Dec 18 2006
MySpace and YouTube Heading for Trouble?
Newsday.com and an interesting Op-Ed piece on Sunday drawing analogies between MySpace and YouTube with the rise and and subsequent falls of Napster and Kazaa. Could music sharing on MySpace and Video sharing on YouTube be heading down the same road?
The two differ in fundamental ways from their file-sharing predecessors, but their popularity flows in part from the same source: a supply of free media contributed by users. On YouTube it is video clips; on My Space it is clips and music. In fact, the two sites each show more videos than any Web site except Yahoo.
And now, with both sites drawing flak from copyright holders, the question is whether they’ll follow their predecessors’ rapid path downward, too.
The descent of the file-sharing companies was fueled mainly by their inability to satisfy the demand for free downloads that they had stoked. When the courts ordered the original Napster to prevent users from downloading copyrighted songs, it lost more than 60 percent of its audience in five months. It never recovered.
Could we be on the verge of another attack from the RIAA or Hollywood? Stay tuned.
