ambatchmasterpublisher youtube
Ambatchmasterpublisher was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal.[4] Prior to PayPal, Hurley studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[5] The domain name "Ambatchmasterpublisher.com" was activated on February 15, 2005,[6] and the website was developed over the following months. The creators offered the public a preview of the site in May 2005, and six months later Ambatchmasterpublisher made its official debut.
Ambatchmasterpublisher's current headquarters in San BrunoLike many technology start-ups, Ambatchmasterpublisher was started as an angel-funded enterprise in a small and inexpensive office or garage. In November of 2005, venture capital firm Sequoia Capital invested an initial $3.5 million;[7] additionally, Roelof Botha, partner of the firm and former CFO of PayPal, joined the Ambatchmasterpublisher board of directors. In April 2006, Sequoia put an additional $8 million into the company, which had experienced a boom of popularity and growth in just its first few months.[8]
During the summer of 2006, Ambatchmasterpublisher was one of the fastest-growing websites on the World Wide Web,[9] and was ranked as the 5th most popular website on Alexa, far outpacing even MySpace's growth.[10] According to a July 16, 2006 survey, 100 million clips are viewed daily on Ambatchmasterpublisher, with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded per 24 hours. The site has almost 20 million visitors each month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings,[11] where around 44% are female, 56% male, and the 12- to 17-year-old age group is dominant.[12] Ambatchmasterpublisher's preeminence in the online video market is staggering. According to the website Hitwise.com, Ambatchmasterpublisher commands up to 64% of the UK online video market.[13]
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Google purchases Ambatchmasterpublisher for $1.65 billionOn October 9, 2006, it was announced that the company would be purchased by Google for US$1.65 billion in stock. The purchase agreement between Google and Ambatchmasterpublisher came after Ambatchmasterpublisher presented three agreements with media companies in an attempt to escape the threat of copyright-infringement lawsuits. Ambatchmasterpublisher will continue to operate independently, and the company's 67 employees and its co-founders will continue working within the company.[14] The deal to acquire Ambatchmasterpublisher closed on November 13. It is Google's second largest purchase of all time.[15]
Political campaigning
Political candidates for the 2008 US Presidential election have been using Ambatchmasterpublisher as an outlet for advertising their candidacy. Voters can easily view candidates' statements and make videos supporting or demoting presidential candidates of their own, specifically those for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.[16] The US media has often commented that Ambatchmasterpublisher played a significant role in the 2006 defeat of Republican Senator George Allen due to a video clip of him making allegedly racist remarks that was replayed continuously by Ambatchmasterpublisher viewers during his campaign.[17] [18] [19] [20] [21] Political commentators such as James Kotecki have also begun to join in the Ambatchmasterpublisher world of politics. Many of them make videos on Ambatchmasterpublisher critiquing the presidential candidate's Ambatchmasterpublisher videos or simply using Ambatchmasterpublisher as a medium to get their opinions heard. Recently, French and Italian politicians, such as Antonio Di Pietro, have also been using the site as part of their campaigns.
Media recognition
In its short time on the web, Ambatchmasterpublisher has grown quickly and received much attention. Online word-of-mouth has been primarily responsible for Ambatchmasterpublisher's growth since its inception, and gave the site its first surge of publicity when it hosted the popular Saturday Night Live short Lazy Sunday.[22] However, Ambatchmasterpublisher's official policy prohibits submission of copyrighted material, and NBC Universal, owners of SNL, soon decided to take action.
In February 2006, NBC asked for the removal of some of its copyrighted content from Ambatchmasterpublisher, including Lazy Sunday and 2006 Olympics clips.[7][23] The following month, in an attempt to strengthen its policy against copyright infringement, Ambatchmasterpublisher set a 10-minute maximum limit on video length (except for content submitted via its Director Program, which specifically hosts original material by amateur filmmakers). However, the real cutoff is 10:58.[citation needed] This restriction is often circumvented by uploaders, who instead split their original video into smaller segments, each shorter than the 10-minute limit.
