Combating piracy requires creating friction and choking off distribution
Neal Mohan · Nikhil Kamath x YouTube CEO, Neal Mohan | People by WTF Ep. 9 · Nikhil Kamath · May 24, 2025 · at 24:04
Nikhil Kamath asks YouTube CEO Neal Mohan how filmmakers releasing content directly to digital platforms can protect their films from piracy.
0:00 / 0:24exact quote · 24.4s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“There's two aspects to piracy. One is the actual act of creating that copy, and as I said, things like DRM and what we do to sort of prevent against that, at least create enough friction where it's not trivial to do, and then the other aspect, of course, is the distribution piece, because like, piracy is ultimately for viewership, and if you can kind of choke that piece off, then that's sort of getting at one of the other use cases”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Neal Mohan
YouTube is a video platform, not social media or linear television
“We're not social media. We're not a place where you go To connect or share with your friends. You're primarily there to watch video. And we're not sort of linear, traditional television either.”
YouTube's recommendation system reflects user interest, not narrative control
“There's obviously, we endeavor to show a diversity of content, but it's generally oriented around what we know to be of your personal interest based on your viewing habits, et cetera. So you, as the user, really are in the driver's seat in terms of what type o…”
Podcasters and independent commentators played a major role in recent elections
“News commentators, podcasters, or whatever you want to call them, played a big role in that election. And I do think that candidates that got the word out as a result of engagement in what, you know, in generations past or years past would have been overlooked…”
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan admits YouTube Originals was a failure
“We've tried in, in the past. We had something called YouTube Originals. It wasn't successful. So we don't do that.”