Dan's New Blog

I’m trying to parse the Google-Verizon deal which, as Om Malik says, appears to be a knife in the back of net neutrality.  The NY Times started it all off by announcing that:

“Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege. The charges could be paid by companies, like YouTube, owned by Google, for example, to Verizon, one of the nation’s leading Internet service providers, to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers. The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.”

This raises several questions. If Google is so concerned about traffic to YouTube being throttled back, why haven’t they also cut a deal with Comcast? (You may remember that back in April the DC Circuit Court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission didn’t have the authority to tell Comcast how to manage its bandwidth.) And why is YouTube traffic an issue now? Is YouTube a red herring — is this all really about bandwidth for, say, Google Music?

Very confusing.

Both Google and Verizon said uh-uh.  Here’s Google’s Public Policy Twitter feed:

“@NYTimes is wrong. We’ve not had any convos with VZN about paying for carriage of our traffic. We remain committed to an open internet.”

And Verizon’s PolicyBlog:

“The NYT article  regarding conversations between Google and Verizon is mistaken.  It fundamentally misunderstands our purpose. As we said in our earlier FCC filing, our goal is an Internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability, and incorporates specific FCC authority, while maintaining investment and innovation. To suggest this is a business arrangement between our companies is entirely incorrect.”

(If someone could read between the lines in all that and explain the nuances to me, it would be much appreciated.) Anyway, now the other shoe has dropped. The Washington Post reports that the FCC-hosted talks on a national broadband policy have collapsed:

“Under criticism for its handing of closed-door discussions with certain companies on broadband policy, the Federal Communications Commission announced Thursday the meetings with Verizon, AT&T, Google and Skype were unsuccessful and that it would stop holding them. The announcement comes amid an apparent agreement between Verizon and Google on so-called net neutrality ground rules that would allow certain prioritization of Web sites on fixed wire networks and no rules on wireless networks. Sources familiar with the discussions at the FCC said reports Wednesday of a deal between Verizon and Google on net neutrality upset participants in the meeting, who were moving closer to agreement on stronger rules against blocking and slowing traffic on wireless and fixed-wire networks.”

So what gives? Has Google abandoned “Don’t Be Evil”? Again, I’m confused. But this story from Bloomberg makes a lot more sense to me:

“Verizon Communications Inc. and Google Inc. have struck their own accord on handling Internet traffic, as both participate in talks by U.S. officials on Web policy, two people briefed by the companies said. The compromise as described would restrict Verizon from selectively slowing Internet content that travels over its wires, but wouldn’t apply such limits to Internet use on mobile phones, according to the people, who spoke yesterday and asked not to be identified before an announcement. Verizon and Google have been adversaries over the issue, known as net neutrality. Verizon was among cable and phone companies saying they need leeway on the delivery of Web content to protect performance of their networks. Google led content providers and advocacy groups that say restrictions are required so communications companies don’t favor their own online offerings or those of partners that pay for higher speeds.”

See the difference? Verizon isn’t extorting money from Google. (“Nice little YouTube ya got here. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it.”) It’s actually a quid-pro-quo — Google preserves net neutrality while Verizon gets a free hand with its wireless traffic, which is much more lucrative.

At least that’s what it seems to me. I’m not naive, nor am I a Google fanboy. But who knows?

Today U.S. District Justice Louis L. Stanton ruled against Viacom in its copyright-infringement suit against YouTube. Here’s some (subdued) crowing from the YouTube blog:

“Today, the court granted our motion for summary judgment in Viacom’s lawsuit with YouTube. This means that the court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online.”

This is only the first round. The NY Times says Viacom is already working on its appeal:

“We believe that this ruling by the lower court is fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the intent of Congress and the views of the Supreme Court as expressed in its most recent decisions. We intend to seek to have these issues before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as soon as possible. After years of delay, this decision gives us the opportunity to have the Appellate Court address these critical issues on an accelerated basis. We look forward to the next stage of the process.”

According to Silicon Alley Insider, the half-life of a typical YouTube video (like Dog Dancing Merengue) is six days. After 20 days, we’re all moving on to the next meme.

Yesterday Google introduced Google TV, which “combines the TV you know and love with the freedom and power of the Internet.”

It’s a lot like Apple TV or maybe Boxee, only better — so I’m told — so I don’t have to get into all the details.

Basically all this boils down to Google (a) worming its way onto your TV’s “desktop”, thus enhancing its ubiquity, and (b) shoving YouTube videos front-and-center on your TV, thus giving the monetization of the site a much-needed boost. (Hey, YouTube might break even this year.)

Do I need another box connected to my TV? No. And given how the digital switchover went for me, I don’t even want to try.

It was Weekend Update time a couple of days early yesterday as YouTube-Google and Viacom fired point-counterpoint blog posts at each other in their ongoing (never-ending?) copyright infringement suit.

Viacom opened with a pithy statement about the facts of the case:

“YouTube was intentionally built on infringement and there are countless internal YouTube communications demonstrating that YouTube’s founders and its employees intended to profit from that infringement … Google bought YouTube because it was a haven of infringement … The law is clear that Google and YouTube are liable for their infringement. The Supreme Court unanimously held in Grokster that a service that intends infringement is liable for that infringement. No case has ever suggested that the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] immunizes rampant intentional infringement of the sort Google and YouTube have engaged in.”

(Could you say “infringement” one more time, please, in case somebody out there didn’t get it?)

YouTube’s counterpoint can be boiled down thusly:

“With some minor exceptions, all videos are automatically copyrighted from the moment they are created, regardless of who creates them … The issue in this lawsuit is not whether a video is copyrighted, but whether it’s authorized to be on the site. The DMCA (and common sense) recognizes that content owners, not service providers like YouTube, are in the best position to know whether a specific video is authorized to be on an Internet hosting service. Because content owners large and small use YouTube in so many different ways, determining a particular copyright holder’s preference or a particular uploader’s authority over a given video on YouTube is difficult at best. And in this case, it was made even harder by Viacom’s own practices. For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately ‘roughed up’ the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko’s to upload clips from computers that couldn’t be traced to Viacom … Viacom’s efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself. Given Viacom’s own actions, there is no way YouTube could ever have known which Viacom content was and was not authorized to be on the site. But Viacom thinks YouTube should somehow have figured it out. The legal rule that Viacom seeks would require YouTube — and every Web platform — to investigate and police all content users upload, and would subject those web sites to crushing liability if they get it wrong.”

(Both Viacom and YouTube have figured out that in the legal biz, if the other side does something more than once, you call it “countless”.)

Now over to Viacom for the last word:

“The statements by Google regarding Viacom activities are merely red herrings and have no relevance on the legal facts of this case.”