April 4, 2007

Forget YouTube: Go To These Sites If You Want Hard Core Copyright Infringing Content

Michael Arrington

124 comments »

YouTube is clearly the most popular video sharing site on the web. But limits on video length, DMCA takedown notices and billion dollar lawsuits have damaged YouTube’s ability to facilitate serious copyright infringement. The smaller guys are now stepping in to fill the void.

Full length copies of well known TV shows and/or movies are readily available on a number of YouTube competitors. Watch, for example, The Office on DailyMotion, Scrubs on GoFish, or SouthPark on Veoh (update: GoFish and Veoh have apparently removed the shows I linked to).

And if searching for the shows on these sites is just too much work, there are other sites that aggregate and organize this content, and embed it on their own sites. Watch any episode from any of the 11 seasons of SouthPark on Allsp.com. And new site VideoHybrid is in a class of its own, with dozens of full length movies and virtually every popular TV show. VideoHybrid even gives statistics showing exactly how many times copyrights have been violated.

Its not clear if the MPAA and networks just aren’t focusing on these smaller video sharing sites yet, or if DMCA notices are simply being ignored. These sites aren’t hiding out and trying to evade the law - they’re funded by well known venture capitalists and, in Veoh’s case, copyright holders. And GoFish is actually a public company.

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Comments

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  1. visible.mobi

    You raise some interesting points…

  2. Mike @ Emerging Earth

    It’s all about the money. If small video sites can’t be sued out of a billion or two, it’s not worth the effort. If Veoh pays dividends for copyright holders, it’s all good.

  3. Rene Kriest

    lol!

    I just thought by myself: “Hey, where are my South Park DVDs?”

    Now I do not need to care about them anymore. ;)

    Regards,

    René
    ProBloggerWorld

  4. Kewtr

    Good stuff, looking forward to your recommendations for just plain ‘Hard Core’ content.

  5. Daniel Rust

    Dailymotion is definitely one the top sites for full shows/movies which infringe on copyrights. But if the amount of infringement is based on views, YouTube is the winner.

  6. Helen

    Both Allsp and videohybrid CRASH my IE7

  7. Anthony

    Uhhhh… could you, like, not bring any spotlight to these websites, please? :)

  8. Adrian

    Well, since the cat is out of the bag…you all owe me one:

    EyeBum Movies

    This site BLEW me away.

  9. Tim

    There is a really nice site named tv-links.co.uk which provides links to all these small platforms. There you actually find close to every popular TV-Shows and to tons of movies.

  10. Rupert

    Thanks for this post. Also see http://www.forbes.com/technolo.....video.html

    In my opinion copyright content is a big issue on the web but you will never be a way to really prevent it from beeing shared (see mp3). At the moment I think it also is used as kind of viral promotion tool for all the smaller video sites at the moment. I prefer Dailymotion just because all the copyright content on it… Also see Daniel Rust’s comment “Dailymotion is definitely one the top sites for full shows/movies which infringe on copyrights…” But to be honest content is still hard to find, unregularly updated or very fast deleted…

  11. alexdirk

    VideoHybrid is pretty cool, and i think now they are gonna go down … due to traffic offcourse.

  12. Stan Schroeder

    While this is not news, I guess that TechCrunch is big enough that sometimes pointing to the obvious can yield good results. Lawsuits have become a stick used to milk money, and not a means to get justice. The big cos use them only when it pays off; and sometimes, as in YouTube’s case, it pays better to wait.

  13. Adam benayoun

    This is not really about The copyright infrigement but more about the money and the fact that a huge player (google) make money on the back of the big studio.
    There is zillions of sites and users that are all together having a bigger money impact on the studios.

    The thing about Google is that if the studios need to fight the biggest figther in order to show the other that copyright infrigement is something that should be taken lightly.

    If the studios will win in this fight around this issue, this will bring a lot of PR to the studio and likely kill off a lot of future actions from the part of google, this is a very hard and dangerous fight that involved the future of google earth, google books and many more ventures that google are deploying in order to control the world’s data. If they win, they will control the market and take the lead and you can expect google to be unstopable in few years.

    Dont forget also that there is also a lot of money involved, google has a lot of cash and will likely be forced to pay in this “game”.

    Anyway, thats my 2 cents.

  14. AdvertiseSpace

    I’m with #7 Anthony on this one. Why shed any light on these types of sites and with a reader base of 350K essentially promoting them for free.

