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Rory Cellan-Jones

My YouTube shame - part two

  • Rory Cellan-Jones
  • 15 Apr 09, 08:53 GMT

For the second time in a year, I'm in trouble with YouTube - and finding out just how closely the video-sharing service is now policed for any whiff of copyright infringement.

Last year I received a warning that a video I had uploaded of my family playing in the park featured copyrighted material in the form of a Cat Stevens song, used as a backing track.

In that case it was allowed to remain on the site, although advertising appeared alongside my video, as a result of an agreement between Google and the record labels on "monetising" music videos.

But now a video I uploaded at the weekend has been deleted - and I've received a stiff warning that my whole account could be closed down if I fail to behave myself.

YouTube screengrab

This time the copyright issue involved not music, but football. I'd visited one of the big matches of the weekend - Brentford v Exeter City - and uploaded exactly 37 seconds of action.

It wasn't exactly "Match of The Day" - one shot of the teams walking out, two attempts on goal by Brentford and a penalty miss. But I wasn't trying to record match highlights - my aims was to try out a new mini high-definition camera.

I wanted to see what kind of pictures I could get out of the camera - and how they would look when uploaded as a large file to YouTube, which now offers an HD option.

Brentford v Exeter CityI'd somehow forgotten that the Football League are policing YouTube closely - and also assumed that they were looking out for material grabbed from the television, not a few frames of video shot from the crowd.

It looks as though my camera doesn't belong to me once I go through the turnstiles at a football ground. Maybe they should have the same signs that you get at cinemas, warning against the use of a video camera.

But here's a funny thing. I uploaded another video to YouTube last week , featuring a live performance by Billy Bragg at a press conference. He was part of an event staged to demand better terms for musicians - from YouTube's parent company, Google.

I've not received any warning notice about this video, and when I searched, I found plenty more material featuring Billy Bragg, much of it shot by fans. In one clip you can actually hear the songwriter asking people to sing nicely because they may well end up on YouTube.

So it seems there's a simple message - it's worth taking your video camera or mobile phone to a gig because the artists and their labels won't really mind too much, whatever their views of YouTube. But if you're going to a League Two football match, take my advice - leave your camera at home.

Maggie Shiels

Skype for sale...any takers?

  • Maggie Shiels
  • 15 Apr 09, 08:30 GMT

There is no doubt eBay's move to stick the For Sale sign on the Skype lawn came as no great surprise in Silicon Valley and could well have one or two benefits for the online auction company.

eBay logoWall Street was certainly happy with the initial news and shares went up a notch or two in after hours trading to finish around the $15 mark.

Next week eBay has an earnings report out, so shareholders might be more lenient on the board if the numbers don't delight because they know the future means offloading a company that left many scratching their heads when eBay paid $2.6bn for it in 2005.

eBay boss John Donahue himself admitted that the Skype purchase was not a wise buy when he said: "It's clear that Skype has limited synergies with eBay and PayPal...and that separating Skype will allow eBay to focus entirely on our two core growth engines - e-commerce and online payments - and deliver long-term value to our stockholders."

So why not just put the company on the block and sell it now rather than go down the IPO (initial public offering) route sometime next year?

It's a cute move in a down economy surely to lure out possible buyers and placate shareholders?

SkypeFor some analysts the IPO route just doesn't make sense now or next year. Gregory Lundberg from Commresearch told Reuters News: "The first thing that I have to say is market conditions currently would not support an IPO of Skype in our opinion. 2010 will be equally questionable unless the business changes course with the launch of the BlackBerry and iPhone applications."

In its first 36 hours, the iPhone app was downloaded one million times.

The IPO market is pretty miserable at the moment. So far this quarter there has been just one IPO pulling in over $800m compared to 20 last year at the same time raising $24bn.

So if this is a bait and switch move, who would want to buy the company.

First out of the gate are the original founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis who have reportedly approached a number of private-equity firms about buying their baby back.

eBay however might not be willing to do a deal here, notes the blog TechCrunch, given that it is "embroiled in a legal dispute over Skype's licence to certain peer-to-peer technologies which Skype founders still control...and which form the technological foundation of Skype."

There are of course other possible buyers.

Microsoft was in the running last time and could well be interested again. Yahoo was also there but it's doubtful they would be able to play ball at the moment given their own financial woes.

Google is steadily moving into the world of mobile with voice search, Grand Central and of course its Android platform. The search giant has declared time and again that mobile is the future and with Skype's 405m user base, it would give them one fantastic kick start.

But analyst Jon Arnold of J Arnold & Associates notes that they "don't have an end point, their own phone. They have a platform but are light years behind where Apple is."

In fact Mr Arnold believes that Skype is the perfect fit for Apple.

"If there is a cool move to be made here, it is Apple and Skype getting together," said Mr Arnold.

"Skype has this amazing user community and Apple has the cool products but it doesn't have a community like the Skype community. The two together would become a global carrier in the true sense of the word because most carriers are geographically based and these two are so rooted in the world of the internet that it is native to them."

Mr Arnold said he has even devised a name for the Skype/Apple product and it's Skapple!

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