YouTube is for the people!
I read an article today in Variety about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (you know, the people who bring you the Oscars every year) giving orders to YouTube to shut down all unauthorized clips from Sunday's telecast on their site. Some of the most popular were Beyonce's and JHud's performance, the Jack Black/Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly song and dance number, and host Ellen DeGeneres' opening monologue.
I'm all about copyrights. As a writer, I understand. But I think YouTube is a great tool.
Let me explain.
So the Oscars this year were about seven years too long. Who could sit through all that? I tried to hang in there as best I could, but I went to bed sometime after Jennifer Hudson won (which was the primary reason I watched) so I missed the Dreamgirls performance.
I went to YouTube the next day and watched it. It was good.
Which brings me to my point: just because I watched it on YouTube doesn't mean it diminishes anything about the Oscars. YouTube is great because it fits in with the "I can get it when I want it" attitude that we seem to have about news and entertainment. I don't think unauthorized clips should be plastered all over YouTube, though. I think more organizations should join forces with YouTube. Can you imagine what YouTube would be like if you could go there for sports highlights (as the NBA is trying to do), Oscar speeches, MTV performances, etc? It'd be great.
Of course, the only other option in this day and age is to have these individual websites (I'm looking at you Oscar) beef up their content. Does it hurt them to put acceptance speeches on the site? Or all the performances? I don't think so.
Besides, if YouTube gets rid of all its unauthorized clips, what am I supposed to use for my blog? LOL.
5 comments:
Yes, people must find a way to work with sites like YouTube and garner revenue and free pub for themselves instead of trying to fight it.
Long live vlogging!
I guess they would rather people stayed up and watched it live and saw the adverts. When people watch stuff on YouTube or from torrent sites they usually see edited versions which do not include the ads or sponsorship. Some people might chose this over watching it live and having a break every 2 mins. I personally would love to get rid of all ads but then I bet we would all have to pay a lot more for our TV services.
It is a short sighted view though as people can use these sort of sites to catch up with shows they have missed and then return to watching it on TV. Watching on a small computer screen doesn't compare to watching on a big screen TV afterall.
I agree wit you, but the companies have a right to want to keep their programing sacred. Sometimes what makes a show is the fact that you saw something that nobody else did. Now its almost like overkill cause you can watch anything anytime which makes it a little less special. So the Oscars do have some reason to gripe.
I think they have some legitimate concerns, but at the same time, offering viewers 5 minutes worth of highlights from an almost 4 hour telecast just doesn't seem right to me.
Besides, I like ABC because I can watch LOST and Grey's Anatomy online for free. Granted I have to sit through a commerical, but I will...
I don't know if I made this clear, but I DO NOT think every company should make their content available on YouTube for free. That's not the point at all. But I do think that the Oscars were wrong for not showing more online. It's their domain and the web traffic could've been awesome....
Good comments. The traditional media is frightened of media that is powered by individuals. I've been discussing this often at www.bizplusblog.com. Your comments in this post are excellent.
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