SkyBOX: The Pot, The Kettle & Google

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: October 16, 2006 6:58:39 AM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] SkyBOX: The Pot, The Kettle & Google
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com

OTHER VOICES: by Evie Haskell evie () Mediabiz com

Here's one you gotta love: Steve Ballmer says Google is a blooming  
monopolist which poses a ... hang on now ... threat to "all media."

Yep, CEO of the company best known for its repeated attempts to gain,  
and hold, a monopoly on all things computing is now pointing a finger  
at Google as the potential monopolist de jour.

What Ballmer actually said in an interview with BusinessWeek: "What  
Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of  
rights holders into Google. So media companies around the world are  
all threatened by Google." If a strong competitor doesn't step up  
quickly, Ballmer continues, "You can short all media stocks right now."

Aside from the obvious, and self-serving, pot-calling-the-kettle- 
black aspects of this, Ballmer makes some interesting points. Having  
paid more than 1 percent of its market cap ($1.6 billion) to acquire  
internet phenom YouTube, and having a finger in just about every  
currently "hot" web-based property via either advertising deals or  
direct investment, Google is arguably poised to dominate all things  
internet. That, of course, includes video via internet. And if you  
believe that the internet will continue to take up an ever larger  
piece of the consumer media pie, then yes ... Google is moving into  
position to gobble us all. Why else would Google honcho Eric Schmidt  
be crisscrossing the country to assure various media barons that  
Google is "not in the content business" and will vigorously defend  
the copyrights of said barons?

Of course, the barons themselves are not so convinced. Time Warner's  
Dick Parson's, for one, is on record as most definitely planning to  
defend his company's rights over miscellaneous pieces of video and  
music flitting across the 'net. Speaking to The Guardian, he recently  
noted, "If you let one thing ignore your rights as an owner it makes  
it much more difficult to defend those rights when the next guy comes  
along."

So here we are folks, back in the trenches of digital media rights  
with questions on exactly how the internet kaleidoscope might impact  
our futures. It's not that we think the 'net will eclipse such forces  
as DirecTV, Comcast, DISH etc anytime in the near future ... Just  
look at the techno glitches currently hobbling various movie download  
services to get your answer to that. But fact is that all things  
internet are moving much, much faster than most media pundits have  
expected. So keeping an eye on the latest wanna-be monopolists is  
probably a very good idea.

www.SkyReport.com - used with permission




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