I've often wondered if this specific case would ever eventually come up. Consider, for a moment, that you are a user at some kind of social content website like YouTube, Flickr or some other. You faithfully upload content that you produce. Somehow or another, the website figures out a way to make money.
Shouldn't you share in that success? Somehow? Someway?
One of the users at YouTube, who applied to YouTube's partner program but was denied, is not exceptionally happy about the outcome. Apparently he has some videos on YouTube and they get pretty good traffic. Ever since YouTube decided to share some of the ad revenue with popular, traffic-generating users, it is possible that people can start getting something back for being a contributing member - if you're selected to be one of the "partners."
Since he was denied a partnership, he is suing Google ( since they purchased YouTube ) and believes he is entitled to some sort of compensation.
I see two sides to this:
First off, social sites like YouTube and Flickr ( to name just a couple ), I believe should give something back. Google paid 1.5 BILLION dollars. They didn't just buy the software and hardware, they bought YouTube for it's popularity. The members of the site ( through their contributions of content ) made the site as popular as it is. Of course, figuring out exactly how the members should be compensated is yet another matter even though using traffic to particular viewings of a specific video is a good place to start.
On the other hand: The people that built YouTube had the foresight and the know-how to build the software, make it scale and promote it in order for it to be as successful as it is. It isn't as if there are no other options to upload and view video on the web.
Either way, it should be an interesting case that ultimately could change the social content sites that we know now.
Shouldn't you share in that success? Somehow? Someway?
One of the users at YouTube, who applied to YouTube's partner program but was denied, is not exceptionally happy about the outcome. Apparently he has some videos on YouTube and they get pretty good traffic. Ever since YouTube decided to share some of the ad revenue with popular, traffic-generating users, it is possible that people can start getting something back for being a contributing member - if you're selected to be one of the "partners."
Since he was denied a partnership, he is suing Google ( since they purchased YouTube ) and believes he is entitled to some sort of compensation.
I see two sides to this:
First off, social sites like YouTube and Flickr ( to name just a couple ), I believe should give something back. Google paid 1.5 BILLION dollars. They didn't just buy the software and hardware, they bought YouTube for it's popularity. The members of the site ( through their contributions of content ) made the site as popular as it is. Of course, figuring out exactly how the members should be compensated is yet another matter even though using traffic to particular viewings of a specific video is a good place to start.
On the other hand: The people that built YouTube had the foresight and the know-how to build the software, make it scale and promote it in order for it to be as successful as it is. It isn't as if there are no other options to upload and view video on the web.
Either way, it should be an interesting case that ultimately could change the social content sites that we know now.