In this brief on‑camera commentary recorded in Colorado Springs, Tom Guarriello, Ph.D. reflects on the high‑profile Viacom lawsuit against Google/YouTube. He frames the case as a pivotal moment in a broader, ongoing revolution in copyright, entertainment ownership, and intellectual‑property economics. Drawing on Larry Lessig’s historical overview of copyright (as presented at TED), Guarriello argues that the old, litigation‑driven approach cannot resolve the emerging digital landscape. Instead, he advocates for new, collaborative revenue‑sharing models between content owners (e.g., Viacom) and platforms (e.g., YouTube), warning that attempts to force content to remain “free” without compensation are unsustainable. He concludes with a call to see whether industry leaders will adopt forward‑looking solutions or remain trapped in legacy thinking.
Chapters
Hey guys, it's Tom Guarriello. I'm here today in lovely Colorado Springs, really gorgeous. Came over this morning from San Francisco and I wanted to just briefly make a video about, you know, one of the big news items of the day, which is the Viacom lawsuit against Google and YouTube. And I entitled this video "The Other Shoe Drops" because I guess everybody's been waiting for this to happen. It was just a matter of when it was going to happen. You know, I think what we're witnessing, not witnessing only, but participating in, is this enormous revolution, this enormous change in the way intellectual property, the way entertainment, the way copyright, all of these fundamental kinds of principles with regard to ownership of material, the way all of those are being are being changed. And at TED, you may remember in, in one of the videos I made about TED— I made another one, by the way, which I don't like, so I'm not going to post today— but in one of the videos I made about TED, I talked about Larry Lessig's talk in which he went through the history of copyright law. And this is another step. I mean, a billion-dollar lawsuit by Viacom is one of the craziest things that we're going to encounter in this evolutionary period. Why is it crazy? Well, because the, the way to— the way out of this dilemma is not by using the kind of tools that were the tools of the past, but by using the tools of the future. And those tools of the future are new kinds of collaborations between companies like Google YouTube and the Viacom company— Viacom companies— and resorting to this kind of what to me feels like desperate kind of measures to, um, try to force things back into the old models are just not going to work over time. There needs to be ways for revenue to be shared. The idea that everything is free and is going to continue to be free and everybody uses it free and nobody benefits from the complete, um, um, uh, transporting of a TV show, for example, from Viacom to, uh, to YouTube and have no revenue involved is crazy. That's not going to happen. But suing YouTube, Google, uh, over this is equally crazy. Finding new models for, for the new ways that things are gonna, um, uh, go forward is what's necessary. And so here we go. I mean, I think we're gonna see now where, uh, whether or not the courts and the, the people in leadership, most particularly the people in leadership in the companies, in Viacom and in Google/YouTube, um, are going to be able to think their way through this in a new way, or whether everybody's gonna be trapped in the past. Let's see what happens. I'll see you guys soon. Take it easy. Two cents from me. Take care, bye-bye.
