On November 1, 2006, a representative of Guba LLC spoke in San Francisco, CA on how it differentiates itself from its competitors like Google video, and YouTube, now acquired by Google, Inc. in the battle with studios on copyright issues.
Guba, who has the goal of being the place to find all entertainment, is an online entertainment network that allows users to download content-premium films, music videos, tv shows, and user generated content.
Founded in 1998, and already with a general counsel, the company is privately held, with no outside investment.
The company gets its movies at the same time the movies are released to DVDs. The movies go off the company's shelf when shown on HBO or Showtime. The company is able to sell its products for as low as .99 because it does minimum guarantees, and sells in volumes. The company requires users to use a credit card for purchases, creating a pricing barrier. The company makes money from ads and selling content with revenue share deals with those who generate the content.
The company's catalog is scrubbed manually through use of humans, and automatically through technology for copyright infringement. The content cannot easily be put on iPods because there is a need to transcode and break the DRM. Most people purchase the content and watch it on their personal computers. The demographics are people who do not have televisions such as business travellers and college students. It is not easily downloadable and burned onto DVDs because of the availability of technology for burning and the length in the download process.
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