Even before the news was confirmed on Monday, critics with long memories were reminding anyone who would listen about Yahoo’s track record with acquisitions, which has some rather notorious bumps in it, including two major ones known as GeoCities and Flickr. Those two deals alone have made many question whether Yahoo will be able to do the right thing with Tumblr — and while it may be unfair to lay the blame for these at Marissa Mayer’s feet, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the future of this latest acquisition.

How long will it take yahoo to ruin tumblr?—
Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) May 19, 2013

GeoCities + Flickr: billions in missed opportunities

In 1999, Yahoo bought GeoCities for about $3.5 billion, which even at the time was an eye-popping amount. Although it was over a decade ago, which is eons in internet time, there are some broad similarities between what GeoCities was then and what Tumblr is now: both were distinctive and somewhat chaotic communities, focused on allowing individuals to create their own space. Yahoo did a number of things that arguably accelerated the demise of its high-priced acquisition, including trying to monetize it through hosting fees and cheesy banner ads.

The other stick that many anti-Yahoo types use when they want to beat the company up about its acquisition strategy is Flickr, the pioneering photo community that languished under Yahoo’s ownership until relatively recently. As many of its hard-core fans (including me) have argued in the past, Flickr was — or at least could have been — Instagram before Instagram.

There have been a number of post-mortems on what happened with Flickr, but in a nutshell Yahoo did almost everything wrong: the larger company took away or smothered much of the photo-sharing community’s most important features, prevented its employees from innovating or growing, and forced all kinds of integration between the two platforms that did nothing to benefit users — in fact, precisely the opposite. It was like the trifecta of failure, and a perfect example of why most large-scale acquisitions don’t work.

“All Yahoo cared about was the database its users had built and tagged. It didn’t care about the community that had created it or (more importantly) continuing to grow that community by introducing new features.”

Successful mergers are exceedingly rare

It’s certainly reasonable to argue — as many of her fans in Silicon Valley have since the Tumblr deal was announced — that Marissa Mayer shouldn’t be held to account for these lapses, since she had nothing to do with them and the internet has changed a lot since then. Yahoo is also substantially more desperate than it used to be (if that’s possible), and that has arguably made Mayer more cautious about potential screw-ups.

But the bottom line is that just because Mayer is a new CEO doesn’t mean she or the company won’t screw Tumblr up somehow anyway — either deliberately or by accident. That’s because large companies like Yahoo have a way of destroying the value of the things they acquire even if they don’t mean to do so, especially when the thing they have acquired is a somewhat unique community with special characteristics, which Tumblr arguably is.

This is why successful large acquisitions of web communities or services are so rare — rare enough that almost everyone can only point to a single example: namely, Google buying YouTube (although Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram is looking like it may be another one). The question for Yahoo and Mayer is whether Tumblr can be kept as a distinct entity and yet still monetized, as YouTube has been, or whether the process of monetization will inevitably turn Tumblr into the latest example of a MySpace-style failure.

Can Yahoo do what Google did with YouTube?

Former YouTube exec Hunter Walk took a look at what Google did right in the case of YouTube, and boiled it down to five factors, including keeping the product from getting too intertwined with the parent company and maintaining a separate physical identity. But to me the most important ones were:

Protect Tumblr from “helpful” Yahoos: This is where the accidental destruction of acquisitions often comes from — people who just want to help, but whose requests for features and other attempts at integration wound up almost “hugging us to death,” as Walk puts it. There is a powerful desire to get efficiencies out of acquisitions, but many of those attempts fail badly and ruin the thing they were trying to monetize or grow in the first place.

Stop short-term monetization that won’t scale: Walk talks about how YouTube managed to avoid the natural desire to build all sorts of easy-win monetization methods into the platform, and focused instead on longer-term approaches that were harder to sell in the early going but built more value. If Yahoo sees Tumblr as a way to bulk up its banner ad or other programs, it could wind up making the exact same mistake that YouTube was able to avoid.

In the end, much of the answer to the question about Yahoo screwing up Tumblr rests on Marissa Mayer, and her ability to stave off the desires of both the board of directors and the other senior managers who see Tumblr as either a distraction or a digital cow to be milked and then sent to the abattoir.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr / Stephen Brace and Getty Images / Chris Jackson and Pamuk Sekerli Tardis

Of course, as Om and others have already mentioned, there’s no guarantee this deal will actually be consummated: it could fall apart on valuation, as so many deals do — or Facebook could swoop in with a much higher offer and snatch Tumblr out of Yahoo’s clutches, the same way it did when it stole Instagram away from Twitter last year for close to $1 billion.