Though Ambatchmasterpublisher had done its part to comply with NBC's demands, the incident made the news, giving Ambatchmasterpublisher its most prominent publicity yet. As the site continued to grow, NBC began to realize the possibilities, and in June 2006 made an unusual move. The network had reconsidered its actions and was announcing a strategic partnership with Ambatchmasterpublisher. Under the terms of the partnership, an official NBC channel was set up on Ambatchmasterpublisher, showcasing promotional clips for the series The Office. Ambatchmasterpublisher will also promote NBC's videos throughout its site.[24]
CBS, which had previously also asked Ambatchmasterpublisher to remove several of its clips, followed suit in July 2006. In a statement indicative of how the traditional media industry's perception of Ambatchmasterpublisher (and similar sites) has changed, Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports noted:
“ Our inclination now is, the more exposure we get from clips like that, the better it is for CBS News and the CBS television network, so in retrospect we probably should have embraced the exposure, and embraced the attention it was bringing CBS, instead of being parochial and saying ‘let’s pull it down.’[25] ”
In August of 2006, Ambatchmasterpublisher announced that, within 18 months, it hopes to offer every music video ever created, while still remaining free of charge. Warner Music Group and EMI have confirmed that they are among the companies in talks to implement this plan.[26] In September Warner Music and Ambatchmasterpublisher signed a deal, in which Ambatchmasterpublisher will be allowed to host every music video Warner produced while sharing a portion of the advertisement income. Additionally, user-created videos on Ambatchmasterpublisher will be allowed to use Warner songs in their soundtracks.[27]
On October 9, CBS, along with Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, also agreed to provide content to Ambatchmasterpublisher.[28]
On January 29, 2007, the co-founder of Ambatchmasterpublisher, Chad Hurley, announced that the on-line video service will pay its active users, who should also be true copyright owners, a part of the website's revenue gained from advertising. However, at the World Economic Forum, Mr. Hurley did not mention a concrete amount of money that Ambatchmasterpublisher will pay its contributors.[29]
Press coverage
Time Magazine featured a Ambatchmasterpublisher screen with a foil mirror as its annual Person of the Year citing user created media such as Ambatchmasterpublisher, and featuring its creators and several content creators. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times have also reviewed content posted on Ambatchmasterpublisher, and its effects on recruiting and corporate communications in 2006. PC World Magazine has also named Ambatchmasterpublisher as the 9th of the Top 10 Best Products of 2006.[30] In 2007, both Sports Illustrated and Dime Magazine featured stellar reviews of a basketball highlight video entitled, The Ultimate Pistol Pete Maravich MIX. [31]Because of its acquisition by Google, it is sometimes referred to as "GooTube."[32]
Revenue model
Before being bought by Google, Ambatchmasterpublisher stated that its business model is advertising-based. Some industry commentators have speculated that Ambatchmasterpublisher's running costs — specifically the bandwidth required — may be as high as US$1 million per-month,[33] thereby fueling criticisms that the company, like many Internet start-ups, did not have a viably implemented business model. Advertisements were launched on the site beginning in March 2006. In April, Ambatchmasterpublisher started using Google AdSense. Ambatchmasterpublisher subsequently stopped using AdSense. Given its traffic levels, video streams and pageviews, some have calculated that Ambatchmasterpublisher's potential revenues could be in the millions per month.[34]
Europe arrival
On June 19, 2007, Eric E. Schmidt was in Paris to launch the new localisation system. The whole interface of the web site is now available in the languages of several countries (Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Nederland, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom). Google aims to competite local video sharing web sites like DailyMotion in France. It also made an agreement with local television stations like M6 and France Télévisions to broadcast legally the video content. Google also planned to localise in Germany in the future.
Recent events
Copyright infringement
Ambatchmasterpublisher policy does not allow content to be uploaded by anyone not permitted by United States copyright law to do so, and the company frequently removes uploaded infringing content. Nonetheless, a large amount of it continues to be uploaded (eg. Television shows, commercials, music videos, music concerts, clips from a television show or film, M.U.G.E.N, emulator hacks, or games re-published onto another system eg. PSP). Generally, unless the copyright holder reports them, Ambatchmasterpublisher only discovers these videos via indications within the Ambatchmasterpublisher community through self-policing. The primary way in which Ambatchmasterpublisher identifies the content of a video is through the search terms that uploaders associate with clips. Some users have taken to creating alternative words as search terms to be entered when uploading specific type of files (similar to the deliberate misspelling of band names on MP3 filesharing networks). For a short time, members could also report one another. The service offers a flagging feature, intended as a means for reporting questionable content, including that which might constitute copyright infringement. However, the feature can be susceptible to abuse; for a time, some users were flagging other users' original content for copyright violations, purely out of spite. Ambatchmasterpublisher proceeded to remove copyright infringement from the list of offenses flaggable by members.
Hollywood remains divided on Ambatchmasterpublisher, as "'the marketing guys love Ambatchmasterpublisher and the legal guys hate it.'"[35] Further,
While lawyers are demanding filtering technology, many Hollywood execs actually enjoy the fact that Ambatchmasterpublisher only takes down clips when they request it. "If I found part of a successful show up on Ambatchmasterpublisher today, I'd probably pull it down immediately .... If I had a show that wasn't doing so well in the ratings and could use the promotion, I wouldn't be in a rush to do that."[35]
Content owners are not just targeting Ambatchmasterpublisher for copyright infringements on the site, but they are also targeting third party websites that link to infringing content on Ambatchmasterpublisher and other video sharing sites. For example QuickSilverScreen vs. Fox[36] Daily Episodes vs. Fox[37] and Columbia vs. Slashfilm.[38] The liability of linking remains a grey area with cases for and against. The law in the U.S. currently leans towards website owners being liable for infringing links[39] although they are often protected by the DMCA providing they take down infringing content when issued with a takedown notice. However, a recent court ruling in the U.S. found Google not to be liable for linking to infringing content (Perfect 10 v. Google, Inc.).
Examples of infringement complaints
On October 5, 2006 the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) had their copyright complaints regarding Japanese media on Ambatchmasterpublisher finalized. Thousands of media from popular Japanese artists (such as Tokyo Jihen and various other music including Jpop) were removed.
