This blog is for doctoral students in the Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design (RCID) program at Clemson University, specifically in the RCID 805 course, Fall 2008.
I had a brief stint with Viacom upper management in the late 90's and really had an opportunity to observe this world. Sumner Redstone has grown a mega-company by successfully controlling the images his companies make, and so it is doubtful that he will be open-hearted with YouTube. He has spent a fortune purchasing companies specifically geared towards licensing deals, though I agree with the general premise that they just do not know how to make money off of this new media, and so have decided to follow an old recourse - a lawsuit. However, when I was there, I witnessed us lose a major lawsuit, so Viacom doesn't win everything.
As Jeffrey Lindgren states, Viacom's action is "probably about a large company that would prefer the old status quo, where they had most of the control (over their content distribution), and they didn't cede it to companies like YouTube and Google." Mr. Redstone would be well-served in reading and applying the principals of Nietzsche to this lawsuit. If he could understand that YouTube gives people the the "ability to contradict" so that one attains a "good conscience when one feels hostile to what is accustomed, traditional, and hallowed, - that is still more excellent and constitutes what is really great, new, and amazing in our culture, the steps of the liberated spirit. . . ." In essence, by allowing people to download his clips and create their own artwork from it, he allows people to realize a higher human desire and provoke contradiction that in turn creates self-awareness, and a healthy self-actualized people. How sad to take that gift to humanity because of a fear that he will lose his financial stake in media images, particularly when he is already a billionaire! Hasn't society already compensated him enough?
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I had a brief stint with Viacom upper management in the late 90's and really had an opportunity to observe this world. Sumner Redstone has grown a mega-company by successfully controlling the images his companies make, and so it is doubtful that he will be open-hearted with YouTube. He has spent a fortune purchasing companies specifically geared towards licensing deals, though I agree with the general premise that they just do not know how to make money off of this new media, and so have decided to follow an old recourse - a lawsuit. However, when I was there, I witnessed us lose a major lawsuit, so Viacom doesn't win everything.
As Jeffrey Lindgren states, Viacom's action is "probably about a large company that would prefer the old status quo, where they had most of the control (over their content distribution), and they didn't cede it to companies like YouTube and Google." Mr. Redstone would be well-served in reading and applying the principals of Nietzsche to this lawsuit. If he could understand that YouTube gives people the the "ability to contradict" so that one attains a "good conscience when one feels hostile to what is accustomed, traditional, and hallowed, - that is still more excellent and constitutes what is really great, new, and amazing in our culture, the steps of the liberated spirit. . . ." In essence, by allowing people to download his clips and create their own artwork from it, he allows people to realize a higher human desire and provoke contradiction that in turn creates self-awareness, and a healthy self-actualized people. How sad to take that gift to humanity because of a fear that he will lose his financial stake in media images, particularly when he is already a billionaire! Hasn't society already compensated him enough?
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