Eat The Press

Universal Sues MySpace, YouTube

Ars Technica |  Posted Thursday September 14, 2006 at 06:38 PM

In the category of I Can't Believe They're That Lame, the behemoth major Universal Music Group is going after MySpace (Fox) and YouTube (not Fox) for cash because they're too stupid to come up with their own ways of repurposing their own content. Rich.

From the indispensable Ars Technica: "YouTube and MySpace may be next on the music industry's hit list, according to Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris. Labelling them 'copyright infringers,' Morris said that the label has plans to deal with the popular web sites and their hosting of infringing videos."

UMG's primary beef is that user-friendly social networking powerhouses like MySpace and YouTube are allowing users to share videos and songs online, and defiling the uber-label's intellectual property rights in the process. It's just not fair to the artists, and they want it stopped because of it. Stop laughing. I'm serious. OK, I'm not. Doug Morris makes his true motivaton plain: "These new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars."

"As "new businesses," as Morris call them, emerge and thrive in the new millennium and its internetworked Web 2.0, others will no doubt wither and die. But Morris' avenue of interest represents only one of the many ways UMG can monetize their stable of artists, and rather than look to newer, radically popular points of entry like MySpace and YouTube for ideas, they're settling for a lack of imagination and the benefit of a huge purse. That may work for them for now, but the world is changing; YouTube and MySpace aren't going away. There are other ways to make money off them, and the companies who figure out how are the ones who will ultimately get the biggest payoff.

-- Scott Thill