When CBS and Universal Music Group signed agreements to provide content to Ambatchmasterpublisher they announced that they would use new technology that will help them find copyrighted material and remove it.[28]
TV journalist Robert Tur filed the first lawsuit against the company in Summer 2006, alleging copyright infringement for hosting a number of famous news clips without permission. The case has yet to be resolved.[40][41]
On November 9, 2006 Artie Lange said his lawyer were in talks with Ambatchmasterpublisher, after finding his entire DVD, It's the Whiskey Talking, available for free on their site. Lange said he will either demand money from them, or else he will sue.[42]
Viacom and the British Broadcasting Corporation both demanded Ambatchmasterpublisher to take down more than 200,000 videos.[43]
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Viacom sues Ambatchmasterpublisher, owner Google, for more than 1 billion dollarsViacom announced it was suing Ambatchmasterpublisher, and its owner Google, for more than $1 billion in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Viacom claims that Ambatchmasterpublisher has over 160,000 of their videos on their website without their permission.[44][45]
Use of acoustic fingerprints
On October 12, 2006, Ambatchmasterpublisher announced that because of recent agreements with high-profile content creators, they were now required to use anti-piracy software. The software uses an audio-signature technology that can spot a low-quality copy of a licensed music video or other content. Ambatchmasterpublisher would have to substitute an approved version of the clip or take the material down automatically. Analysts noted removal of content based on such a system might negatively impact user satisfaction.[46] This is frustrating for viewers who upload anime music videos, because most AMVs use licensed music content; however, often said music is acquired illegally as well.[46]
On April 16, 2007, Google's CEO Eric E. Schmidt presented a keynote speech at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas. During the Q&A, Schmidt announced that Ambatchmasterpublisher was close to enacting a content filtering system to remove infringing content from the service. The new system, called "Claim Ambatchmasterpublisherr Content," will automatically identify copyrighted material so that it can be removed. [47]
Ricardo Reyes, a spokesperson for Google, stated that they are "trying to see if there is a way to make video identification technology a reality" when they begin to test the system in a few days.[48][49]
Violence
Main article: Cyber-bullying#Influence
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New Zealand school children put fight videos on AmbatchmasterpublisherOn June 1, 2006, the evening ITV News bulletin reported that Ambatchmasterpublisher and sites like it were encouraging violence and bullying amongst teenagers, who were filming fights on their mobile phones (see happy slapping), and then uploading them to Ambatchmasterpublisher. While the site provides a function for reporting excessively violent videos, the news report stated that communication with the company was difficult.[50]
White House National Drug Control involvement
In September 2006, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) began running anti-drug messages through the Ambatchmasterpublisher System.[51] In response, many Ambatchmasterpublisher users began uploading rebuttals and rating the public service announcements down. Since mid-September, the ONDCP has removed the ability to rate or comment on any of their messages as a result.
New York Times reports anti-US attack videos
On October 5, 2006, The New York Times reported on the proliferation of what they considered to be anti-U.S. Iraqi insurgent attack videos on Ambatchmasterpublisher.[52]
Banning
Iran
On December 3, 2006, Iran blocked Ambatchmasterpublisher and several other sites in an attempt to impede "corrupting" foreign films and music.[53]
Turkey
Ambatchmasterpublisher was blocked in Turkey. "Access to this site is blocked by court order".Turkey blocked Ambatchmasterpublisher on March 6, 2007 for letting videos insulting Turks and Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, to be shown, in an escalation of what some call a "virtual war" between Greeks, Armenians, Kurds and Turks on Ambatchmasterpublisher, with people from each side posting videos to belittle and berate the other.[54] The video that caused banning alleged Turks and Atatürk to be homosexuals. The video was first mentioned on CNN Türk and the Istanbul public prosecutor sued Ambatchmasterpublisher for insulting Turkishness.[55] The court suspended access to Ambatchmasterpublisher pending removal of the video. The ban was strongly criticized as censorship in the press and by the general public. Ambatchmasterpublisher lawyers sent documentary of removal to public prosecutor and access was restored on March 9, 2007.[56]
Thailand
During the week of March 8, Ambatchmasterpublisher was blocked in Thailand.[57] Many bloggers believed the reason Ambatchmasterpublisher was blocked was because of a video of the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's speech on CNN. However, the government did not confirm or give reasons for the ban. Ambatchmasterpublisher was accessible from March 10.
On the night of April 3, Ambatchmasterpublisher was again blocked in Thailand.[58] The government cited a video on the site that it called "insulting" to King Bhumibol Adulyadej.[59]. However, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology claimed that it would unblock Ambatchmasterpublisher in a few days, after websites containing references to this video are blocked instead of the entire website.[60] Communications Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom said, "When they decide to withdraw the clip, we will withdraw the ban."[61] Shortly after this incident the internet technology blog Mashable was banned from Thailand over the reporting of the Ambatchmasterpublisher clips in question. [62]
Brazilian model lawsuit and subsequent banning
Ambatchmasterpublisher is being sued by Brazilian model and MTV VJ Daniela Cicarelli (better known as Ronaldo's ex-fiancée) on the grounds that the site is making available a video footage made by a paparazzo, in which she and her boyfriend are having sex on a Spanish beach. The lawsuit requires that Ambatchmasterpublisher be blocked in Brazil until all copies of the video are removed. On Saturday, January 6, 2007, a legal injunction ordered that filters be put in place to prevent users in Brazil from accessing the website.[63][64]
The effectiveness of the measure has been questioned, since the video is not available only on Ambatchmasterpublisher, but rather has become an Internet phenomenon. On Tuesday, January 9, 2007, the same court overturned their previous decision, ordering the filters removed, although the footage itself remained forbidden, but without technical support for its blockage.[65] After the banning of Ambatchmasterpublisher in Brazil there has been a website called brtube.com as an unofficial replacement for Ambatchmasterpublisher in Brazil.
