Considering Others

Appropriating value: on the relationship between business models and intellectual property

“…126 Initially, YouTube's amateur UGC included much copyrighted music and film video, either directly pirated by its users or restaged in their 'homecasts', and thus attracted infringement lawsuits by the major, typically Hollywood-based, media companies that owned the properties. 127 In response, YouTube introduced software identifying when professionally produced content is uploaded; the company then offers rights holders a removal of the IP or persuades them the content's continued display on the video sharing platform will not harm but help its exploitation, by winning increased audience exposure and generating advertising revenue via Google's AdSense programme. 128 Indeed, the first years of YouTube's history are chiefly marked by its shift from a pre-Google, 'ad-free' business model, to an 'ad-friendly' model following Google's purchase.…”

“…129 Seeking more professional content, YouTube began approaching media producers to broadcast their branded content on dedicated YouTube channels and split the advertising proceeds, an initiative which has grown to include more than one million partnerships worldwide as of 2016. 130 Further, YouTube has spawned a new breed of industry intermediary to work between it and its 'exploding' numbers of partners to produce and manage content: the multichannel networks. MCNs 'seek to stabilize runaway growth and respond to 'glocal' dynamics, whilst also justifying their additional stake in the revenue stream by providing a creole mix of talent agency, big data analytics, public relations and marketing'.…”

“…MCNs 'seek to stabilize runaway growth and respond to 'glocal' dynamics, whilst also justifying their additional stake in the revenue stream by providing a creole mix of talent agency, big data analytics, public relations and marketing'. 131 The MCNs themselves have had to evolve into multiplatform networks (MPNs), which reconfigure content for sharing across the multiple content providers (such as Instagram, Snapchat, Vimeo) that consumers access. 132 While these and other strategies have not fully eradicated intellectual property infringement challenges for YouTube, they have fuelled the platform's radical growth in partnerships, content volume and revenue, while winning away a major portion of the television sector's advertising revenue.…”

“…131 The MCNs themselves have had to evolve into multiplatform networks (MPNs), which reconfigure content for sharing across the multiple content providers (such as Instagram, Snapchat, Vimeo) that consumers access. 132 While these and other strategies have not fully eradicated intellectual property infringement challenges for YouTube, they have fuelled the platform's radical growth in partnerships, content volume and revenue, while winning away a major portion of the television sector's advertising revenue. 133 The initiatives also have been interpreted as a significant shift by YouTube, from its UGC and communitarian origins to becoming a professionalised network of producers and intermediaries.…”

“…132 While these and other strategies have not fully eradicated intellectual property infringement challenges for YouTube, they have fuelled the platform's radical growth in partnerships, content volume and revenue, while winning away a major portion of the television sector's advertising revenue. 133 The initiatives also have been interpreted as a significant shift by YouTube, from its UGC and communitarian origins to becoming a professionalised network of producers and intermediaries. 134 Fashion design, as an archetypally weak appropriability industry, i.e., having weak IP enforcement rights, has developed its own 'protection' in the form of induced obsolescence--a variation on the first-mover strategy, or innovating to stay ahead of competitors-via highspeed diffusion of ideas 'leading to dissipation of (social) value'.…”