做个混乱中立者Be Chaotic Neutral
谷歌收购 YouTube 这笔交易看起来是各方共赢。嗯，几乎如此。
谷歌：
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用大约相当于你市值 1% 的价钱，买下互联网视频的未来。
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这些诉讼就算谷歌没有收购 YouTube，恐怕也迟早要替 YouTube 应诉。嗯？你看，YouTube 在未事先获得版权方许可的情况下存储并提供视频副本，接到删除请求后才将其移除，这属于 DMCA 安全港条款的范畴。而谷歌复制图书，也在未事先获得版权方许可的情况下提供网页副本……
YouTube 与股东：
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超过 10 亿美元，足以让人兴奋不已
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谷歌叔叔包揽了变现风险和诉讼风险
各大唱片公司：
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每家 5000 万美元
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YouTube 承诺在 6 个月内，让那些侵权的"糟粕"统统消失
输家：
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小唱片公司：既没有资金也没有资源对谷歌发起一场正经的法律挑战。一分钱也没拿到。
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小型视频分享网站：各大唱片公司打算把它们告到倒闭，好立下一个先例，替谷歌等公司干了这些脏活。
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艺人：版税？什么版税？给每家唱片公司的 5000 万美元被设计成股权投资，不参与版税分成。
于是，谷歌拿到了奖品，唱片公司拿到了钱，YouTube 拿到了回报，而谷歌则把自己那一次大规模的版权侵权延续下去，借此建立临界规模，同时让唱片公司充当执法者，确保没有人能重演 YouTube 的故事。
没错，不靠作恶也能赚到钱。 但对 YouTube 的竞争对手、小唱片公司和艺人来说，"作恶"与否是相对的。
The Google / YouTube looks like a win-win all around. Well, almost.
Google:
- Acquire the future of video on the Internet for roughly 1% of your market cap.
- Get $500M in escrow to protect against copyright lawsuits
- These are lawsuits that Google would probably have to defend YouTube against anyway, even if Google didn’t own YouTube. Huh? Let’s see, YouTube stores and serves up copies of videos without copyright holders’ advance permission and removes them when removal is requested, under DMCA Safe Harbor. Google copies books, and serves up copies of pages without copyright holders’ advance permission…
Youtube and shareholders:
- 1 Billion plus reasons to be thrilled
- Uncle Google takes on monetization risk and legal risk
Major labels:
- $50 Million each
- A promise from YouTube that within 6 months, the copyrighted nasties will be gone
Losers:
- Small Labels: Don’t have the money or the resources to mount a serious legal challenge to Google. Didn’t get paid.
- Small video-sharing sites: The major labels are going to sue them out of existence to establish a precedent, doing the dirty work for Google et al.
- Artists: Royalties? What royalties? The $50M to each label is structured as an equity investment, and not subject to royalty splits.
So, Google gets the prize, the labels get the money, YouTube gets the payout, and Google extends its one-time massive copyright violation to build critical mass, while using the labels as enforcers to make sure that no one can repeat the YouTube story.
Yes, you can make money without being evil. But for YouTube’s competitors, small labels, and the artists, evil is relative.