    Yesterday promoting Digg spamming services, today pirates, tomorrow coming up on TechCrunch, the Top 10 email spamming services to try…

  15. Aditi

    lolzz….
    Good stuff.

  16. Joel Toe

    You have pointed out some really good points. Some good links are provided by you. Thanks

  17. Michael Ossareh

    Is a certain part of this post not evil? You know full well the techcrunch effect when you post about a site. Now almost at will you can cause issues for the guys that are running these sites. Perhaps previous to this they were able to make a living and stay under the radar, but you’ve completely shot that to piece now.

    Mike

  18. Webbster

    Splitter

  19. ChrisD

    I believe I read an article from an exec from Viacom in which he knew about what is happening on Veoh but said that they are focusing their energies on the sites with more traction.

    That said, I’ve made comments that it’s pretty unbelievable that a site would take that approach in this climate, particularly with Eisner on board. It’s just inviting trouble.

  20. pallet jack

    Im thinking wow; This has to some how help Google’s defense -

    - If they could prove that - you can’t stop what is happening on the internet with youtube; etc … Could that be a defense?

    - Didn’t it work with alcohol ? prohibition?

    -RB

  21. jagadeesh karicherla

    Well video hosting industry is taking the path of music industry(interms of copyright violation).

  22. awesomo

    Mike, thanks for the great links; I didn’t know that I can watch so much crap for free :)

  23. Dave

    Chad with a yahoo email address. Nice.

  24. brian field

    I think its a big problem for legitimate start-ups.

    Here at http://www.fukeo.com (NSFW) we have spent a large effort in only indexing legitimate video content, unlike most ‘adult’ video sites that scrape and/or host longer form copyright material.

    It makes it difficult to gain traction with a legal business model if a punter can go elsewhere and get copyright content for free - and that applies to all content, not just adult content.

    Unfortunately, the copyright owners will wait for someone to become ’sueable’, but in the meantime legitimate models are crowded out…

  25. Amanda

    I know a bunch of other blogs that do it.. but I have to say I’d rather just download them…

  26. Guido

    Everyone seems to forget about newsgoups, which is still the best source for these types of files…

  27. JahBuh

    That was foul… you just shut down some of the best unknown video sites on the internet. I see NBC, CBS, FOX, etc. all scrambling to send out hundreds of requests for content removal right now.

  28. J

    I hate you. Thanks for letting all the idiots in the world know about some of the coolest sites on the internet.

    If they shut down, I’m coming after you.

  29. Scott Day

    http://www.cavenger.com has better programs. Entourage and Chappelle’s Show are two of my personal favorites

  30. Jason

    Well, it seems that Videohybrid.com isn’t working anymore…

  31. Alex Linhares

    I loved this post. It sends the message to content producers to think about long term. Want to fight youtube? There will be plenty of youtubes out there, and they’ll just keep coming. It would be much more intelligent for the long run to deal with youtube, and keep their commercials, and let their shows be seen right after airing. They’d still get commercials, plus some of youtube’s revenue share. maybe I’ll turn http://www.capyblanca.com into my own youtube after/if these sites go down!

  32. Yikes!

    If you want hardcore here’s hardcore! Latest movies and tv shows! http://www.peekvid.com!

  33. PhilWil

    Well if it means anything, some of the videos have been moved or taken down after being featured here and on Digg.

  34. Max Thrane

    Regarding the newsgroups (comment #28) : http://maxt.dk/archives/2006/1.....ewsgroups/

    Also, I’m pretty sure the “right” companies were already aware of those sites… I don’t think they’re just sleeping…

  35. Zealus Web Design

    Interesting stuff. However, I agree with #22 - prohibition does not work. BTW, Apple made a good move with DRM-free music. MPAA should follow.

  36. Bilal Hameed

    But Chad wasn’t this really hard work in itself writing such a long tail ??

  37. Steve Miller

    I perfer http://XoinKs.com for my video content.

  38. MajorNetworkNews

    hmm, all of a sudden the videohybrid site has been replaced by what looks like a parked page, chock full of ads…

    wonder if the site owner decided to monetize some of this TC traffic !

  39. Holy Cow

    My favorite video sites..

    1. http://scoopvid.com
    2. http://xoinks.com
    3. http://tvgush.com
    4 http://scooptube.com

  40. Jon Katz

    I think its just a matter of time before the copywrite holders start going after the little guys and consumers the way that the music labels have. Thats going to get ugly.