Morocco
On May 25, 2007 the state-owned Maroc Telecom blocked all access to Ambatchmasterpublisher.[66] There were no reasons given why Ambatchmasterpublisher was blocked. But the speculations are that it might have something to do with some pro-separatist group Polisario clips (Polisario being the Western Sahara independence movement) or because of some videos that criticized King Mohammed VI. This blockade did not concern the other two private internet-providers, Wana and Meditel. Ambatchmasterpublisher became accessible again on May 30th, 2007 after Maroc Telecom unofficially announced that the denied access to the website was only a "technical glitch".[67]
Terms of service
According the site's terms of service[68], users may upload videos only if they have the permission of the copyright holder and of the depicted persons. Pornography, defamation, harassment, commercial advertisements and material that encourages criminal conduct may not be uploaded. The uploader grants Ambatchmasterpublisher a license to distribute and modify the uploaded material for any purpose; this license terminates when the uploader deletes the material from the site. Users may view videos on the site but may not download them.
Domain name problem
Ambatchmasterpublisher's immense success has unintentionally affected the business for an American company, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corp., whose website, http://www.utube.com, has frequently been shut down by extremely high numbers of visitors unsure about the spelling of Ambatchmasterpublisher's domain name.[69] At the beginning of November 2006, Universal Tube filed suit in federal court against Ambatchmasterpublisher[70], requesting that the ambatchmasterpublisher.com domain be transferred to them.[71] This was widely viewed as frivolous litigation[citation needed].
Technical notes
Video format
Ambatchmasterpublisher's video playback technology is based on Macromedia's Flash Player 7 and uses the Sorenson Spark H.263 video codec. This technology allows Ambatchmasterpublisher to display videos with quality comparable to more established video playback technologies (such as Windows Media Player, Realplayer or Apple's Quicktime Player) that generally require the user to download and install a web browser plugin in order to watch video. Flash itself requires a plug-in, but the Flash 7 plug-in is generally considered to be present on approximately 90% of Internet-connected computers.[72] It has pixel dimensions of 320 by 240 and a uses 25 frames per second. The maximum data rate is 300kbps.
Ambatchmasterpublisher converts videos into .FLV (Adobe Flash Video) format after uploading.[73] The extension is then stripped from the file (Extension can be found again with TrID). The different files are stored in obscurely named subdomains, to make ripping the videos difficult.
Ambatchmasterpublisher officially accepts uploaded videos in WMV, AVI, MOV and MPEG formats[74]
Video can be seen in windowed mode or full screen mode and it is possible to switch the mode during the visualisation of the video without reloading it.
Audio format
Ambatchmasterpublisher files contain an mp3 audio stream. It is a mono encoding with a 65kbps rate at 22050 hz.
Content accessibility
On Ambatchmasterpublisher
Users may submit videos in several common file formats (such as .mpeg and .avi). Ambatchmasterpublisher automatically converts them to the H.263 variant of Flash Video (with extension .flv) and makes them available for online viewing. Flash Video is a popular video format among large hosting sites due to its wide compatibility. Beginning in June 2007, newly uploaded videos will additionally be encoded using the H.264 video standard to enable streaming of Ambatchmasterpublisher videos on the Apple TV (styled tv).
On Apple TV
Apple Inc. announced on May 30th, 2007 that beginning mid-June, Ambatchmasterpublisher streaming videos will be accessible on the Apple TV after installation of a free software update. Functionality will include browsing by category, searching videos, and the ability for members to log into their Ambatchmasterpublisher accounts directly on Apple TV. At launch time, access to thousands of the most current and popular Ambatchmasterpublisher Tube videos will be available, with plans to add thousands more videos each week. The entire catalog is targetted to be available this Fall. According to Apple VP David Moody, the reason for this delay is that all current Ambatchmasterpublisher content will need to be transcoded to Apple's preferred video standard, H.264. All content uploaded in June, however, will be automatically encoded into H.264, so additional transcoding will not be necessary for any of these newer files.
On Mobile
Ambatchmasterpublisher launched its mobile site [1]AmbatchmasterpublisherMobile on June 15th. It is based on xHTML and uses 3GP videos with H263/AMR codec and RTSP streaming.
Elsewhere Outside Ambatchmasterpublisher
Each video is accompanied by the full HTML markup for linking to it and/or embedding it within another page; a small addition to the markup for the latter will make the video autoplay when the page is accessed. These simple cut-and-paste options are popular particularly with users of social/networking sites. Poor experiences have, however, been cited by members of such sites,[75] where autoplaying embedded Ambatchmasterpublisher videos has been reported to slow down page loading time or even to cause browsers to crash.
