Mark Cuban is a moron

Mark Cuban has been quoted saying that anyone who buys YouTube is a \”moron\”.  He does have a good point in that most of the content found on the site is copyrighted.

But Cuban is far from unbiased on this topic.  He is the co-founder of HDNet, and he went out of his way to down play the usefulness of sites like YouTube and \”Viral Campaigns\”, while touting the great opportunities there are to advertise in mediums like, you guessed it, HDNet!!!

At least Cuban admits that user-generated content isn\’t going away.  And I think owners of copyrighted material need to realize that sites like YouTube are a great vehicle for free advertising.  If someone really likes a song or a music video, do you really think they will continue to go to YouTube to watch it?  Don\’t you think there is a much better chance that they would come to the source and maybe even purchase it?

Think about the clips from the Daily Show, or Countdown with Keith Olbermann.  If MSNBC or Comedy Central were to sue YouTube do you think that would drive more people to those shows?  In fact I would guess that the negative publicity of such a move would actually drive people from watching.  If anything, the publicity those shows have received from postings on YouTube have probably increased the viewership, and at no cost to the networks.

Dinosaur media needs to get with the program, and fast.  The music industry was on the leading edge of this change, mostly because it\’s much easier to download and transmit a 3 minute song than it is to do the same with 45 minutes of network programming, or 90 minutes of a feature film.  But the change is coming.  It\’s time to adapt and embrace, or find yourself in the no win battle the music industry is going through which could leave you on the brink of extinction.