    Also, my site runs 1 video a day, every day. It is like the woot.com of video. It is a good way to limit your video intake. Personally, I am overwhelmed when I go to youtube.

    IcyGrill.com

  41. recep

    l have youtube, it shows & broadcast everything and everything, they dont have a filter!

  42. Pensador

    Hi Michael,

    I never knew those sites existed; I will have a look. I hope they are as responsive as YouTube…

  43. Ed

    Woot gives you something. It gives you just one thing, but the value is great. Icygrill gives you what value? Karl Rove? Please, who hasn’t seen that. Show me a full-length, just released movie a day and then you can compare yourself.

  44. grant

    Puzzled. I am sure there are lot of entrepreneurs willing to going into that field or finding the niches, if law is “officially” ignored. Personally, I would not go into that field.

  45. Colin

    http://www.televee.com/ lists most of these in an easily searchable database.

  46. tek428

    The more the big guys get busted, the more and more private sites will pop up, and the harder they will be to find.

    http://www.bloggingwv.com

  47. warren

    The more the big guys get busted, the more and more private sites will pop up, and the harder they will be to find. . . unless the big guys are busted and have to pay $1B and the law becomes more well defined through that precedent. After that I’d love to see any video site be less than diligent about screening out mainstream copyrighted content with a potential liability of fine per individual infringement. I would also like to see shady ad networks like adbrite and cpxinteractive continue selling these sites’ inventory.

  48. Nathan Kaiser

    It is a catch-22 for the small guys. They want to traffic (if their servers can handle it) to make money, but as soon as they do, what protection do they have against the injunctions lawsuits?

    I definitely think there is room for other players besides YouTube, with less stringent criterea (file size, format, etc.). How they will monetize without attracting the ire of the copyright holders is another matter…

  49. JAB

    And if you want high quality anime - http://www.idkwtf.com/anime/

  50. Jon Katz

    Ed–
    I check Woot.com every day to see what is there. I rarely buy the items. I log in every day for that rare day when there is something I like. It is not about the bargains, but about the portions and editorial. I do not browse bestbuy.com, for instance, because there is too much. You could replicate it with anything as long as you are providing some piece of content on the page.

    Maybe a comparison isn’t fair in terms of quality or size, but in terms of vision, I think we are on the same page.

  51. Lars Fischer

    I don’t like these Flash based mini video sites, no matter if they’re called YouTube or not. What’s missing is unique high quality content served with reliable streaming.

  52. Pallab

    My current fav is Veoh.

  53. msdanielle

    i agree with amanda, i’d rather just download the shows. but even if you use these sites and they get shut down, there’ll always be another, as long as the internet exists. so..um..just keep posting these sites so we know where to go next :D

  54. feedMashr

    Veoh was strong even before youtube. Also Joost seems promising although I’m skeptical of the corporate funding

  55. WADemosthehenes

    It only has old stuff, not the newest episodes. And some of them were already taken down.

  56. Bill

    Yea, this is interesting. Even musicshedd.com is getting in on giving out free music lessons. Its crazy

  57. name

    you fool, you arent supposed to make this public

  58. pr0xy k1ll3r

    Great!! Now before we know it these sites will be down or sued!

    Thanks Mike!

  59. Ryan Brooks

    May I add Reel Now to this list? I love it for movie trailers: http://www.reelnow.com

  60. Mayble

    youtube didn’t lose any money. google bought it the day before they got sued…but WSGR (google’s legal counsel) are so fucking clever, google’s “damages” weren’t worth mentioning.

    they should just change copywrite laws cause it’ll never stop right? everyone gets so greedy…its like here’s my video - i made 50 billion dollars off of it….what? people are sharing it on the internet…i want to sue them and more money…seriously

    the only thing they should sue for is credit, but what do i know, im at home in the middle of the day

  61. videohybrid

    videohybrid!!

  62. jennifer

    videohybrid is bomb.

  63. eric

    fo sho.

  64. hanx

    videohybrid is down! haha but it is the bomb.

  65. jimmy

    i heard that videohybrid.com will up by tomorrow. they are just changing servers due to bandwidth.

  66. Victor

    Videohybrid is the best
    i love how fast they post new movies
    and i love the organization
    pretty nice stuff if you ask me
    hope it doesnt get shut down

  67. videohybrid

    how do you know?

  68. Sarah

    VideoHybrid is back up…It’s still beta, though.