Update: According to the Wall Street Journal, the Yahoo board of directors has approved a $1.1-billion all-cash bid to acquire Tumblr.

It makes Yahoo look desperate — because it is

Even if the deal does get done, one of the risks for Mayer and Yahoo is that the company could look desperate by paying more than $1 billion for a site that had revenues of less than $15 million last year (although CEO David Karp has said that figure should hit $100 million this year). That’s an almost bubble-like multiple for a company, and there will likely be plenty of criticism from investors who believe that $1 billion could be better spent elsewhere — in other words, on businesses that would make Yahoo a better return.

But the painful fact is that Yahoo doesn’t just look desperate — in many ways it is desperate. Mayer has made some changes since she took over the ailing former web portal, including the acquisition of Summly and a number of other mobile-focused startups and services, but the company still needs to make some aggressive moves if it is going to jump-start any growth at all. And since Yahoo has about $4 billion in cash on hand, it can arguably afford to make a big bet.

Yahoo buying Tumblr makes sense. Tumblr is only big, cool, newish social platform that Yahoo can afford.—
Henry Blodget (@hblodget) May 17, 2013

For Yahoo, the addition of Tumblr would do a number of things: because of the size and profile of the deal, it would make a major statement about Mayer’s intention to do whatever it takes to revitalize the company, and it would also send a signal to Facebook and Google — and even Apple — that Yahoo is a potential force to be reckoned with when it comes to potential acquisitions. Is doing that worth $1 billion? That’s for Yahoo’s investors and board of directors to decide.

Just as important, it would inject some much-needed life and energy into the somewhat stale lineup of content that the company currently relies on, which caters more to the over-50 set than it does to anyone in the much-desired 18 to 25 demographic. More than any other network, Tumblr is the platform of choice for media-obsessed teens and 20-somethings, who spend massive amounts of time sharing photos and videos and animated GIFs on the site — an engine of potential value that Yahoo desperately needs.

Tumblr gets a massive exit

This doesn’t come without its own risks, of course: As a number of observers have noted, Tumblr’s content contains a large quantity of not only mature or arguably offensive content but outright pornography, which many argue is the source of its massive traffic numbers. How Yahoo (or Facebook for that matter) would deal with this kind of content remains to be seen.

3 q's for Yahoo: 1) Can you convert Tumblr users to Yahoo products? 2) Can you monetize Tumblr PVs? 3) What to do w/ all that Tumblr porn?—
Mark Zohar (@markzohar) May 18, 2013

For Tumblr, meanwhile, being acquired would solve a number of problems — the main one being that the company has gone well beyond the “we’re a startup so we don’t really have to make money” stage, and is facing increasing pressure from the investors who have given CEO David Karp more than $125 million in venture financing, an investment that values the company at about $800 million. Accepting a giant check from Yahoo would take care of that problem in one fell swoop, especially if it was all in cash.

With a major company like Yahoo as a partner, Tumblr could connect its massive audience of users to the firehose of ads and other monetization methods the giant web portal has, and potentially generate much more revenue than it could have by itself. The only lingering question at that point is whether Tumblr fans decide that Yahoo is poisoning the well of social content and community on the site, and decide to flee for greener pastures. In other words, does Yahoo make Tumblr into YouTube — a successful standalone network that can grow and prosper on its own — or does it become MySpace?

The only scenario where a Yahoo-Tumblr combo works is if Yahoo keeps Tumblr separate in the same way Google managed YouTube.—
Mark Birch (@marksbirch) May 18, 2013

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Shutterstock / ollyy and Albert Chau

Take a look back at our live coverage of Google’s flagship conference, which started at 9am PT Wednesday. We’re not expecting as major a news event as we have in past years, but there will be no shortage of updates to the company’s plans for Android, Chrome, YouTube, and its cloud-computing services. We’ll have a full contingent of GigaOM reporters at the show bringing you updates both here and throughout the course of the day, so stay tuned.

