| 15th October 2006 10:01 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Alas we hardly got to know YouTube
Enjoy the dodgy clips while you can, says Garnet Fraser
Oct. 15, 2006. 01:00 AM
GARNET FRASER
Toronto Star
Never mind YouTube's purchase by Google. YouTube's deals with other media players are what might be bringing the golden age of viral video to a close.
CBS Corp. and three major recording companies (Warner Music Group, Vivendi's Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment) struck deals with the company allowing the site to show their wares (music videos, clips from TV shows, etc.). But Associated Press reported this week that the deals will require YouTube to install new audio-signature technology that can detect a low-quality copy of a licensed music video or other content. YouTube would have to substitute an approved version of the clip or take the material down automatically.
In other words, it seems that the copyright holders will know when you upload your favourite part of, say, last night's edition of the Daily Show, and they can stop you. Viewers might be limited to what the copyright holders choose to make available.
This goes on now, to some extent. Saturday Night Live material such as "Lazy Sunday" (an early YouTube hit which was viewed five million times) was once all over YouTube but has now been eradicated from the site. All the same, YouTube's possible exposure to lawsuits from copyright holders was thought to be considerable. Billionaire and former dot-com boss Mark Cuban called Google "crazy" for buying now and said if even one copyright-violation suit succeeds, the result will be more "lawsuits than Doan's has pills."
Getting copyright owners' okay may have been vital to the survival of the site, which was estimated to be losing a half-million dollars a month. So since a big change seems likely, let's have a sendoff for the YouTube we knew.
Star entertainment staffers want you to see, if you haven't already, some of our favourite legally endangered YouTube clips. Think of it as a quick reel of performances like great, dead actors get each year at the Oscars.
There's the clip that started a political furore: Stephen Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner: tinyurl.com/y6o3bj
There's the mock musical Brokeback! as performed by Nathan Lane on CBS' Late Show With David Letterman: tinyurl.com/yhop2r
Some rapping wiseacres take some liberties with Justin Timberlake in "Paxilback": tinyurl.com/yg6nyh
And there's the trailer for the strangely familiar thriller C for Cookie: tinyurl.com/qc7qb
Best of all, there are the great, passed-over TV pilots: Jack Black's Heat Vision and Jack (tinyurl.com/pgdxm) and Adam West's Lookwell (tinyurl.com/wtr8x), co-written by Conan O'Brien.
We loved them all, to the great detriment of office productivity.
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| 15th October 2006 10:11 AM |
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| glencar |
this too shall pass... |
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