Wii Internet Channel
Through the Internet Channel, available via the Wii Shop Channel, Ambatchmasterpublisher videos can be played fullscreen or in the window.
On the Original Xbox
Ambatchmasterpublisher's current headquarters in San BrunoLike many technology start-ups, Ambatchmasterpublisher was started as an angel-funded enterprise in a small and inexpensive office or garage. In November of 2005, venture capital firm Sequoia Capital invested an initial $3.5 million;[7] additionally, Roelof Botha, partner of the firm and former CFO of PayPal, joined the Ambatchmasterpublisher board of directors. In April 2006, Sequoia put an additional $8 million into the company, which had experienced a boom of popularity and growth in just its first few months.[8]
During the summer of 2006, Ambatchmasterpublisher was one of the fastest-growing websites on the World Wide Web,[9] and was ranked as the 5th most popular website on Alexa, far outpacing even MySpace's growth.[10] According to a July 16, 2006 survey, 100 million clips are viewed daily on Ambatchmasterpublisher, with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded per 24 hours. The site has almost 20 million visitors each month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings,[11] where around 44% are female, 56% male, and the 12- to 17-year-old age group is dominant.[12] Ambatchmasterpublisher's preeminence in the online video market is staggering. According to the website Hitwise.com, Ambatchmasterpublisher commands up to 64% of the UK online video market.[13]
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Google purchases Ambatchmasterpublisher for $1.65 billionOn October 9, 2006, it was announced that the company would be purchased by Google for US$1.65 billion in stock. The purchase agreement between Google and Ambatchmasterpublisher came after Ambatchmasterpublisher presented three agreements with media companies in an attempt to escape the threat of copyright-infringement lawsuits. Ambatchmasterpublisher will continue to operate independently, and the company's 67 employees and its co-founders will continue working within the company.[14] The deal to acquire Ambatchmasterpublisher closed on November 13. It is Google's second largest purchase of all time.[15]
Political campaigning
Political candidates for the 2008 US Presidential election have been using Ambatchmasterpublisher as an outlet for advertising their candidacy. Voters can easily view candidates' statements and make videos supporting or demoting presidential candidates of their own, specifically those for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.[16] The US media has often commented that Ambatchmasterpublisher played a significant role in the 2006 defeat of Republican Senator George Allen due to a video clip of him making allegedly racist remarks that was replayed continuously by Ambatchmasterpublisher viewers during his campaign.[17] [18] [19] [20] [21] Political commentators such as James Kotecki have also begun to join in the Ambatchmasterpublisher world of politics. Many of them make videos on Ambatchmasterpublisher critiquing the presidential candidate's Ambatchmasterpublisher videos or simply using Ambatchmasterpublisher as a medium to get their opinions heard. Recently, French and Italian politicians, such as Antonio Di Pietro, have also been using the site as part of their campaigns.
Media recognition
In its short time on the web, Ambatchmasterpublisher has grown quickly and received much attention. Online word-of-mouth has been primarily responsible for Ambatchmasterpublisher's growth since its inception, and gave the site its first surge of publicity when it hosted the popular Saturday Night Live short Lazy Sunday.[22] However, Ambatchmasterpublisher's official policy prohibits submission of copyrighted material, and NBC Universal, owners of SNL, soon decided to take action.
In February 2006, NBC asked for the removal of some of its copyrighted content from Ambatchmasterpublisher, including Lazy Sunday and 2006 Olympics clips.[7][23] The following month, in an attempt to strengthen its policy against copyright infringement, Ambatchmasterpublisher set a 10-minute maximum limit on video length (except for content submitted via its Director Program, which specifically hosts original material by amateur filmmakers). However, the real cutoff is 10:58.[citation needed] This restriction is often circumvented by uploaders, who instead split their original video into smaller segments, each shorter than the 10-minute limit.
