"It takes a long time to secure the deals, it takes even longer to consume the deals. The list of content may seem very large at first but then you have to go through each and every item and verify where all the rights really are and how they are settled.
There may be exclusive rights granted to Germany at some point, a special deal for Italy - and often contracts can't be found, as the parties involved have five times since. The broadcasting companies don't know often the details so we have to dig in a pile of contracts.
Then you have the information about what music is played in the video, a whole world of rights apart. You need an awful lot of permissions for different parts and different countries. This consumes lots of time now in legally cleaning up the content you have just licensed. It is a very labour-intensive process."
Simply trial and error and wait till partial license holders raise their hands and have to prove their rights? A bit like YouTube?
"We do not want to work this way. It is illegal, and long term we want to be a trustworthy party for the content industry.
Are your partners rather producers like Endemol or the tv-companies like Viacom?
"We consider three parties involved: first of all the viewers, that's the easy one. Then we have the content producers, which can be as small as Boom Chicago, an Amsterdam based US focused comedian initiative, to the middle segment with production companies such as Endemol all the way up to TV Networks.
The tv networks are still the most important They do the programming, select and schedule in right and interesting orders of certain target groups. We do add value to operators, to programmers, to add attractive channels.
To such a network programmer it's more easy to explain why advertising should be more valuable, in order to gain more revenue when content being used in new ways. For example take MTV who may procure the rights for just a couple of tens of hours of content per week, but then produces 24 by 7 fresh content. They manage to do that in exactly the right way, and make a tremendous lot of value in that way."
Everybody's friend
But the aim of Joost is to replace broadcasting companies by working together with producers. Is that impossible?
"I don't think this is the aim at all. Previous project [Kazaa, Skype] were a bit disruptive in the music industry and in the telephony market, but I think this is a project which at its core which brings very little disruption for the visible parts of the industry.
If you start with the distribution to the houses, it doesn't matter as long as it is IP, so the existing cable operators, phone companies, ISPs and satellite operators are only going to sell more. Sure they will see change; and the move from analog to digital may speed up. But they were phasing out this anyway. They don't mind digitising and going to IP because they can make more revenue on internet traffic.
Then we take the tv-stations who are dealing with packaging content. Their business is content and viewers; while they need the big transmissions systems relays and antenna's , that is not core to their business. They, like MTV, reach an audience with their packages. We can give them a global audience with channels on Joost. They'll send down signals to the satellite, to cable companies and the third signal will go to peer-to-peer operators. They get something extra.
So the tv-business is not being threatened in any way at all. They get more reach."
But cable companies, networks and channels are in control of some kind of tv-distribution with their packages. Within Joost.com on demand peer-to-peer systems they will loose control?
"But Joost is just an extra channel. And we offer revenue sharing with a much broader reach than they have now. As always - some will refuse the digital world, ignore Joost, the internnet, and stick to their old analogue world, but then they'll have a real problem."
You're so kind for other players in the tv-industry. You might fear, f.e., that cable and telecom operators, and maybe ISP's are going to block Joost.com and it's heavy traffic loads like they might have tried with Skype?
"Yes, but that is a cat and mouse game. And the mouse usually wins on the internet; it certainly has won with Skype. It's a fundamental mistake to block the services your users want. Especially now that the users have so many other ways of getting internet connectivity."
Is nevertheless net neutrality very important for Joost to succeed with free p2p distribution?
"No, we don't really care so much. There are three options: the net stays neutral, no change, that's perfect. P2P works really well compared to all the other more central systems. The other extreme is that the internet distribution becomes totally non-neutral. That might be good for us, because we are then guaranteed quality distribution on a p2p basis. Don't forget, we will have a lot of revenue, so we can actually buy exactly the access we need. Things get better for us and we get a lot of control."
Also guarantee that in the last mile?
"Yes, if we need to do so. That could be quite interesting for us from a competitive stance. But the third option is something in the middle: some preferred players will get guaranteed access and the net stays open for all other players. That's also fine for us. We'll be on the open net and reach customers who reach each other. With a peer-to-peer network you are in a way better position than, let's say central sites. We'll come out winning.
The different situations will each give us very different challenges, but the outcome for us is more or less the same, whether we'll have to pay for access or not. Simply because our distribution system is the most efficient. That it's not the case for some of our main competitors who have a very centralised system and rely more on cable systems. For them the outcome of net neutrality really matters."
Is Joost the end of centralised IPTV like from AT&T, France Telecom etcetera?
"No, I think not. They often present it like centralised IPTV with central distribution to tens or hundreds of thousands of tv's. But they are not centralised at all. They are usually very decentralised using multicast and peer-to-peer in some way. In a lot of networks, like in France, our kind of IPTV fits in completely naturally.
There will be a lot of technical ways to distribute video. Cable companies already have an IP backbone. But suddenly users will choose to go from a hundred channels to ten thousand channels, and cable companies will get more revenues as well. There's a lot of win-win for every participant in this market involved."
So Joost is a friend of everybody?
"Of course there is a part of the industry not mentioned: marketing and advertising agencies, media buying companies, targeting advertising, statistics, middle man to clear channels. But also companies who do the packaging, so to say what channels go in which cable television package.
All these kind of middlemen have to figure out a way of dealing with this phenomena. Maybe become some sort of real-time broker."
Advertising and GoogleSo Joost is having more the influence of Google AdSense?
"Exactly, that's the area where probably we'll be competing rather than partnering. On the other hand we'll not be doing this all ourselves. Like Skype has an eco-system around it which is much bigger than Skype itself, this will be the same with Joost. We will not manage the target advertising ourselves."
Why not co-operate with Google, the worlds largest advertising machine?
"That maybe one of the options."
Or Yahoo, Microsoft even?
"That 'or' remains an open question, we may work with all of them in advertising. There might be a lot of speculation. There can be a lot of benefits for everyone."
Talking about Google, how is the position of Joost versus YouTube?
"YouTube is very different. With our product you get full-blown tv on your screen. With Joost you go through simple interactive menus with 'next channel', previous channel', channels with you own choice. You can play and play and play and it never stops.
That's completely different form the interactive searching, downloading and then watching little videoscreens like with YouTube.
There are billions of tv's around the world and people just watch it. It's entertainment, it's emotion, it's packaged emotion, it serves a social feeling. That's quite the opposite from the downloading a 20 second clip, of someone slipping on a piece of soap.
Statistics show that people just watch more and more tv. That's not because the internet is bad, but tv fulfils social and emotional needs, more and in another way as the internet does. People are looking for experience, and finding that with tv. YouTube fulfils other needs."
So the tv is much more important for Joost than the pc?
