960); } fclose($handle); #Strip HTTP Header $needle = "\r\n\r\n"; $pos = strpos($string, $needle); $string = substr($string, $pos+strlen($needle), strlen($string)); #Write Contents to file #TODO - Add special lock file if($file = fopen($AdFilePath, 'wt')) { if(flock($file, LOCK_EX)) { fwrite($file, $string); flock($file, LOCK_UN); } else { echo("Unable to acquire lock to $AdFilePath"); } fclose($file); } else { echo("Unable to open $AdFilePath for writing"); } } else { #echo "Unable to connect to $url[host]
\n"; #File retrieval failed - exiting function pass back old values. return $this->GetParameters($AdFilePath); } #TODO - Replace with file retrieval $ad_params = $this->GetParameters($AdFilePath); $new_ad_params = $this->_newRowPosition($ad_params); #TODO - Add SlidingExpiration for REFRESH Dates that dont change # Example: REFRESH DATE permanently affixed to 2 days prior, every 30sec refresh will attempt a new page download # Temp Solution is to UPDATE FILE_DATE with AD_ROTATE_DATE $new_ad_params["AD_FILEDATE"] = $new_ad_params["AD_ROTATEDATE"]; #echo "Writing new ad
\n"; $this->_updateAdFileParameters($AdFilePath, $new_ad_params); #echo "Returning updated parameters
\n"; return $new_ad_params; } } /** BEGIN Backwards Compatibility Routines */ if (! function_exists('array_combine')) { function array_combine($keys, $values) { foreach($keys as $key) $out[$key] = array_shift($values); return $out; } } if (!function_exists('fputcsv')) { function fputcsv($filePointer, $dataArray, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { // Write a line to a file // $filePointer = the file resource to write to // $dataArray = the data to write out // $delimeter = the field separator // Build the string $string = ""; // No leading delimiter $writeDelimiter = FALSE; foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) { // Replaces a double quote with two double quotes $dataElement=str_replace("\"", "\"\"", $dataElement); // Adds a delimiter before each field (except the first) if($writeDelimiter) $string .= $delimiter; // Encloses each field with $enclosure and adds it to the string $string .= $enclosure . $dataElement . $enclosure; // Delimiters are used every time except the first. $writeDelimiter = TRUE; } // end foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) // Append new line $string .= "\n"; // Write the string to the file return fwrite($filePointer,$string); } } if (!function_exists('fgetcsv')) { #TODO - Remove or ??? #Originally built to handle PHP4 style of fgetcsv $CSVstruct = array('Sep' => ','); function fgetcsv($handle, $length=1024, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { $rows = ParseCSVStream(fgets($handle),"\n",false); return $rows[0]; } } // append a CSV row containing data converted from source array $data. Actual conversion is done by ExCSVRowWalker() function AppendCSVRow($data) { global $CSVstruct; array_walk($data,'ExCSVRowWalker'.($CSVstruct['OutEOL']=="\n"?'N':'')); $CSVstruct['File'] .= implode($CSVstruct['Sep'],$data).$CSVstruct['OutEOL']; } // returns an array of rows (each row being an array of columns) with parsed data. Returns false when conversion fails. Auto-detects Win/Mac/*nix newline characters, which are converted all to the sequence specified (defaults to $CSVstruct['OutEOL']) for your convenience. function ParseCSVStream($data, $newline="\n", $associative=true) { global $CSVstruct; $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\r","\n",str_replace("\r\n","\n",$data)); if ($newline!="\n") $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\n",$newline,$CSVstruct['File']); $CSVstruct['OutEOL'] = $newline; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = 0; $CSVstruct['Error'] = false; $CSVstruct['EOF'] = false; $res = array(); if ($associative) { $titles = ParseCSVRow(); while (($row = ParseCSVRow())!==false) { $newa = array(); //possible optimization: might use array_combine() - requires PHP 5 for ($col = 0; $col0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',str_replace($CSVstruct['OutEOL'],"\n",$item)).'"'; } function ExCSVRowWalkerN(&$item) { if (!is_numeric($item)&&(strlen($item)>0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',$item).'"'; } // read next line from buffer. function RowInput() { global $CSVstruct; if ($CSVstruct['EOF']) { return ""; } else { $pos = strpos($CSVstruct['File'], $CSVstruct['OutEOL'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); if ($pos===false) { $CSVstruct['EOF'] = true; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); } else { $pos1 = $CSVstruct['Seek']; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = $pos+1; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$pos1,$pos-$pos1); }; }; } /** Initialize ad_network variable */ $ad_logic = new ad_logic($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); $ad_network = $ad_logic->ad_network($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); ?>