> Running a video site that hosts unlicensed content uploaded by users is what youtube did for years
Comparing NinjaVideo.net to YouTube is a bit of a stretch. NinjaVideo.net's sole purpose was to host high-quality unlicensed content, they would feature the unlicensed content, and it was clearly what was driving traffic to their website. If you never saw the site, just take a look in the internet archive:
Their frontpage was basically a list of links (the administrators curated and posted these links, complete with graphic banners like this: http://web.archive.org/web/20100104054215im_/http://i47.tiny..., and captions like "the DVDRip is here!!! Enjoy" and "here's a Screener for you") to stream whatever new content was on TV that night, or whatever movies had recently been released (sometimes even before they hit theaters). By simply taking a peak at their forum it was pretty clear that the administrators of the site had a relationship with the "uploaders" and commissioned them to upload the unlicensed content to megaupload where it would then be streamed in high-quality using the "NinjaVideo Helper" (basically a java applet that pushed megaupload content to the DivX web player). I'd venture to guess any DMCA takedown notices would be forwarded to /dev/null.
The clearest difference, imo, is that YouTube allows users to upload content (content can be uploaded without the owners of the site ever seeing it). NinjaVideo did not allow users to upload content, the owners added pages which allowed you to stream content hosted on megaupload (for any video to end up on NinjaVideo, the admins had to add it).
Comparing NinjaVideo.net to YouTube is a bit of a stretch. NinjaVideo.net's sole purpose was to host high-quality unlicensed content, they would feature the unlicensed content, and it was clearly what was driving traffic to their website. If you never saw the site, just take a look in the internet archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100104054215/http://www.ninjavi...
Their frontpage was basically a list of links (the administrators curated and posted these links, complete with graphic banners like this: http://web.archive.org/web/20100104054215im_/http://i47.tiny..., and captions like "the DVDRip is here!!! Enjoy" and "here's a Screener for you") to stream whatever new content was on TV that night, or whatever movies had recently been released (sometimes even before they hit theaters). By simply taking a peak at their forum it was pretty clear that the administrators of the site had a relationship with the "uploaders" and commissioned them to upload the unlicensed content to megaupload where it would then be streamed in high-quality using the "NinjaVideo Helper" (basically a java applet that pushed megaupload content to the DivX web player). I'd venture to guess any DMCA takedown notices would be forwarded to /dev/null.
The clearest difference, imo, is that YouTube allows users to upload content (content can be uploaded without the owners of the site ever seeing it). NinjaVideo did not allow users to upload content, the owners added pages which allowed you to stream content hosted on megaupload (for any video to end up on NinjaVideo, the admins had to add it).