EyeTube.

This could be interesting, and personally I think there's nothing like a little bit of competition from someone who's prepared to offer the market something that the big boys are unable or unwilling to provide. That people on my blogroll are behind it only means I'm bound to wish 'em the best of luck. The only thing that worries me slightly about EyeTube is the name. Not that I have a problem with it at all, and it's nothing to do with me anyway, but there are some extraordinary cunts out there and some of them are both notoriously litigious and insanely (and unreasonably) over protective of their names and IP issues. There have been examples of this only recently. A small site for people in the education profession called Teachbook is being sued by Facebook, who is less than understandably upset about the use of the suffix 'book' on a networking site even though it's got less than 50 members and is clearly specialised, and for that piece of legal bullying I'd delete my Facebook account if I had one. Perhaps Facebastard hasn't heard that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but no doubt they'd prefer the teachers to set up and join groups there, which makes me worry for EyeTube that YouTube won't take the same attitude because it's also a similar service with the same suffix in the name. Ironically Facecock itself is being sued along with YouTube's owner Google, those litigation happy folks at Apple (see this blog, and this one, and this Cracked article, particularly number 2, 3 and 4) and others for patent infringement relating, among others things, technology to annoy the tits off of web users by flashing ads at them.*

... Google called Allen's lawsuit "unfortunate."

"This lawsuit against some of America's most innovative companies reflects an unfortunate trend of people trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace," said Google. "Innovation -- not litigation -- is the way to bring to market the kinds of products and services that benefit millions of people around the world."

I couldn't agree more, and I hope for EyeTube's sake that YouTube/Google take the same attitude with them. But just in case they don't it's probably one to jot down and quote straight back at them if the cease and desist letters start hitting the doormat. Hopefully the spelling will fuck up any plans Apple have to own perpetual rights over absolutely anything and everything prefixed with the letter 'i', the fucking iDiots.



* If they annoyed the ads off of web users by flashing tits at them they might have won more friends.