So far, Google has announced:

• 900 million Android activations
• Three new Google Maps location APIs
• Synced Google Cloud Messaging accounts, which will let you sync notifications across devices.
• New Google Play Game Services features that can do multiplayer gaming through Google+
• Android Studio, a new development environment for Android app developers.
• A new design for the Google Play app store that highlights tablet apps.
• Google Play Music All Access, a subscription music service.
• A new educational initiative involving Android tablets and apps for education.
• Sweeping updates to Google+, including a new stream design.
• Conversational search within Chrome.
• Big changes to Google Maps.

While it might not feature anything as crazy as last year’s Google Glass-streamed skydive over downtown San Francisco, if you love (or love to hate) Google’s world, here’s what you can expect this week. We’ll update this post as new stories are posted.

Day 3:

• The GigaOM Show: Google I/O themes and takeways that affect you
• The future, according to Google
• Some of the best articles you need to read about Google I/O
• A sneak peek at YouTube’s future as it rolls out new channel design for everyone
• Redbox Instant is coming to Google TV soon, Roku up next

Day 2:

• So Google Compute Engine is out, your move Amazon
• Google, NASA quantum computing project could bring stronger machine learning to the masses
• SMS integration coming to Google Hangouts. Will Google Voice follow?
• Google CEO Larry Page: Do as I say, not as I do
• How Google Music wants to take on Spotify, Rdio and Rhapsody
• Google jumpstarts Glass development with apps form Twitter, Facebook and Evernote
• What do good shoes, Google+ and Facebook have in common?
• How Google cleverly improved Android without releasing Android 4.3 at Google I/O
• The road less traveled: How Google does Streetview for the world’s oceans
• Why Google thinks the GPU is the engine for the web of the future

Day 1:

• Live blog: Google I/O 2013 showcases Android, Chrome, YouTube and more
• Google I/O statshot: 900 million Android devices activated
• Google Apps set for a communication upgrade with deeper Google+ integration
• Google officially launches its music subscription service at Google I/O
• Google turns up location data usage on Android apps
• What Google was thinking when redesigning the new Google+
• Prepaid gives Google a huge Android boost (and Apple has noticed)
• Eight years later, Google reinvents its Maps for a data rich web
• Coming to a school near you: Google launches Android app store for education
• How Google is setting the new search standard with voice and knowledge graph
• Google TV will receive Android 4.2.2 update as well as latest version of Chrome
• And, bam! Here’s Google Compute Engine
• Google’s growing cloud just got a NoSQL database
• Here’s the real theme of Google I/O: Service unification between Chrome and Android
• Why the snap of a photo changed my mind about Google Glass
• Google gains appeal for cloud services, but there’s this company called Amazon

Pre-show expectations:

• Why the time has come for Android @Home to finally make a splash
• Google I/O: Arming for the battle of the public cloud stars
• What to expect for Chrome and Android at Google I/O 2013
• Where to watch Google I/O 2013 live online
• Reports: Google will launch music subscription service at I/O

There may admittedly not be an easy answer to the above question, given the nature of YouTube’s subscription model. The site isn’t charging users for an all-access package, but isinstead turning individual channels into paid subscriptions. Some of them will likely fail, while others may well succeed. But you can learn some lessons from YouTube’s past to get a sense of how this paid future will play out.

To succeed on YouTube, you need to understand YouTube

It’s especially worth looking at YouTube’s other ambitious monetization plan — the site’s premium channels, which received sizeable advances from Google to produce higher-quality content in late 2011. YouTube’s initial lineup included a lot of A-list celebrities and big-name media brands. Madonna, Tony Hawk, Ashton Kutcher, Reuters and Lionsgate all were part of the initial lineup. They were joined by genuine YouTube-born celebrities like Phil DeFranco and Cenk Uygur, who launched new channels with additional content as part of the content push.

Guess who succeeded? Here’s a hint: DeFranco’s SourceFed channel clocked more than 345 million views to date. Reuters TV, on the other hand, only got 11 million views. Many of the outside media brands simply didn’t know how to talk to YouTube’s audience, and as a result failed to get enough traction on the platform. That’s why quite a few of them didn’t make the cut to get additional funding when YouTube renewed its commitment in November. Only 30 to 40 percent of the original channel lineup was part of a second round.

