Google Acts Un-Evil

by on August 21, 2007 · 6 comments

Kudos for Google for making amends for the bone-headed way Google decided to shut down its ill-fated video store. Customers will now be able to watch videos for another six months, and for every dollar they spent at the video store, they’ll get a dollar of Google Checkout credit and a dollar of cash. Google sure is sorry.

But here’s what I don’t get: why doesn’t Google just keep its DRM servers running? I don’t know exactly how they work, but it can’t possibly cost more to keep them running than to provide refunds to everyone who’s ever purchased from the store.

I hope this serves as a cautionary tale for other firms considering whether to introduce DRMed or non-DRMed content offerings: the DRM isn’t just a pain in the ass for the customer, it can be a pain in the ass for the vendor as well. Had Google heeded Mike’s advice and sold videos in an open format from the beginning, they wouldn’t be having these problems now, because files in open formats don’t require magical authentication servers to continue playing.

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About Tim Lee

Timothy B. Lee (Contributor, 2004-2009) is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is currently a PhD student and a member of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. He contributes regularly to a variety of online publications, including Ars Technica, Techdirt, Cato @ Liberty, and The Angry Blog. He has been a Mac bigot since 1984, a Unix, vi, and Perl bigot since 1998, and a sworn enemy of HTML-formatted email for as long as certain companies have thought that was a good idea. You can reach him by email at leex1008@umn.edu.

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  • http://www.uglyshz.com/blog Jon L

    Great moves on Google’s part.

    Keep in mind we can be pretty sure that the DRM inclusion wasn’t just the idea of Google.

    Quite often a video service provider can’t get the critical mass of content it needs on it’s platform without agreeing to implement DRM, thanks to the demands of the content copyright holders.

    Thankfully, there are some changes starting to happen at the copyright holder level that are encouraging (such as UMG and the GBox service) and I hope this continues from music, into video.

  • http://www.techliberation.com/ Tim Lee

    Jon, evidently Google wasn’t able to get a “critical mass” going even with DRMed content. IMHO, they would have been more successful if they’d focused on being a DRM-free alternative to the other DRM-encumbered offerings out there. I certainly would have been more likely to buy from them.

  • http://www.uglyshz.com/blog Jon L

    Great moves on Google’s part.

    Keep in mind we can be pretty sure that the DRM inclusion wasn’t just the idea of Google.

    Quite often a video service provider can’t get the critical mass of content it needs on it’s platform without agreeing to implement DRM, thanks to the demands of the content copyright holders.

    Thankfully, there are some changes starting to happen at the copyright holder level that are encouraging (such as UMG and the GBox service) and I hope this continues from music, into video.

  • http://www.techliberation.com/ Tim Lee

    Jon, evidently Google wasn’t able to get a “critical mass” going even with DRMed content. IMHO, they would have been more successful if they’d focused on being a DRM-free alternative to the other DRM-encumbered offerings out there. I certainly would have been more likely to buy from them.

  • http://www.uglyshz.com/blog Jon L

    Tim,

    Good point! LOL.

    Being in rehab from the media industry (just left after 10 years), I can say that every video provider that ever came in to pitch the majors (producers & networks) came in to the meetings knowing that they HAD to include DRM on the content or the meetings (and the subsequent, very important Press Releases) were all non-starters.

    All that hullabullo and short-sightedness created great personal impetus to say “Hey, you know, THIS is a good time to take a vacation from the old media model, since our execs clearly don’t understand new media.”

    (By the way, I actually had an exec very recently, tell us we should start scheduling “windows of availability” for content online. Post a show for 5 days, then take it down, then post another show, and take it down, etc. YIKES. Long Tail Ignorance, anyone?)

  • http://www.uglyshz.com/blog Jon L

    Tim,

    Good point! LOL.

    Being in rehab from the media industry (just left after 10 years), I can say that every video provider that ever came in to pitch the majors (producers & networks) came in to the meetings knowing that they HAD to include DRM on the content or the meetings (and the subsequent, very important Press Releases) were all non-starters.

    All that hullabullo and short-sightedness created great personal impetus to say “Hey, you know, THIS is a good time to take a vacation from the old media model, since our execs clearly don’t understand new media.”

    (By the way, I actually had an exec very recently, tell us we should start scheduling “windows of availability” for content online. Post a show for 5 days, then take it down, then post another show, and take it down, etc. YIKES. Long Tail Ignorance, anyone?)

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