NEWS: YouTube: Now with .01 Percent Less Entertainment!

CULTURE: YouTube: Now with .01 Percent Less Entertainment!

Remember when Google bought YouTube, media analysts called the move risky because of YouTube’s shaky relationship with copyright laws? Everybody was worried for, like, a minute and then watched a bunch of Wonder Showzen clips on YouTube and forgot the whole thing ever happened.

Well, while we were laughing, apparently a lot of shit went down behind the scenes.

On Friday, massive media conglomerate Viacom demanded that YouTube remove all Viacom-related content from the site. It’s more or less the endgame in a protracted legal battle between Viacom and YouTube’s parent company, Google.

Since Viacom owns MTV, MTV2 and Comedy Central, that means a lot of extremely YouTube-friendly content – The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Wonder Showzen, Jackass, South Park and more – needs to be off the site. Of course, because YouTube’s content is user-driven, the clips can be reposted. The chaotic nature of user-submitted content seems to ensure something’s going to slip by.

As a result, YouTube’s lawyers have evidently declared a gangland war against purported Viacom theft. There’s already been random shrapnel in this intellectual property drive-by; a Massachusetts man was threatened with legal action for posting a video on YouTube called “Sunday nite dinner at Redbones in Somerville, Mass.” According to the letter he received, the video, concerning a group of friends having dinner, infringed on Viacom international.

Viacom isn’t the first group to reclaim their intellectual property from YouTube – Time Warner, Universal Music and others have threatened to sue YouTube, and News Corp recently subpoenaed YouTube for names of people who uploaded Simpsons and 24 clips – Viacom has been the most consistent pain in YouTube’s ass.

Last November, under orders from Viacom, YouTube pulled its Comedy Central clips. A week later, with little explanation, the clips returned. That same month, the CBS network announced that YouTube clips of David Letterman had drawn more viewers to the show.

It’s weird that an institution as unhip as the Tiffany network, the home of Walker, Texas Ranger, would be as cool about YouTube and Viacom, which owns youth-tastic entertainment outlets Comedy Central and MTV (Incidentally, Viacom and CBS used to be the same company until splitting in 2005). Weirder still is how Viacom shows, notably The Colbert Report, embraces web-driven audience interactivity. Also weird is how Viacom owns iFilm.com, which was the biggest viral video game in town until YouTube.

Viacom must have some larger strategy at work. They’re at risk of alienating their core audiences of twitchy internet nerds. Also, they must realize how statistically insignificant their YouTube contributions are. News reports say YouTube needs to take down 100,000 clips because of Viacom’s orders. YouTube has over 70 million videos. Colbert’s cool and all, but there’s a lot of other shit out there.

you give too much credit to middle aged white men. see this, this, and this.

and on a side note -- i was just watching clips of grimlock yesterday. i love youtube.

This is not Cricket.

redbones..,,in been there...its just, OKAY

re
todd
ed

boy that's a bit of a stretch to claim that the salem witch trials, religious persecution and anti-terror laws in a major northeastern city is in any way similar to a company not wanting their copyright protected materials free to watch and download on a site that is profiting monetarily from just that.


Napster, a five year old girl was sued for useing it

The RIAA make the judges of the philladelphia witch trials look like saints (yes there were witch trials in philly and they were much worse than salems)

Grimlock is the shit. I won't be concerned if the majority of TF stuff gets yanked from Youtube, but there are foreign language TF stuff that I would lament, i.e. Headmasters intro, TF in Tagalog, etc.

yes i apologize for attacking viacom. their strategy isn't to protect themselves from the unjust, it's to redirect you to their website (which happens to be free).

and my note on religion wasn't religious persecution it was religion.

Are you kidding?! Redbones has the best fucking buffalo shrimp this side of the Yangtze! And they've got amazing beer galore! I love Redbones!

This isn't weird at all when you consider that youtube and ifilm are competitors. Also Viacom probably feels they could loose viewers because of this because they might move to watching the shows offline. Plus viacom would rather have the online participation directly through their own sites where they stand to gain revenue from it. In CBS's case however they probably reason that since they lack in youth viewers this could help them gain more of them which appears to be the case.

Will someone please think of the children?

Grimlock kick butt!

The trouble with that statistic is that 90% of Viacom's "owned" clipes are at least something worth watching, while 95% of the other 70 million involve some retarded 14 yr-old trying to lip synch to Hollaback Girl.

Hate Viacom so much.

This will be Youtube's end. The only reason people go on Youtube is to watch TV shows and clips of TV shows, and if you take that away, Youtube is fucked. The end.

Youtube is a SINKING SHIP!!!

Letterman fucking rules.

I'm sorry, Redbones is about two blocks away from where I live, and it's great! Especially the bar downstairs... too many beers!

i love how sarcasm=overreacting. i guess you could see through my screen: i was crying.

and seriously the only thing youtube is good for are those distorted g.i. joes videos.

sofa king
we
todd
ed

no, your sarcasm was lame, the rest of your post and the previous post was overreacting.


you can't let go that i don't care as much as you do. i can imagine you making these trite verbal barbs while patting yourself on the back.

you are putting too much emphasis on regurgitated information. everyone can choose a side and repeat the accepted sentiments. i chose to make a joke about one sentence in an article.

the sad fact is you overreacted and you can't let it go now because your pride tells you to hang on for one more post.

Oh what the fuck....
Breakfast is over.

there's that fag talk again.

i love how you claim superiority based on age. it must be nice to be a 32 year old trying to "find himself."

keeping fighting the man one message board at a time.

Music videos are also copyrighted content, and my guess is that the lawyers are on their way for them, too. Or will be soon.