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August 28, 2007

Videohybrid 3.0: I Can’t Believe This Hasn’t Been Banned Yet

Duncan Riley

57 comments »

videohybrid.jpgVideohybrid, a site we first linked to in April as part of a broader post on online video piracy, has relaunched with a new version that is just asking for trouble.

Videohybrid 3.0 marries Q&A functionality with social voting. Users are now able to submit movies, and TV shows they are looking for online, other users who would like to see that video as well vote for the request. Digg style the top requests rise to the top of the list.

Users who respond to video requests earn points that go towards an overall ranking system. Videos are now exclusively embedded on site; unlike Bit Torrent and other services that require downloads Videohybrid is a one stop shop where pirated video can be played immediately on the same page, YouTube style, complete with user commenting and related features. Videohybrid doesn’t offer embedding code for the videos to be displayed elsewhere; from what I can gather the videos are all pulled from other sites, including some well known ones as well: a full rip of the movie Pulp Fiction was being served from Google Video.

There are other sites around operating in the same space; where Videohybrid differs is in its seamless delivery and rather amazing catalog of content. Something this good (from a user perspective, not a legal one) just can’t last. Here’s hoping the two teenagers from Lynbrook High School in San Jose who started the site have it hosted in a country well beyond the reach of the MPAA.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 5:59 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. john

    August 28th, 2007 at 6:06 am

    yikes this really is opening up a can of worms. i can’t wait to see the amount of takedown notices they get. the owners won’t have time to do anything else on the site.

    who knows how they will do. a good chunk of youtubes traffic as we know came on the back of pirated copyrighted content. maybe this will work out for them and they will sell to google ;-)

  2. Web

    August 28th, 2007 at 6:14 am

    ROFL: You should see the DIGG title this post just got from an eagle eyed reader :-D

  3. Ollie Parsley

    August 28th, 2007 at 6:16 am

    The site does look quite good aesthetically. Did they get funding for this? If they did how did they do it? Any investor who knows anything about downloading illegal content from the internet would just run away.

    Plus surely that ranking system just shows the length of time they will stay in jail for???

    Ollie

  4. Duncan Riley

    August 28th, 2007 at 6:22 am

    Web (2)
    ROFL. I want what the Digg submitter is smoking :-)

    http://digg.com/tech_news/Worl.....ve_To_Tell

  5. Flo

    August 28th, 2007 at 6:50 am

    and streamed by limelightnetworks :D

    perfect quality!

    I’ll defenetly waste my day with this. The only issue I have with it is that the titles of the TV-shows are not entirely correct (24 episode 6 is not episode 6)

  6. Dirk Musk

    August 28th, 2007 at 7:00 am

    Now who exactly coined the term ‘mis-spent youth’? just strap the soap to your hands boys it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

  7. Marc Fiszman

    August 28th, 2007 at 7:02 am

    I get confused around here sometimes.

    What is TechCrunch’s official view on copyright infringement? Wholesale support? Wholesale opposition? Something in-between?

  8. Paul Bradish

    August 28th, 2007 at 7:10 am

    … doesn’t get much worse than this :)

  9. Duncan Riley

    August 28th, 2007 at 7:13 am

    Marc
    this is a Web 2.0 site, there’s social voting, user submissions (ala Answers) etc… the piracy stuff is an after thought ;-)

  10. Ian

    August 28th, 2007 at 7:18 am

    I don’t see how this is any better or worse than alloftv.net or alluc.org. The files are still hosted on other video sharing serves (Google Video, Veoh, etc.) and the selection isn’t as good as the above two listed sites. The voting/status gimmick is just that in my mind.

  11. eursds

    August 28th, 2007 at 7:47 am

    Go go Pirates

  12. marques

    August 28th, 2007 at 8:08 am

    VideoHybrid does not offer embed.

    While I have been told that my site (oh no shameless promotion) does not have that web 2.0 look (reason why TC will never conceder reviewing it), it does do a great job at bookmarking videos from sites that do not provide the embed code. It will also create it’s own embed code, enjoy!!!

    Take a look
    http://www.myvidster.com/video....._The_Movie

  13. AS

    August 28th, 2007 at 9:49 am

    sweet site - don’t really care how old these guys are, well done. you’ve just lowered by productivity at work.

  14. windpunk

    August 28th, 2007 at 9:55 am

    “Here’s hoping the two teenagers from Lynbrook High School in San Jose who started the site have it hosted in a country well beyond the reach of the MPAA.”