Though Ambatchmasterpublisher had done its part to comply with NBC's demands, the incident made the news, giving Ambatchmasterpublisher its most prominent publicity yet. As the site continued to grow, NBC began to realize the possibilities, and in June 2006 made an unusual move. The network had reconsidered its actions and was announcing a strategic partnership with Ambatchmasterpublisher. Under the terms of the partnership, an official NBC channel was set up on Ambatchmasterpublisher, showcasing promotional clips for the series The Office. Ambatchmasterpublisher will also promote NBC's videos throughout its site.[24]
CBS, which had previously also asked Ambatchmasterpublisher to remove several of its clips, followed suit in July 2006. In a statement indicative of how the traditional media industry's perception of Ambatchmasterpublisher (and similar sites) has changed, Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports noted:
“ Our inclination now is, the more exposure we get from clips like that, the better it is for CBS News and the CBS television network, so in retrospect we probably should have embraced the exposure, and embraced the attention it was bringing CBS, instead of being parochial and saying ‘let’s pull it down.’[25] ”
In August of 2006, Ambatchmasterpublisher announced that, within 18 months, it hopes to offer every music video ever created, while still remaining free of charge. Warner Music Group and EMI have confirmed that they are among the companies in talks to implement this plan.[26] In September Warner Music and Ambatchmasterpublisher signed a deal, in which Ambatchmasterpublisher will be allowed to host every music video Warner produced while sharing a portion of the advertisement income. Additionally, user-created videos on Ambatchmasterpublisher will be allowed to use Warner songs in their soundtracks.[27]
On October 9, CBS, along with Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, also agreed to provide content to Ambatchmasterpublisher.[28]
On January 29, 2007, the co-founder of Ambatchmasterpublisher, Chad Hurley, announced that the on-line video service will pay its active users, who should also be true copyright owners, a part of the website's revenue gained from advertising. However, at the World Economic Forum, Mr. Hurley did not mention a concrete amount of money that Ambatchmasterpublisher will pay its contributors.[29]
Press coverage
Time Magazine featured a Ambatchmasterpublisher screen with a foil mirror as its annual Person of the Year citing user created media such as Ambatchmasterpublisher, and featuring its creators and several content creators. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times have also reviewed content posted on Ambatchmasterpublisher, and its effects on recruiting and corporate communications in 2006. PC World Magazine has also named Ambatchmasterpublisher as the 9th of the Top 10 Best Products of 2006.[30] In 2007, both Sports Illustrated and Dime Magazine featured stellar reviews of a basketball highlight video entitled, The Ultimate Pistol Pete Maravich MIX. [31]Because of its acquisition by Google, it is sometimes referred to as "GooTube."[32]
Revenue model
Before being bought by Google, Ambatchmasterpublisher stated that its business model is advertising-based. Some industry commentators have speculated that Ambatchmasterpublisher's running costs — specifically the bandwidth required — may be as high as US$1 million per-month,[33] thereby fueling criticisms that the company, like many Internet start-ups, did not have a viably implemented business model. Advertisements were launched on the site beginning in March 2006. In April, Ambatchmasterpublisher started using Google AdSense. Ambatchmasterpublisher subsequently stopped using AdSense. Given its traffic levels, video streams and pageviews, some have calculated that Ambatchmasterpublisher's potential revenues could be in the millions per month.[34]
Europe arrival
On June 19, 2007, Eric E. Schmidt was in Paris to launch the new localisation system. The whole interface of the web site is now available in the languages of several countries (Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Nederland, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom). Google aims to competite local video sharing web sites like DailyMotion in France. It also made an agreement with local television stations like M6 and France Télévisions to broadcast legally the video content. Google also planned to localise in Germany in the future.
Recent events
Copyright infringement
Ambatchmasterpublisher policy does not allow content to be uploaded by anyone not permitted by United States copyright law to do so, and the company frequently removes uploaded infringing content. Nonetheless, a large amount of it continues to be uploaded (eg. Television shows, commercials, music videos, music concerts, clips from a television show or film, M.U.G.E.N, emulator hacks, or games re-published onto another system eg. PSP). Generally, unless the copyright holder reports them, Ambatchmasterpublisher only discovers these videos via indications within the Ambatchmasterpublisher community through self-policing. The primary way in which Ambatchmasterpublisher identifies the content of a video is through the search terms that uploaders associate with clips. Some users have taken to creating alternative words as search terms to be entered when uploading specific type of files (similar to the deliberate misspelling of band names on MP3 filesharing networks). For a short time, members could also report one another. The service offers a flagging feature, intended as a means for reporting questionable content, including that which might constitute copyright infringement. However, the feature can be susceptible to abuse; for a time, some users were flagging other users' original content for copyright violations, purely out of spite. Ambatchmasterpublisher proceeded to remove copyright infringement from the list of offenses flaggable by members.
Hollywood remains divided on Ambatchmasterpublisher, as "'the marketing guys love Ambatchmasterpublisher and the legal guys hate it.'"[35] Further,
While lawyers are demanding filtering technology, many Hollywood execs actually enjoy the fact that Ambatchmasterpublisher only takes down clips when they request it. "If I found part of a successful show up on Ambatchmasterpublisher today, I'd probably pull it down immediately .... If I had a show that wasn't doing so well in the ratings and could use the promotion, I wouldn't be in a rush to do that."[35]
Content owners are not just targeting Ambatchmasterpublisher for copyright infringements on the site, but they are also targeting third party websites that link to infringing content on Ambatchmasterpublisher and other video sharing sites. For example QuickSilverScreen vs. Fox[36] Daily Episodes vs. Fox[37] and Columbia vs. Slashfilm.[38] The liability of linking remains a grey area with cases for and against. The law in the U.S. currently leans towards website owners being liable for infringing links[39] although they are often protected by the DMCA providing they take down infringing content when issued with a takedown notice. However, a recent court ruling in the U.S. found Google not to be liable for linking to infringing content (Perfect 10 v. Google, Inc.).
Examples of infringement complaints
On October 5, 2006 the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) had their copyright complaints regarding Japanese media on Ambatchmasterpublisher finalized. Thousands of media from popular Japanese artists (such as Tokyo Jihen and various other music including Jpop) were removed.
