GP blog entry 1 - YouTube

1) To what extent has the emergence of YouTube changed our medium of entertainment?
2) How ethical is YouTube in its dealings with the media industry?

When asked about the recent phenomenon that brought about a paradigm shift in the entertainment industry? Think Youtube. With its emergence in 2006, user-friendly YouTube had provided a platform for literally, people all over the world, to showcase different videos about their culture and themselves. Every day, 65,000 new videos are uploaded to the site and more than 100 million videos are watched by people from various communities. Without downloading any software or even registering, anybody can browse through the videos on YouTube and with a click on the mouse, perhaps a few seconds of waiting time, and a computer with internet connection, videos all around the world, in a variety of languages, are made available to anybody in the world.

With this new kind of medium labeled as YouTube, people can exchange videos online and even watch television shows from other countries. Just type in the name of the reality or variety show in the search box and poof, most of the episodes of that particular show will be shown and everybody would be able to watch that television programme online. Therefore, YouTube has actually affected the television as a medium of entertainment, the most obvious being the drama serials that are broadcasted on tv. Since a time slot is specially allocated for each episode of the series, a certain time and effort has to be put in to watch all the episodes. And for those who simply do not have the time? YouTube. Providing an alternate and a more flexible method of watching these drama serials, an increasing number of people had turned to YouTube as a solution due to their packed schedules and hectic lifestyles. With this, of course, ratings of the serials have dropped, affecting the industry.

However, language, in the form of words, constitutes the basis of all mediums of entertainment. Books and magazines are deeply rooted in the entertainment industry and have not changed, even with the introduction of YouTube. Weekly entertainment magazines, such as the 8days in Singapore, are still very popular in the world. Being cheaper and more portable than the computer, most still prefer the traditional way of entertaining themselves.

“The marketing guys love YouTube and the legal guys hate it.” This was quoted from Ben Jones and Michael Leamonth. YouTube had a lot of problems with copyright infringements as the site doesn’t prescreen uploads – which coincidentally, is one of the selling points of YouTube due to its spontaneity – and it ends up hosting many copyrighted videos. With major companies such as Fuji TV on its tail, and Viacom suing YouTube and its owner Google, for more than one billion, YouTube isn’t being very ethical in dealing with the media industry.

Even though YouTube does not allow content to be uploaded by anyone not permitted by United States copyright law, a large amount of it continues to be uploaded. YouTube works on the principle of trust – trusting the YouTube community to flag or report the copyrighted and other unsuitable videos on the site.

Legal disputes have to be one of the greatest problems faced by YouTube today. Besides the suing and infringement complains, companies like Fuji TV has 2 employees who search YouTube for illegal content and send up to several hundred removal requests a day, adding pressure to this sensational website whose creators are only in their 20s.

Even so, YouTube has been dealing with the media industry by actively collaborating with major companies, such as Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group, in hope of seeking their consent before the videos are posted.