    Heres a wild thought, put the servers on a satellite and launch them into space.

  15. doh!

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:09 am

    welcome to wild, wild, web!

  16. Stan Oleynick

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:11 am

    An then there tv-links.co.uk… which BTW has an Alexa of around 300.

  17. doh!

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:21 am

    if this one get shut down, another similiar one will pop up. So, instead of spending huge amount of money on lawyers to chase these guys down, why not use the attroney fees and build a website similiar to them with more free contents and better features, slowly prirate site will be loose their users/traffic, no traffic = no advertising = no money = out of business.

  18. videogangsta

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:22 am

    too hott!!!! just saw this on digg too… http://digg.com/tech_news/Worl.....ve_To_Tell

  19. LaceFace

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:23 am

    Brilliant.
    If you have software that allows you to download the streams it’s quite fantastic- if you’re not one for being lawful.

  20. pauley

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:27 am

    Yes there are site that stream in divx quality like joox.net, videostored.com and many others! VideoHybird uses YouTube quality…. blah!

    These kids are great! Breaking down the old cable business model that is forced down our throats. Copyright can call them pirates but they innovators forcing said industry to change!

  21. Dominic

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:27 am

    Stupid is as stupid does.

  22. jim jensen

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:27 am

    I am a Huate Secure user/tester.

    The Video Hybrid site is terribly dangerous.
    Huate Secure at least, thinks so

    It recomends you do not visit this site due to the possiblity of malware.

    NO WAY am i using that site.

  23. Dominic

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:29 am

    What these so called kids, and thousands of others like them, is going to do is force the government to take charge of this thing we call the internet. Just another arrow in the quiver.

  24. pauley

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:31 am

    Umm these kids will be adults and being running the copyright industry.

    Do you not have such hindsight or are you currently stuck in yesterday?

  25. tekwek

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:34 am

    Love it…..just enjoy the free movies man…..

    btw alluc’s UI blows…..this is so much more soothing to the eyes…..good job teens!!

  26. tekwek

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:38 am

    oh btw I didn’t see any ideas…..sounds like a charity project….or more like rebel against the tyranny of studios

  27. studiomyopia

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:39 am

    there is a lot of myopia in this thread. like someone pointed out — this isn’t a videohybrid phenomenon. you kill this site and dozens more pop out. most of these videos are hosted out of asia anyway these days where the studios have no power whatsoever. There is only one logical solution:

    provide these sites with your libraries of high quality videos to link to and make sure to show advertising against these videos. if your videos are high quality, then sites like videohybrid and alluc will link to these videos instead of the crappy ones they do now.

    the studios need to stop treating legal as a profit center and start focusing on content delivery and distribution.

  28. tekwek

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:39 am

    typo…I mean ads not ideas

  29. pauley

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:50 am

    Yes, I agree offer a legal site that provides the same content( all the latest movies ) and better technology then what these sites are offering. Hook up with ISPs to offer monthly subscriptions to said site …. you can easily hook up your PC to a huge LCD TV and enjoy the 10 foot experience.

    The movie theater industry to stay relevant then needs to offer a 3D immersive, technological experience that can not be emulated at home.

  30. Alaska Miller

    August 28th, 2007 at 10:56 am

    Go Vikes!

  31. Tuyen Vo

    August 28th, 2007 at 11:44 am

    Damn you Arrington for putting a link to this site up! I’m about to waste 5 hours a day on the site watching grainy videos.

    On a serious note, I can’t see how these kids are going to stay out of jail even if their site is hosted outside of the US. I assume THEY aren’t outside the US, are they?

  32. eursds

    August 28th, 2007 at 11:53 am

    Its nice but i dont think its good idea to watch long films directly on internet . The loading time is huge , i tried to wtach The Bourne Ultimatum ^^ waited toooooo long for one part >> i better go download it or go to cinema >>

  33. Studioexec

    August 28th, 2007 at 12:13 pm

    I think the studio execs should love this…..one stop shop to find all the places in violation of copyright….just monitor and send them notices…..if I were a studio exec, I’ll actually invest in this company

  34. studiomyopia

    August 28th, 2007 at 12:16 pm

    @ studioexec - great point. no need to go hunting for links anymore if your aim is to take them all down. and shouldn’t that be the goal anyway if you’re trying to great rid of this activity, to handle it at the source?

  35. Studioexec

    August 28th, 2007 at 12:29 pm

    I agree…..unfortunately everyone follows the George Bush principle….which is to make deals with the “source” (google and youtube) and kill the informer…..