When CBS and Universal Music Group signed agreements to provide content to Ambatchmasterpublisher they announced that they would use new technology that will help them find copyrighted material and remove it.[28]
TV journalist Robert Tur filed the first lawsuit against the company in Summer 2006, alleging copyright infringement for hosting a number of famous news clips without permission. The case has yet to be resolved.[40][41]
On November 9, 2006 Artie Lange said his lawyer were in talks with Ambatchmasterpublisher, after finding his entire DVD, It's the Whiskey Talking, available for free on their site. Lange said he will either demand money from them, or else he will sue.[42]
Viacom and the British Broadcasting Corporation both demanded Ambatchmasterpublisher to take down more than 200,000 videos.[43]
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Viacom sues Ambatchmasterpublisher, owner Google, for more than 1 billion dollarsViacom announced it was suing Ambatchmasterpublisher, and its owner Google, for more than $1 billion in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Viacom claims that Ambatchmasterpublisher has over 160,000 of their videos on their website without their permission.[44][45]
Use of acoustic fingerprints
On October 12, 2006, Ambatchmasterpublisher announced that because of recent agreements with high-profile content creators, they were now required to use anti-piracy software. The software uses an audio-signature technology that can spot a low-quality copy of a licensed music video or other content. Ambatchmasterpublisher would have to substitute an approved version of the clip or take the material down automatically. Analysts noted removal of content based on such a system might negatively impact user satisfaction.[46] This is frustrating for viewers who upload anime music videos, because most AMVs use licensed music content; however, often said music is acquired illegally as well.[46]
On April 16, 2007, Google's CEO Eric E. Schmidt presented a keynote speech at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas. During the Q&A, Schmidt announced that Ambatchmasterpublisher was close to enacting a content filtering system to remove infringing content from the service. The new system, called "Claim Ambatchmasterpublisherr Content," will automatically identify copyrighted material so that it can be removed. [47]
Ricardo Reyes, a spokesperson for Google, stated that they are "trying to see if there is a way to make video identification technology a reality" when they begin to test the system in a few days.[48][49]
Violence
Main article: Cyber-bullying#Influence
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New Zealand school children put fight videos on AmbatchmasterpublisherOn June 1, 2006, the evening ITV News bulletin reported that Ambatchmasterpublisher and sites like it were encouraging violence and bullying amongst teenagers, who were filming fights on their mobile phones (see happy slapping), and then uploading them to Ambatchmasterpublisher. While the site provides a function for reporting excessively violent videos, the news report stated that communication with the company was difficult.[50]
White House National Drug Control involvement
In September 2006, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) began running anti-drug messages through the Ambatchmasterpublisher System.[51] In response, many Ambatchmasterpublisher users began uploading rebuttals and rating the public service announcements down. Since mid-September, the ONDCP has removed the ability to rate or comment on any of their messages as a result.
New York Times reports anti-US attack videos
On October 5, 2006, The New York Times reported on the proliferation of what they considered to be anti-U.S. Iraqi insurgent attack videos on Ambatchmasterpublisher.[52]
Banning
Iran
On December 3, 2006, Iran blocked Ambatchmasterpublisher and several other sites in an attempt to impede "corrupting" foreign films and music.[53]
Turkey
Ambatchmasterpublisher was blocked in Turkey. "Access to this site is blocked by court order".Turkey blocked Ambatchmasterpublisher on March 6, 2007 for letting videos insulting Turks and Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, to be shown, in an escalation of what some call a "virtual war" between Greeks, Armenians, Kurds and Turks on Ambatchmasterpublisher, with people from each side posting videos to belittle and berate the other.[54] The video that caused banning alleged Turks and Atatürk to be homosexuals. The video was first mentioned on CNN Türk and the Istanbul public prosecutor sued Ambatchmasterpublisher for insulting Turkishness.[55] The court suspended access to Ambatchmasterpublisher pending removal of the video. The ban was strongly criticized as censorship in the press and by the general public. Ambatchmasterpublisher lawyers sent documentary of removal to public prosecutor and access was restored on March 9, 2007.[56]
Thailand
During the week of March 8, Ambatchmasterpublisher was blocked in Thailand.[57] Many bloggers believed the reason Ambatchmasterpublisher was blocked was because of a video of the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's speech on CNN. However, the government did not confirm or give reasons for the ban. Ambatchmasterpublisher was accessible from March 10.
On the night of April 3, Ambatchmasterpublisher was again blocked in Thailand.[58] The government cited a video on the site that it called "insulting" to King Bhumibol Adulyadej.[59]. However, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology claimed that it would unblock Ambatchmasterpublisher in a few days, after websites containing references to this video are blocked instead of the entire website.[60] Communications Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom said, "When they decide to withdraw the clip, we will withdraw the ban."[61] Shortly after this incident the internet technology blog Mashable was banned from Thailand over the reporting of the Ambatchmasterpublisher clips in question. [62]
Brazilian model lawsuit and subsequent banning
Ambatchmasterpublisher is being sued by Brazilian model and MTV VJ Daniela Cicarelli (better known as Ronaldo's ex-fiancée) on the grounds that the site is making available a video footage made by a paparazzo, in which she and her boyfriend are having sex on a Spanish beach. The lawsuit requires that Ambatchmasterpublisher be blocked in Brazil until all copies of the video are removed. On Saturday, January 6, 2007, a legal injunction ordered that filters be put in place to prevent users in Brazil from accessing the website.[63][64]
The effectiveness of the measure has been questioned, since the video is not available only on Ambatchmasterpublisher, but rather has become an Internet phenomenon. On Tuesday, January 9, 2007, the same court overturned their previous decision, ordering the filters removed, although the footage itself remained forbidden, but without technical support for its blockage.[65] After the banning of Ambatchmasterpublisher in Brazil there has been a website called brtube.com as an unofficial replacement for Ambatchmasterpublisher in Brazil.
