Grouper vs. YouTube: The Battle for Free Movie Clips

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Written by Anthony Kaufman November 10, 2006

After buckets of Viacom clips were yanked from Google-owned YouTube because of copyright violations, Sony-owned Grouper has offered a strategic countermeasure: buckets of free, copyrighted Sony content. As part of a new channel on Grouper's website called "Screen Bites," viewers can watch iconic moments from a number of movies and TV shows from Sony's vast library of titles.

While fans of mainstream cinema might want to catch the famous "Show me the money!" scene from Jerry Maguire or the "You can't handle the truth!" line from A Few Good Men, there are a few truly classic film moments, including Robert DeNiro's "You talkin' to me" sequence from Taxi Driver and the Marlon Brando "I coulda been a contender" speech from On the Waterfront.

Funny thing is, two can play at the game: Grouper rival YouTube may have lost a number of Viacom-owned Paramount clips, but as of now, a number of the same Sony clips can be found on its own site, including the "Show me the money" and "You can't handle the truth!" scenes.

YouTube also does Grouper one better. Not only does it have the same scene from Taxi Driver, but it also has the original film trailer, a couple of other scenes, including some in Spanish, and this memorable moment with director Martin Scorsese playing a character who is explaining to DeNiro's taxi driver how he's going to kill his wife.

If they want to beat YouTube at its own game, Sony and Grouper are going to have to do a lot better job than just a handful of select film clips.