Why Isnt Stephen Colbert Uploading on Youtube

An Open Letter of the alphabet to Stephen Colbert, star of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report"

We in the Colbert Nation are sickened by the contempo news that heavy-handed trial lawyers at Viacom, representing Comedy Key, accept asked YouTube to strength its users to remove video clips from "The Colbert Study," "The Daily Show," and "Due south Park." While those lawyers have legal standing to exercise this, it goes against the spirit of Net sharing and viral promotion — ii phenomena that have helped brand your testify and then pop in the outset place. It only doesn't sound similar you, Stephen, infant.

If anything, you take been a bright shining star of Internet experimentation, freedom of expression online, and prankster extraordinaire in the long tradition of online pranksters. In fact, your track record online is awe-inspiring, stunning and a buoy of perfection for whatsoever wannabe amusement outfit trying to find their bounding main legs on the Internets. Think I'm but puffing you upwardly to tear you down? Well of grade, but this stuff is seriously brilliant and worth listing here:

> Wikipedia hijinks: You asked your audience to change the entries on the customs-run encyclopedia in order to "create a reality we can all hold on — the reality we just agreed on." And they did wreak havoc on Wikipedia, leading to technical problems on the site and an editorial "lock" on twenty elephant-related entries.

> Light-green screen claiming: You lot posted videos online of yourself doing a "Star Wars" lite-saber battle scene, and asked people to create their own videos with the footage. They did, and you included them on the show, calling them "heroes."

> Bridge naming: You asked your audience to go online and vote for a bridge in Hungary to be named afterward, well, you. Information technology appears that you won that online vote, edging out Jon Stewart.

I don't know if these were all your brainstorms, those of your geeky interns, or a combination thereof — it doesn't matter. The simple fact is that you have used the Internet in the way information technology was meant to exist used, to generate buzz, get people involved and build a truthful online community whose ain work could exist showcased on your Television program. That's in the spirit of Web 2.0, a fancy-schmancy term for letting your audience in on the fun, letting them vote and mash-up video and edit Wikipedia to their heart's (and your heart's) want.

Your lawyers and the suits at Viacom think they've got a great new manner to make money online. "Hmmmm," they sneer, as they rub their easily together. "Nosotros will shut downward videos from 'Colbert Report' over at YouTube and other video sharing sites so that people will come up to Comedy Cardinal's site and sentinel video there, where we tin play three ads for every video clip! Mwah-ha-ha [echoes]!!!"

Nice idea, but one problem. When the Colbert Nation goes to YouTube to trade clips or watch them, it's an easy interface, unproblematic to use, simple to watch. When they go to Comedy Central'southward Motherload, approximate what they're in for? A bloated interface, with trivial command over what y'all desire to sentinel, and you take to download a special software plug-in if y'all utilize the Firefox browser. If you have a Mac? Forget information technology. No "Colbert" for you!

Equally ane hardcore Nation fan wrote on the No Fact Zone weblog:

The glory days of YouTube are officially over. I knew information technology would happen, but I never idea it would happen only iii months subsequently I started up this website. (sigh) Now, all is not totally lost. Comedy Central does have Motherload. However, ane cannot post Motherload clips onto a blog, or bookmark them and save as favorites, or actually play them with any relative ease. Just at least it'due south something.

It's something, but that something isn't good, and is ane reason Viacom CEO Tom Freston was shown the door. This is the time for you, Stephen, to show your bosses the error of their ways, to step upwards to the plate and evidence them the importance of share and share alike online, and how the Internet has helped stoke the flames of your fiery stardom. Don't let the flame of freedom burn out at present.

Think I'm alone in this wacky view of letting people view your clips everywhere? Nope.

WindyPundit says:

"Are they insane? What else are they going to practice with the old episodes? Information technology's electric current events goggle box."

Sean Coon has his ain open up letter, where he says:

"You had thousands of fans, like me, pointing to and contextualizing clips from their blogs, generating millions of page views and legions of new viewers and you killed it considering they weren't your page views. And so dumb."

C.A. Bridges of the Daytona Beach News-Periodical writes:

"There'south no question that companies have the right and the duty to protect their copyrights. Simply those mixed signals [promoting material and sending out cease-and-desist messages] are getting a little loud."

*****

And then now I'g throwing downwards my own MediaShift challenge. Create a video that expresses the collective thoughts of the Colbert Nation on this issue, and mail information technology to YouTube, with a link to it below in the comments. You lot're welcome to use my words above, write your ain, videotape yourself — but go along it relatively clean equally this is public blogcasting, uh, broadcasting. I'll post a link to the best videos in this space, and ship them directly to Colbert'due south attention.