That’s a lesson that may be true for paid subscriptions on YouTube as well. Brands and personalities who already have a dedicated fan base on the platform will have little trouble asking them for $2 or $3 a month, provided that they come up with an interesting value proposition. Outside brands that want to use YouTube as an additional platform to sell their content may have a much harder time — which is why it was so surprising that the first slate of subscription channels largely consists of outsiders.

Sure, there’s a market for some of them. But in many cases, that market may not be on YouTube. A sales pitch like “discovering movies you’ve never heard of is part of the fun,” as used by the $5-a-month channel BigStar Movies, may just not fly with YouTube users when the site also hosts tons of movies we’ve never heard of for free.

People do pay for niche content, if it’s done right

The contrarian argument to this is that there is a proven market for niche content, and there’s no reason that this couldn’t extend to YouTube. In fact, the site already has a subscription success story: Long before YouTube announced its subscription plans, it started offering a subscription package for Indian cricket games in cooperation with Willow.tv.

It’s part of Willow’s online subscription service, which is available on a variety of platforms, with Google doing the billing for users subscribing on YouTube. And Willow.tv seems to be doing really well, because it delivers content unavailable elsewhere.

Other niche players have shown that people are willing to open their wallets as well: Two months ago, Crunchyroll announced that it now has 200,000 paying subscribers for its Anime-focused video service. There’s no reason this kind of content wouldn’t work on YouTube as well.

And people may not just want to pay because of scarcity: Sesame Street videos are widely available online, including on PBS Kids, Sesamestreet.org, YouTube, Netflix and Hulu. But especially on YouTube, it’s often just one click from a cute Elmo video to one of someone setting an Elmo doll on fire. Giving parents an option to access full-length-episodes, and keeping kids glued to the official Sesame Workshop channel, may get quite a few of them to pay a few bucks a month.

It’s not whether YouTube succeeds, but who about who succeeds on YouTube

In a way, if YouTube can succeed with its subscriptions seems almost to be the wrong question to ask. It’s more about who can succeed with subscriptions on YouTube – and I suspect that we are going to see many failures and quite a few success stories.

And if you ask me, my money is on Cenk and Elmo.

Image courtesy of Flickr user  sushi♥ina.

“Every channel has a 14-day free trial, and many offer discounted yearly rates. For example, Sesame Street will be offering full episodes on their paid channel when it launches. And UFC fans can see classic fights, like a full version of their first event from UFC’s new channel. You might run into more of these channels across YouTube. Once you subscribe from a computer, you’ll be able to watch paid channels on your computer, phone, tablet and TV, and soon you’ll be able to subscribe to them from more devices.”

Partners include The Young Turks, UFC, Jim Henson Company, Mark Cuban’s HDNet and the Sesame Workshop. Not all channels are live yet, a first list of 53 initial launch partners can be found here.

Some of the new partners should come as no surprise to paidContent readers: We reported earlier this week that YouTube’s employees have been testing paid channels for the Sesame Workshop, Baby First TV and Cookie Jar TV for months.

YouTube said Thursday that it wants to make subscriptions available as a self-serve feature to select partners soon. Asked how big of a cut YouTube is taking from subscription fees, a spokesperson told me that partners get to keep “the majority share,” without elaborating further.

A recent blog post from startup founder Chad Whitacre re-awakened this debate: in a post on Medium, the publishing platform started by former Twitter CEO Evan Williams, the founder of Gittip described how he responded to an interview request from TechCrunch about his company, which is building an online gift exchange. When Whitacre suggested that the reporter do an “open interview” via Google Hangouts that would be posted on YouTube, the TechCrunch writer declined.

“Me: If you’re not comfortable with streaming/posting the call, I will totally understand. In the future I’ll be sure to let journalists know up front about my open call policy. :-) Let me know one way or another …

TC: Yeh, good luck with that.”

Open interviews add more value

Many — including Sam Biddle at Valleywag — seemed to see the startup founder’s request as bizarre and somewhat ridiculous. But is it? We don’t see it as ridiculous when interviews are broadcast live, or when places like Reddit do the AMAs (Ask Me Anything) interviews. If anything, one could argue that they add value because everyone can see the questions and answers, and decide for themselves which parts of the interview are the most important or relevant. Fact-checking in public can be better.

In the interests of putting my money — or my ego — where my mouth is, I did my own open interview with Whitacre via Google Hangout’s “On Air” feature, which both streams the recording and automatically posts it to YouTube.

