I suppose it's only a matter of time before Twitter (which is so unnecessary as it encourages stalkers and isolated people to think their mundane lives are relevant to the world) gets taken over by Corporate Media - or what I like to call "Big Media." I mean, CNN did a whole Twitter thing all morning, to the point where I'm sure the young'uns no longer think it's cool when CNN, NBC, and FOX are chattering away about how "cool" it is.
Maybe these latest technologies are a way for youth to keep one step ahead of Corporate Media, but Big Media - like a bullying, overbearing grown-up - insists on playing in the sandbox. And not just playing in the sand with the kiddies, but also dictating to the children HOW they're supposed to build sand castles in the sand. It's like: Get out the sandbox, you overbearing grown-up! Stop being so inappropriate!
So, that's the convenient metaphor I'm going to use for Big Media increasing its presence in these do-it-yourself media spaces on the Internet. Most glaringly, this is what has happened to You Tube.
Remember how much fun You Tube used to be? Where any and everything was permissible? I mean, I found old footage films and TV shows, which used to be available in the Library of Congress, on You Tube. If you missed an important TV show, I used to just go on You Tube to check out what I missed. If a cool music video just got released, I could embed it on my blog and share with my readers. And, if I wanted to make my own video, inspired by a song or event, I could just put it together and upload on my You Tube account.
Well, imagine my surprise that my latest video's audio got pulled. WTH?! Oh, that's right: You Tube is now following copyright laws. To which all I have to say is: FAIR USE!!! Get over it!
All of a sudden, a cool music video can no longer be embedded on blogs. TV shows, like American Idol for example, can no longer be watched as producers started doggedly pulling videos down - in hopes that they can keep their high ratings as they discourage viewers from watching their shows elsewhere. It's just not fun to go on You Tube anymore, and the fun organic impulse of some of the do-it-yourself videos have lost that edge since the promise of You Tube instant celebrity looms over every new slick video.
What I see going on with You Tube is corporate takeover. And with their increasing presence comes more restrictive measures that certainly curtail the free expressions of video makers and uploaders. It no longer feels like a space "for the people, by the people." If You Tube is no longer about "You," then it's time to move on to some other spaces.
I hear Vimeo, Hulu, and Blip TV are the latest hip video servers. Maybe I should whisper this, lest Big Media forces its way into these sandboxes as well.
6 comments:
hulu kind of sucks actually & it is so corporate it has commercials advertising it and major buy in from the studios.
as I always say, anything from google is big brother. google is youtube. and youtube saved itself from lawsuits by selling out its users (literally giving corporations user information in exchange for immunity) and then started actively enforcing copyright AND putting ads on all of its videos. Remember when you had a choice about advertising on your blog or not? remember when you got revenue for it if you did? well not with big google brother around.
oh, and twitter, which sold out about 5 seconds after it went up, is from former google employees. and from what I hear the two who own it apparently "stole the idea" from a third guy who was initially involved and then left over personal conflicts with the other two right before the thing went up.
google is evil. anything that appeals to Dick Cheney and is used most frequently by has been celebs is not a revolution. And if companies trading in racially and gender questionable ads are making money off it, it is not social justice. It maybe paranoia but it doesn't mean I'm not right.
You make a good case about Big Brother's hand in YouTube taking down shows that you'd like to see, but television and film have always agressively protected their copyrights. And if you think about it in terms of the artist rather than in terms of the corporate entity, it makes sense. At least it does to me, as an artist.
Twitter on the other hand is a different animal. Sure there are people on Twitter who tweet banal things like what they ate for dinner last night, but there are other more useful ways to use twitter: as a marketing tool to back up your blogging and website campaigns. You don't have to follow every celebrity either. My Twitter strategy for example is that I only follow other artists, galleries, and museums. I get useful information from the people I follow.
Twitter and YouTube are not for everyone, but they are useful tools if you know how to use them, which is why they are wildly successful.
whips are useful too until someone turns one on you without permission.
I've blogged about this several times, and learned about a watchdog group that monitor's YouTube's yanking of videos:
YouTomb
Thanks for the link, DaisyDeadhead.
Since the big corporations have gotten involved, I can't even watch any video that has "Embedding Disabled by Request". They just don't load or anything, and I DO have the latest versions of everything, and have cleanly uninstalled and reinstalled Flash, cleared my cache, etc. Still, those videos won't load. And I'm not the only one having the issue.
Since I can't watch at all, and they're pulling the sound from the versions that I CAN load, I have said goodbye to youtube and find my video elsewhere.
To quote Freaky Friday: "Funsuckers!"
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