Calacanis is still a hypocrite
A few weeks ago, I mentioned Weblogs Inc. CEO Jason Calacanis' hypocritical campaign against CNET for failing to properly credit some of his bloggers when Engadget, one of his biggest blogs, was exposed for doing the same thing.

Now, Jason has set his sights on YouTube. In a couple of recent blog posts, he blasts YouTube for being a haven for piracy and basically building their business on other peoples' content. He calls YouTube "the biggest hit and run in the history of the Internet."

He goes on to claim that "the real reason why YouTube won is because they matched great SEO with stolen content that was not available anywhere else."

While I won't go into the flaws in his logic or his lack of data to back up his claim, I would like to, again, call him out for being a hypocrite.

First, let's look at a Weblogs Inc. site like Engadget. What is it really? It is a blog based mostly on other peoples' content. It's gadget porn. And, for the most part, they are simply summarizing someone else's content and then linking over to it. So how does Engadget make money? They sell lots of advertising to run on the pages where they summarize other peoples' content. YouTube doesn't even do *that.*

So how can a guy who makes his living off of other peoples' content call out YouTube for showing *some* copyrighted material on their site (especially when YouTube isn't making any ad revenue off of those videos)?

And, as if on cue, people are starting to point out where Jason's own blogs are linking to copyrighted material on... YouTube! Check out this post where TV Squad links to a Lewis Black video from HBO.



Thanks, Jason. Keep up the rants. These blog posts almost write themselves.