Whitacre’s proposition got me thinking about how rarely journalists include either audio recordings of their interviews with sources (as I did in a recent post based on my interview with Planet Money producer Alex Blumberg) or transcripts — even though the technology to do this is well established, and in many cases free. SoundCloud is an easy audio-hosting service, for example, and YouTube does automated transcripts, and there are many other solutions as well.

Not wanting to draw back the curtain

When I asked the question on Twitter, some journalists said they do this routinely and think it should be done more often. Others, however said they don’t think doing this is necessary unless there is some editorial debate about the context of a quote, or a source raises a stink about a story and so the outlet has to prove they were right. And many questioned whether there was any broader value in doing so.

@whit537 That's essentially what I'm getting at. I would rather my competition not be able to study my one-on-one interview methods.—
Alex Fitzpatrick (@AlexJamesFitz) May 08, 2013

@mathewi 1) Journos sound stupid in interviews, stumbling, asking dumb questions (many times because they're just learning about an issue)—
Mark Coddington (@markcoddington) May 08, 2013

Seeing the media sausage being made

Are media outlets reluctant to do this because they think no one will be interested in the full interview, or because (as Whitacre suggests) they don’t want to lose whatever scoop-like qualities are associated with the story? Does it stem from a fear of being criticized for focusing on specific parts of the interview? Or do they think their interview questions will seem unimpressive, and they don’t want to let readers see the journalism sausage being made? (I confess I was unusually aware of my questions and my appearance while Whitacre and I were talking).

@mathewi That old saw about seeing how the sausage is made?—
King Kaufman (@king_kaufman) May 08, 2013

@mathewi @Dan_Rowinski much like sharing academic data – that's messy and hard to read too. but it's not there for the average reader—
Walt Frick (@wfrick) May 08, 2013

Sources are already going direct

Here are a few things I think we do know: The life-span of a so-called “scoop” has been declining rapidly, and is probably now measured in minutes (possibly seconds) rather than hours — and all the “Breaking news!” headlines and embargoes in the world can’t change that. Meanwhile, the ability of sources like Whitacre to “go direct” and reach an audience is increasing, thanks to blogs and other forms of social media, forums like Reddit, etc. And in many cases a frustration with the way traditional media outlets handle interviews is a driving force behind that desire.

To take just a couple of examples, Gawker Media founder Nick Denton is well known for refusing many traditional interview requests, and asking instead that reporters talk with him via instant message or some other “live” medium. Billionaire media mogul Mark Cuban became notorious at one point for posting transcripts of interviews on his own blog, so that the full context of a discussion would be available for readers to make up their own minds.

@whit537 I could see questions like "why did you focus on this and not that?" from readers. Would have to back up choices more. @mathewi—
Ernie Smith (@ShortFormErnie) May 08, 2013

One of the most common responses to my question was that most readers or listeners would be bored by audio or video or transcripts of full interviews — and that is definitely a risk. And as someone who often takes a long time to get to the point of a question, so is the risk of looking foolish or incompetent. But aren’t those risks that are worth taking if it increases the level of trust that “the people formerly known as the audience” have in us?

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Shutterstock / Luis Santos and Shutterstock / wellphoto and Shutterstock / Fengyu

This Sesame Workshop channel offers full episodes of Sesame Street for a price – but ordinary YouTube visitors don’t have access to it.

Some YouTube and Google employees have been quietly testing a number of channels associated with the Sesame Workshop, Cookie Jar TV and the kids cable channel Baby First TV over the last couple of months. None of these channels are available to ordinary YouTube visitors.

YouTube accounts meant to test paid programming and other features on the site have had access to channels like the “Sesame Workshop Package,” which is offering full-length episodes of current and classic Sesame Street episodes, for a few months.

Also part of the tests: Spanish-language programming from Baby First TV.

A test channel for Cookie Jar TV, which has an on-air distribution agreement with CBS, lists shows like Caillou, Inspector Gadget and Sonic Underground. Baby First TV has also tested the distribution of full episodes through YouTube, including Spanish-language programming.

Granted, publishers often experiment with all kinds of distribution and pricing schemes on YouTube. In fact, Sesame Workshop previously tried selling episodes of Sesame Street for $2 a pop for a few months.

