Dr. Strangelove redux: How I learned to stop worrying and love the shakedown

"We really need the content community to work with us," [the YouTube man] said. "We need them to help us help them."

YouTube is launching its video filtering tool and apparently the use of this tool requires copyright owners to upload videos, their entire libraries in fact, to Google's database. Note the possessive in that sentence--GOOGLE's database. That GOOGLE, presumably, will own. GOOGLE wants copyright owners to GIVE them copies of their motion pictures, television programs, music videos.

So here's Google's apparent strategy: First, shake down the entire creative community with its YouTube infringement machine; fight lawsuits from the big copyright owners and blow off the little copyright owners; then as a solution to the problem they created, offer up a filtering tool that requires copyright owners to populate what appears to be a proprietary database of content a la CDDB.

Plus--in order to filer clips that are randomly selected by users the filtering tool would likely need a control group of complete works to compare the clip to in order to filter. So you see where this is going.

Here's a tip: If you are doing business with Google and you haven't found out how you're getting screwed yet, it's because you haven't thought about it long enough.

(In order for identification technology to work, the application must find some video or audio file in an unidentified state and then have a control group of audio and video files to compare it to. The costly part of preparing these databases is the process of creating the control group which requires negotiating contracts with copyright owners--unless, of course, you just want to put a gun to their heads.)

Even if anyone was stupid enough to hand Google a major asset for "free", it will also probably take a year or three and HUGE expense on the part of the copyright community to even get the database to the point its got enough content in it to make the filtering meaningful.

Nice--screw us, screw us again, and then screw us still one more time. Then take our stuff and sell it back to us.

NEVER underestimate the brass of these people.

If they ever teach ethics in computer science schools, Eric Schmidt will be case study number one in amoral behavior.

There already is a perfect filtering system out there. Works like a charm, never makes a mistake, and always gets people paid. It's called iTunes.

It's called get a license.