Content Will Always be King

CONTENT WILL ALWAYS BE KING
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Paul Vigna]
[Commentary] In the old days, the kind of broadside Viacom fired at Google -- demanding it take down more than 100,000 clips being distributed illegally on YouTube -- would have carried a bone-crunching thud. Instead, it fizzled: Many dismissed it as a negotiating tactic, at best. Media pundit and Web acolyte Jeff Jarvis was succinct in his appraisal: "fools." The Internet so thoroughly thrashed the music industry that most people assume the same unfair fight will break out over the distribution of video. It's the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" conflict on a large scale, with the media conglomerates cast as the helpless nerd. YouTube, Don Tapscott recently wrote on this editorial page, "has reinvented the television ballpark." But the studios don't need to kowtow to the Internet evangelizers, because there are significant differences between audio and video distribution. Web sites like YouTube won't be able to topple the networks as easily as file swappers wracked the music moguls. And Viacom's move yesterday to license its programming through the startup Joost.com may be a broadside that does find its target.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117203076381914611.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
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