For you, ze war is over
The copyright nazis are marching on YouTube. The "Channels I'm Watching" function allows you to monitor favourite YouTubers' videos. There were at least a dozen regularly-updated channels I was keeping an eye on; these guys had a good record for adding both recent and old ads, many of which I've featured here.
Within the last week, eight of them have had their accounts suspended. I can only conclude that the legal paranoia besetting YouTube's new owners is behind this.
I can think of a few reasons why advertisers and their agencies would object to the online sharing of intended-for-TV ads, all of them feeble (old campaigns might undermine new marketing strategies; bloggers like yours truly can take the piss; modern eyes would laugh at the hangups of yesteryear, and so on), but it would be a very odd day if YouTube were the target of an ad-related lawsuit.
I'll be keeping my own account, for now, but will start to use some of YouTube's rivals a little more often: DailyMotion, LuLu TV, Metacafe and Revver. I'm sure some of you lurkers can think of some others.
2 comments:
It's so incredibly short-sighted isn't it. Though the cats falling down toilets and exploding farts are all well and good, so much of what I wanted from YouTube was not UGC. You're right, it's the old ads, film trailers, clips from shows - stuff that entertains, stuff that makes you think, stuff that you want to the write about...
I have not started with the YouTube alternatives, but maybe this weekend is the time!
Amelia, DailyMotion is ad-friendly.
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