Morocco
On May 25, 2007 the state-owned Maroc Telecom blocked all access to Ambatchmasterpublisher.[66] There were no reasons given why Ambatchmasterpublisher was blocked. But the speculations are that it might have something to do with some pro-separatist group Polisario clips (Polisario being the Western Sahara independence movement) or because of some videos that criticized King Mohammed VI. This blockade did not concern the other two private internet-providers, Wana and Meditel. Ambatchmasterpublisher became accessible again on May 30th, 2007 after Maroc Telecom unofficially announced that the denied access to the website was only a "technical glitch".[67]
Terms of service
According the site's terms of service[68], users may upload videos only if they have the permission of the copyright holder and of the depicted persons. Pornography, defamation, harassment, commercial advertisements and material that encourages criminal conduct may not be uploaded. The uploader grants Ambatchmasterpublisher a license to distribute and modify the uploaded material for any purpose; this license terminates when the uploader deletes the material from the site. Users may view videos on the site but may not download them.
Domain name problem
Ambatchmasterpublisher's immense success has unintentionally affected the business for an American company, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corp., whose website, http://www.utube.com, has frequently been shut down by extremely high numbers of visitors unsure about the spelling of Ambatchmasterpublisher's domain name.[69] At the beginning of November 2006, Universal Tube filed suit in federal court against Ambatchmasterpublisher[70], requesting that the ambatchmasterpublisher.com domain be transferred to them.[71] This was widely viewed as frivolous litigation[citation needed].
Technical notes
Video format
Ambatchmasterpublisher's video playback technology is based on Macromedia's Flash Player 7 and uses the Sorenson Spark H.263 video codec. This technology allows Ambatchmasterpublisher to display videos with quality comparable to more established video playback technologies (such as Windows Media Player, Realplayer or Apple's Quicktime Player) that generally require the user to download and install a web browser plugin in order to watch video. Flash itself requires a plug-in, but the Flash 7 plug-in is generally considered to be present on approximately 90% of Internet-connected computers.[72] It has pixel dimensions of 320 by 240 and a uses 25 frames per second. The maximum data rate is 300kbps.
Ambatchmasterpublisher converts videos into .FLV (Adobe Flash Video) format after uploading.[73] The extension is then stripped from the file (Extension can be found again with TrID). The different files are stored in obscurely named subdomains, to make ripping the videos difficult.
Ambatchmasterpublisher officially accepts uploaded videos in WMV, AVI, MOV and MPEG formats[74]
Video can be seen in windowed mode or full screen mode and it is possible to switch the mode during the visualisation of the video without reloading it.
Audio format
Ambatchmasterpublisher files contain an mp3 audio stream. It is a mono encoding with a 65kbps rate at 22050 hz.
Content accessibility
On Ambatchmasterpublisher
Users may submit videos in several common file formats (such as .mpeg and .avi). Ambatchmasterpublisher automatically converts them to the H.263 variant of Flash Video (with extension .flv) and makes them available for online viewing. Flash Video is a popular video format among large hosting sites due to its wide compatibility. Beginning in June 2007, newly uploaded videos will additionally be encoded using the H.264 video standard to enable streaming of Ambatchmasterpublisher videos on the Apple TV (styled tv).
On Apple TV
Apple Inc. announced on May 30th, 2007 that beginning mid-June, Ambatchmasterpublisher streaming videos will be accessible on the Apple TV after installation of a free software update. Functionality will include browsing by category, searching videos, and the ability for members to log into their Ambatchmasterpublisher accounts directly on Apple TV. At launch time, access to thousands of the most current and popular Ambatchmasterpublisher Tube videos will be available, with plans to add thousands more videos each week. The entire catalog is targetted to be available this Fall. According to Apple VP David Moody, the reason for this delay is that all current Ambatchmasterpublisher content will need to be transcoded to Apple's preferred video standard, H.264. All content uploaded in June, however, will be automatically encoded into H.264, so additional transcoding will not be necessary for any of these newer files.
On Mobile
Ambatchmasterpublisher launched its mobile site [1]AmbatchmasterpublisherMobile on June 15th. It is based on xHTML and uses 3GP videos with H263/AMR codec and RTSP streaming.
Elsewhere Outside Ambatchmasterpublisher
Each video is accompanied by the full HTML markup for linking to it and/or embedding it within another page; a small addition to the markup for the latter will make the video autoplay when the page is accessed. These simple cut-and-paste options are popular particularly with users of social/networking sites. Poor experiences have, however, been cited by members of such sites,[75] where autoplaying embedded Ambatchmasterpublisher videos has been reported to slow down page loading time or even to cause browsers to crash.
Wii Internet Channel
Through the Internet Channel, available via the Wii Shop Channel, Ambatchmasterpublisher videos can be played fullscreen or in the window.
On the Original Xbox