  69. hari

    Dude, videohybrid is just down because the host decided that it was using too much bandwidth. It will be up tomororw.

  70. Free2indians

    See this site:

    http://www.TubeList.com

    indian content of YouTube

  71. G

    Check out Bleenks.com too, they have tons of links to many shows. Too bad their links to “The Office” are no longer working.

  72. Neil Kelty

    Mike,

    Shut up- your going to lose us our free TV :P

  73. Bob John

    YOU’RE BREAKING THE RULES.

    RULE #1: Do not mention your sources of free pyrat content
    RULE #2: Rule #1
    RULE #3: Seriously shut the hell up

  74. Elf

    Can someone please suggest me how to download the South Park videos from the ALLSP website mentioned above. I tried the “save target as” but it saves in the HTML format…Please suggest

  75. How to start a clothing line from scratch

    well there goes are free tv…thanks a lot mike “60,000 a month” arrington.

  76. HBK

    video hybrid is sick, youtube and google video you only see like clips. video hybrid u see the whole thing. where else can u find this kinda stuff

  77. Diego

    Time for piratetube.com :)

  78. Phil Butler

    It is good to know the Internet has bowels too :)

  79. Matty

    tv-links.co.uk this site is the shit. Some great links!

  80. JJ Stone

    I check it out I like gofish. com it could be very popular ..

  81. Dane

    Hi guys…. Here is another site that has movies on it, you dont need to download or signup for anything, just choose a movie and watch it.

    http://moviego.blogspot.com

  82. Sad Sad Day

    You really shouldn’t have posted this, it’s tempting the beast. Now those nut jobs are going to go after these sites even harder. It’s better they waste their time with p2p, but now they’ll actually come down hard on to make example of these sites. :(

  83. Emily Turrettini

    This site is popular where I live: http://gigistudio.over-blog.com. Click on “télé” and scroll down to find lists (logo) of TV series.

  84. Mike

    Stay away from allsp.com McAfee 8.0i corporate flipped out as soon as I picked season8. I turned my PC off at that point, I don’t know what specific intrusion triggered it. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

  85. Chris Mitchell

    I agree with the other guy, http://www.cavenger.com has the best tv shows and entertainment from all of the sites I’ve seen

  86. LonelyBloggers

    I don’t think it’s possible to police copyright when every new computer is basically shipping with full video-editing software. Lawsuits may deter larger video sharing sites, but to think that anyone can effective enforce this…. Precedent has been already set with the RIAA…

    The TV/Movie industry need to think about how to monetize this activity rather than trying to kill everything. If it does go “underground” then good luck trying to shut down video sharing sites from other countries where international copyright laws don’t even exist in some cases.

    Allofmp3.com is still up and running despite continued legal action.. Expect much of the same with video..

  87. spohankee

    ah, allofmp3. But how can we use it now that they no longer accept VISA?

  88. Antik

    Nature adhors a vacuum as well as new small sites.

  89. xxdesmus

    Thanks for the links :)

  90. JJ Stone

    THIS NEW SITE JUST OUT IS HOT! HOT! HOT!!! http://www.gofish.com/

  91. Panda passport

    Don’t forget the Chinese youtube clones!

    I’ve been reporting on those for a couple of months now, putting “Chinese Stolen-Media-of-the-Day” at the bottom of every post.

    For example, you can watch 5 Star Wars Episodes streamed back-to-back here. I also found links to full seasons of 24, Lost, Prison Break, and a ton of other movies.

    If you want to talk about youtube clones that ignore copyright, go no further than the Chinese sites.

  92. Josh

    “Both Allsp and videohybrid CRASH my IE7″ hahahahahaha, it’s called firefox, get it.

  93. Amber

    I think http://moviego.blogspot.com is a good site, I notticed the movie blades of glory was not working, and i told the owner of the site, he put up a new link for me in like 15 frking minutes. I also put in a request for hanibal movie, and they put that up for me as well.

  94. Jimmy C

    I like to watch Entourage and Colbert on http://www.cavenger.com

  95. Chris Tew

    Both the video sharing websites and the pirate TV show libaries get Takedown notices from content owners and the likes of the MPAA.

    An example is qith QuickSilverScreen:
    http://www.webtvwire.com/tv-sh.....ed-by-fox/

    This site got threatened by Fox, so the U.S citizen that owned gave it away to someone in Sweden where laws are more relaxed.

