I love this guy’s passion. If you aren’t reading Bob LeFetz, you should be…Here’s his take on YouTube. Comparing YouTube to Napster, he says:
And what happened with YouTube? The EXACT SAME THING that happened with Napster. Suddenly, digital exposition, FOR FREE, blew up underlying copyrighted material/shows. The classic case being “Lazy Sunday” from SNL. After MILLIONS of viewings on YouTube, ratings for SNL WENT UP! Sure, it was all based on copyright infringement, but if said law-breaking had not taken place, SNL wouldn’t have made all that extra MONEY! Because exposure begets revenue. The more people who know about something, the more people who are interested in buying it.
So what did NBC do?
They told YouTube to take the material down.
But now NBC has woken up. Rather than build from scratch their own site, a la Pressplay, a place with fewer eyeballs that no one cares about, they’ve thrown in with the company with all the action, where all the people are, YouTube. They’ve made a deal with YouTube, they realize it’s to their ADVANTAGE!