Have you seen the Foo Fighter's "Learn to fly" video on YouTube? How about pretty much all of AC/DC's back catalogue? How about any of the other Sony artists for whom YouTube has simply become a visual version of Napster?
Of course, you won't be able to see Beyonce falling down stairs as YouTube has removed it due to a "copyright claim." It's interesting to see how media companies use copyright infringement as a means to censor undesirable representations of their artists. Of course, when those infringements help promote the content, no trouble at all - pirate away. It is far cheaper for YouTube to have a reactive policy: if a content owner requests a take down, they comply, than to police their hosted content. But this makes them manipulable by the copyright owners.
BTW, you can still see the Beyonce fall here.
I dont really get your point... I know making fun of the majors is like shooting fish in a barrel but this is really just slinging around a poorly put together conspiracy theory. SonyBMG feeds content to YouTube directly. Yes, for the most part, YouTube is treated as another promotion channel like MTV. There are over 1600 videos available including lots of deep catalog: http://youtube.com/user/sonybmg
I'm sure that Sony BMG would love if people would just link to the originals instead of taking the time to rip their own and violating copyright, but really it may simply be a matter of having limited time/budget for going after violations.
Who issued that copyright takedown notice? Was it Sony BMG or the broadcaster of the concert? Are they the same company? I dont have any inside knowledge but I imagine it's Beyonce's publicist doing his/her job trying to conrol bad publicity. I'm not shocked that they dont prioritize the "good" publicity. My point is that you're not doing any reporting here... you're just linking to a few search results to show that there's SonyBMG content on YouTube all the time.
And as far as YouTube's reactive policy is concerned, it's highly in the consumer's favor. If you are advocating that we assume that all content is a copyright violation until proven otherwise then I'm sure the RIAA would be your number one supporter. It seems like you're unhappy that the idea of censorship or a copyright violation can even exist (and I think there is a valid argument there) but this "police state" version of enfocement is much more consumer friendly than the previous content "dictatorship" was.
My last pet peeve is calling Sony BMG just "Sony". Please remember that it is 50% owned by Bertlesmann. Sony Corporation does not really call all the shots as far as the content comapny is concerned. In fact, their interests are less aligned with the music labels than Bertlesmann AG's are. If they had know how much blowback the internet was going to give Sony BMG for some of their missteps, they probably would have called it BMG Sony. I mean Beyonce is even on Bertlesmann's main corporate site: http://www.bertelsmann.com/bertelsmann_corp/wms41/bm/index.php?ci=26&language=2
As much as people like to lump them together, they do operate independently. I dont hear many RIAA haters boycotting their magazine subscriptions, or book purchases. I guess it's easier to hate the PS3 than Toni Morrison. :-)
Posted by: Paul | July 29, 2007 at 04:55 PM