However, the listings of episodes associated with the kids programming channels don’t actually feature a per-episode price tag. Instead, they’re just listed with a $ sign. That’s something YouTube only does in one other instance: Videos from Willow.tv, which has been offering subscription-based cricket streams for some time, are listed the same way. Take a look yourself at the screenshots below:

This is how full episodes of one of Sesame Workshop’s test channels were listed on the site, including the paid content price tag indicating a subscription package.

This is how YouTube lists pay-per-epsiode TV content, complete with a specific price tag.

This is how content from Willow.tv, which is only available as part of a subscription package, is listed on the site.

A YouTube spokesperson wasn’t available to comment specifically on these videos, but sent me the following statement via email:

“We have nothing to announce at this time, but we’re looking into creating a subscription platform that could bring even more great content to YouTube for our users to enjoy and provide our partners with another vehicle to generate revenue from their content, beyond the rental and ad-supported models we offer.”

A Sesame Workshop spokesperson declined to comment, and both Cookie Jar TV and Baby First TV didn’t reply to a request for comment.

Of course, it’s still possible that these tests were just that – tests that don’t result in actual commercial offerings. But eegardless of whether these channels are part of YouTube’s first subscription slate, it’s clear that kids programming makes a lot of sense as a premium offering for the service.

Netflix has had overwhelming success with kids content, and went as far as to revamp its entire UI for a dedicated kids experience. Hulu also launched a dedicated kids section last year to cater to young viewers. Offering dedicated channels with full episodes of kids shows could give parents, who at times feel uneasy about their little ones scouring across the entire YouTube catalog, more piece of mind about adding YouTube to their kids’ viewing destinations as well.

However, the league will also add highlight clips from in-season games two days after they air on TV, and those highlights will be available to everyone. Also available on MLB’s revamped YouTube channel: Thousands of archive clips from MLB.com’s “Baseball’s Best Moments.”

Of course, MLB has been streaming in-season games to U.S. viewers who are willing to pay for some time: MLB TV’s premium package currently costs around $130 per year. However, even that likely won’t get you the games you really want to watch: In-market games of your local team are blacked out and only air on TV.

In the latest twist in a long and closely-watched copyright case brought by Viacom, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton granted summary judgment to YouTube after finding executives at the video site did not have “red flag” knowledge that made them liable for content uploaded by users.

The ruling comes one year after the Second Court of Appeals reversed Stanton’s earlier decision in 2012 to dismiss the case, and ordered the judge to revisit his ruling in light of emails that suggested the YouTube founders had knowledge of copyright infringement. In his new decision, issued on Thursday Stanton rejected Viacom’s legal theory as “extravagant” and stated that “its foundation is an anachronistic [...] concept.”

On its surface, the case turned on whether YouTube had to pay damages to Viacom for thousands of unauthorized clips of shows like South Park and Seinfeld that appeared on the site. But on a deeper level, the case is significant because it is helping to determine what digital technology companies must do to protect copyright.

Under a law known as the DMCA, online services like YouTube are not responsible for the copyright infringement of their users. The law, which was crafted to ensure that new digital platforms didn’t get smothered by copyright claims, grants “safe harbors” to sites provided they provide a way for owners to take down their content, and so long as the site is not complicit in users’ copyright violations.

Viacom and the entertainment industry, which believes that YouTube have unfairly profited from copyrighted content, had hoped to shrink the scope of the “safe harbors” by drawing attention to the DMCA’s so-called “red flag” provision — a part of the law that means a site is liable if those controlling it are willfully blind to copyright violations.

In deciding to reinstate the case, the appeals court agreed that YouTube was not responsible for most of the clips for which Viacom was claiming over $1 billion dollars. However, it said the potentially incriminating emails required the lower court to examine if YouTube knew or should have known about specific pieces of infringing content.

In the new decision Stanton said Viacom, in its legal arguments, had conceded that it was unable to identify specific examples of specific copyright clips of which the YouTube founders should have been aware. He added that Viacom had tried to solve the situation by claiming that it was YouTube’s responsibility to show they did not know, but that this was a misinterpretation of the law.

Viacom is entitled to appeal Stanton’s decision a second time but its safe harbors argument may be running out of steam. In a similar case involving defunct video service, Veoh, a California appeals court emphatically concluded that the safe harbors applied.