  36. Marc

    August 28th, 2007 at 12:49 pm

    I took a look, it’s ok. Cavenger.com is better. I just watched the new Entourage episode today, no joke.

    See for yourself http://www.cavenger.com

  37. Flo

    August 28th, 2007 at 1:00 pm

    they seem to be taking the videos from stage6.divx.com
    so this is most likely is not illegal..

  38. Steve Gibson

    August 28th, 2007 at 5:18 pm

    Big, big can of worms.

    As for this: “Digg style the top requests rise to the top of the list.” — why does everyone call a voting site “Digg style”?

    Voting sites have been online years before Kevin Rose was put in his first set of diapers. Can we please stop calling everything vote based “Digg style?”

    Besides, now that Digg is uber-popular it has lost its charm. The masses of kiddies post Top 10 Lists and the masses of black hats post their spam links.

  39. sephil

    August 29th, 2007 at 4:26 am

    Their is load of website like that…
    http://www.ovguide.com/

  40. jogn

    August 29th, 2007 at 4:53 am

    I can predict somebody getting butt-raped!!!

  41. icmeler dalaman

    August 29th, 2007 at 4:56 am

    interesting

  42. jamie martin

    August 29th, 2007 at 5:06 am

    looks like they’re hosted by theplanet

    http://www.theplanet.com/

  43. Richard

    August 29th, 2007 at 7:10 am

    Great info and great site

  44. Derrick

    August 29th, 2007 at 8:12 am

    thanks for the link to ovguide.com Didnt realise that there were quite a few of such related sites.

  45. Digguser

    August 29th, 2007 at 10:28 am

    Wow. Just wow.

  46. Concerned

    August 29th, 2007 at 10:56 am

    I’m not sure who has actually met these “Teenagers”… but i highly doubt that is the case. In no way do i doubt that teenagers can achieve making a website like that…. but in this case i do have to say I am very much in doubt.

    And, the website is pretty decent… but its SLOW… and very little content. Im in love with the ease of all of this in tv-links…. i need no other :D

  47. FrankW

    August 29th, 2007 at 1:44 pm

    Don’t miss Joox.net and Podnix.com, that both use the high quality DivX streams of Stage6.com.

    The best way to watch these streams is by using Yougoodai a nice little player that has built in links to a plethora of movies, TV series and videoclips. Check it at http://www.yougoodai.com

  48. Save Videos

    August 29th, 2007 at 3:51 pm

    This is lame because they don’t host the videos themselves, all they’re doing is collecting video links from other websites like tv-links and putting them on their site. OOOHHH so risky, so unique ….NOT! This is childish, and boring - and there are 3million sites like this growing each day, there’s nothing special about this except for the request like pligg system.

  49. southern

    August 29th, 2007 at 7:22 pm

    Hmmm… i noticed that some are asking for the first episode of “LOST” from the season coming this fall.
    As far as i know it hasn’t been aired yet. And to earn “POINTS” you fulfill the request. Fulfill the request….have your IP logged…go to jail…..smashing idea for mpaa / FBI etc
    my 2 cnts worth

  50. Sir Lancelot

    August 29th, 2007 at 7:56 pm

    Just today, I found high quality streaming videos for Ghost Rider, The Number 23, and the first 2 episodes of Heroes at http://www.jiggyme.com. Looks like NBC removed all of Heroes online episodes and they are only available via DVDs.

  51. Happy

    August 30th, 2007 at 7:14 am

    Here’s how to make a ton of points - just go to Graboid.com, get a video quickly (free), and go give it to videohybrid. Then proceed directly to court (not jail, you over-reactors you). Or you could just watch the video yourself and avoid the court part.

  52. Morgan

    August 30th, 2007 at 12:29 pm

    These two teenagers aren’t doing anything illegal are they?

    They make it easy for other to upload illegal junk to third party hosting sites and then point to them. They host nothing.

    They don’t even keep a directory of file traders and it isn’t like bit torrent is illegal.

    There’s more of this coming certainly. The question is how do you blame a non-hoster for economically benefiting from knowing where the illegal stuff is?

    M

  53. harish

    August 30th, 2007 at 7:24 pm

    hari ur gay

  54. harish

    August 30th, 2007 at 7:26 pm

    jp hari. you’re sexy. u made the site - you dont own it so you’re not gonna go to jail =)

  55. harish

    August 30th, 2007 at 7:36 pm

    im a computer nerd too guyz!!!!!

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