UPDATE: Dylan Stableford at FishBowlNY refutes the reports of massive YouTube pull-downs, saying that there are still 6,700-plus results for a South Park search. (Searches for Stephen Colbert nevertheless brought upward ane,148 videos equally of Monday evening.) According to Stableford, clips over 5 minutes in length were pulled, while those shorter than 5 minutes were however up. Information technology's true that pulling downwards YouTube video is tricky as you have to give notices to anybody who's putting up copyrighted videos today, tomorrow, the next twenty-four hour period, ad infinitum.

As well, Wiley VP Joe Wikert does a better task explaining the poor economic science: of Viacom's decision than I did in my weak humor above. Here's the meat of his argument:

Comedy Fundamental (and other) content volition undoubtedly disappear for a bit from YouTube. Look for it to reappear with advertisements rolled in. That'south all the content owners actually want, a piece of a revenue pie. They can't exist as well greedy though; as I've also noted before, the online revenue base of operations is going to be much, much smaller than the 1 they're used to capturing via cablevision. Those who opt for greed volition disappear from YouTube and never come dorsum. Expert luck to those folks as they try to build their own traffic; better to accept a pocket-sized piece of something than to accept 100% of nothing.

UPDATE 2: Howard Owens thinks this story is merely an unsubstantiated rumor started past Jeff Reifman of Newscloud, who posted his take-downwardly observe from YouTube. Owens says he has run searches of "Colbert" and hasn't seen a marked difference over the past few days. The real test would be a search on "Colbert" from earlier last Fri, when Reifman posted his take-downwardly notice.

Reuters confirms through an unnamed source at Viacom that the company did asking YouTube take down some copyrighted videos on the site "as role of ongoing discussions on how the two companies can work together." In other words, this could just be a hardball negotiating tactic: "If you don't requite united states a good deal at Viacom, we'll yank all your funny stuff!"

This seems to be the Big Media negotiating tactic of choice with GoogTube post-merger. The Wall Street Journal called information technology "saber rattling" by a group of media companies — News Corp., NBC Universal, and Viacom, naturally — who are exploring their legal options against Google over copyright violations on YouTube. The money paragraph:

Whether the media companies somewhen volition file legal activity is unclear, but the legal maneuvering comes as each of them is holding separate negotiations to let YouTube to conduct their programming in render for a piece of advertisement revenue. Executives hope the possibility of legal action could prompt YouTube to improve terms it offers the media companies, according to people familiar with the thing.

And so this whole thing with pulling clips at YouTube might just be a negotiating tactic for Viacom. Send out a few cease-and-desist letters, permit bloggers and the media scare Google into thinking the sky is falling at its new baby YouTube, and and so swoop in with a sweet advertizement deal. If that works out, then your bosses are shrewder than I expected, Stephen…

UPDATE 3: The Washington Mail service does a good job of summing upwards the bug for Large Media in pulling down or keeping up copyrighted content on YouTube. The article contrasts Comedy Central'due south tougher opinion to the more open view of NBC Universal, which only asks for have-downs of videos that "cross an obvious line," such as including an entire episode of a show.

"Everybody is learning, in some sense, how to draw the line," NBC exec Rick Cotton fiber told the Post. "This medium is at the cutting edge. I recall our creative executives feel that 'The Office' and 'Saturday Night Alive' benefit from the significant attention nosotros've gotten online."

UPDATE iv: Thanks to all your thoughtful comments here. Because of the Digg post and the ane,385 Diggs and counting, I had my most trafficked day at MediaShift ever yesterday.

There's a lot of talk nearly how much power Colbert himself has in the process of clips being pulled or allowed on YouTube. I addressed my open letter to Colbert because I meet him every bit a figurehead, and too someone who "gets it" when it comes to the Net. Whether he has whatsoever ability or not, it is his artistic work on the line and he should at least know what's going on. I was also curious if he would actually address any of this on his show at some point. While One-act Central probable owns the intellectual property of "The Colbert Report," Colbert or his producers must have some sway in how that is used online. Plus, information technology'south a lot more fun writing a letter to him than a nameless exec or lawyer.

Equally for the latest developments, information technology looks like Viacom will let shorter clips from its shows on YouTube. While Viacom did ask for clips to be pulled, many k remain, and some YouTubers have written here that they accept uncomplicated ways to avoid getting clips pulled by using lawmaking words for video tags instead of "Colbert" or "Jon Stewart." In a statement sent to the Cherry-red Herring, Viacom said, "We want our audiences to be able to admission our programming on every platform and we're interested in having it alive on all forms of distribution in ways that protect our talented artists, our loyal customers and our passionate audiences."

Seems like a good idea. This is apparently a fluid situation, as Red Herring reports Viacom and YouTube take yet to reach a formal understanding. But I believe that the style fans have reacted here and on other sites does brand a difference, and gives the execs at Viacom intermission in trying to deal heavy-handedly with them. But most likely, this was just a negotiating tactic that Viacom used to become a better bargain with Google/YouTube.

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Source: http://mediashift.org/2006/10/stephen-colbert-dont-love-and-leave-youtube303/

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