    I just spoke with someone else who owns a site like this in the UK and they have closed their site down afetr receiving a takedown notice from the MPAA

    Peekvid must have a sack full of takedown notices!

  96. Moose

    http://www.televee.com/ is what you need

  97. David Mackey

    I’m guessing VideoHybrid is not a venture backed company.

  98. SObrokenrecord

    that televee site was wierd, I like http://moviego.blogspot.com
    televee is wierd, i dont understand the website.

  99. Damian

    Nice try. VideoHybrid is down but there are other sites, a LOT, so you can take your fuckin post and stick it up your ass :)

    And you assholes stop linking to them. Please :)

  100. marS

    well, seems that copyrights should be re-modeled.

  101. Lilly

    I don’t even bother ARES search TMD SMR MEG POT FTF screener etc :\

  102. pr0xy k1ll3r

    Thanks Mike,
    I saved $70 on 24 season 5 [sacarsm]
    No!, actually I buy all the DVD’s [sacarsm again?]

  103. Scott N.

    http://www.cavenger.com is the shit

  104. Ryan

    Taking down these smaller sites hosting the videos will accomplish nothing at all. Anyone who thinks otherwise is obviously clueless and a complete moron.

    Look at torrent sites. They host all kinds of copywrighted material. When they are taken down, many more are created and take it’s place. Same with other file sharing programs.

    There is nothing that can be done to stop this. They can be shut down all you want but there will still always be new ones created. It’s a never ending cycle and a complete waste of time and resources trying to prevent it.

  105. pr0xy k1ll3r

    http://videohybrid.com has ceased to exist!

    Thanks Mike..

  106. Kahldria

    hey guys….how about a “DL” mailing list…….get the info to the RIGHT peeps….not the greediest bastards on the planet! (mpaa) think about this, when a movie is made, it costs roughly one to ten mill. to make, then they pay producers, directors, and big stars MULTI-MILLIONS just for doing a job that isnt even REAL work…..you pay at the box office, you pay at the movie rental, you pay (with time and brain cells) for commercials and advertising from all directions, you pay your cable bill to see it on tv, or your net bill to see it after you pay yet another host of fees….then theres merchandise, soundtracks sales, etc etc…you pay for EVERYTHING from the luxory trailers that house the stars to the food cart with outlandish offerings, to the airbrushing tech who has to make the demi-god-like actors look flawless, because they think they are the sultans of the universe! they think they are the royal ruling class, and we are just the peasants lining up to kiss their polished asses!!!!!! this had to end somehow, and i am glad for it!!!! let us take no more. we shall rise up, and end this BS now!!! how many times must we pay, before we say NO MORE!!! they make more off one movie then most of us will see in ten lifetimes!!! so mpaa get off my ass for the meager little windows of escape we claim watching videos….after all, they have been ripping us off for decades……turnabout is fair play, and karma, is a bitch! !!>:{ if you got any goodies…. Kahldria@yahoo.com

  107. Watch online video

    Posted By: Watch online video - - April 16, 2007, 3:26 pm
    http://www.tvcells.org has massive links for movie,TV show and drama. Many asian drama has English sub

  108. Sean

    …you don’t get it do you?

  109. Matt S.

    http://www.cavenger.com. trust me.

  110. john griffin

    not sure how these guys are going to survive. they dont have the critical mass to or wont be able to deal with any potential lawsuits.

  111. smartie

    Is it hacked by SYS DOC or its got closed i could see any thing now wat happened to this site???

  112. bob

    WHEN U R READING THIS DONT STOP OR SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN MY NAME IS SUMMER I AM 15 YEARS OLD i have BLONDE HAIR , SCARS no NOSE OR EARS I AM DEAD IF U DONT COPY THIS JUS LIKE FROM THE RING COPY N POST THIS ON 5 MORE SITES OR I WILL APPEAR ONE CREEPY NIGHT WEN UR NOT ExPECTING IT BY YOUR BED WITH A NIFE AND KILL U THIS IS NO JOKE SUMMET ING GOOD WILL HAPPEN TO U IF YOU POST THIS ON 5 MORE FLASH BOXES

  113. VTR

    videohybrid is back up
    nice!!

  114. Chinese Video Share and Social Networking

    Chinese video share, social networking, space and vlog site lauched and for beta testing. Check it out since Chinese internet market is very hot!

  115. scott

    Thanks for information.I dont know for these sites.