When will we wake up that YouTube is going commercial?
Holds ups, take downs and move on
Did you ever have a girlfriend/boyfriend who got so obnoxious you dumped them? Or they dumped you but after the pain you were glad. The reasons were clear: they were driving you crazy.
All of a sudden out of the blue, they call you up and want to go for coffee or a mid-week fling. As soon as you say yes, you know it was a mistake. The same problems are there only its worse because you’ve learned to live without them.
YouTube is my old girl friend. The free video service was lots of fun. I posted 300 videos and had more than 300,000 views which is “in the what it’s worth department.” It got me started on posting then producing videos. The community of users was great. One of my subscribers gave the the inspiration for Catfish, a great song I wrote last year.
Then last fall YouTube started harassing me and tens of thousands of users over “copyright violations.” I’ll admit to having a few Bob Dylan videos but Columbia loved it since I helped push the sale of Dylan’s CD Together Through Life
Too Much Monkey Business, Chuck Berry with Keith Richards
YouTube built its business on amateur videos including music fan videos. Technically they were copyright infringement but that’s the new business model on the Internet. You have to give fans some leeway to express themselves.
The weird thing was I was getting copyright take down notices on public domain videos. It was like getting charged with speeding when you’re crawling through the school zone. Hey what’s with that?
So we moved on. YouTube cozied up to networks, record companies and the big boys. YouTube wants to be Hulu. They are blocking content from streaming to the new TVs that advertise YouTube links.
I rebuilt a video site on my own, NJN Video. It’s is a long process when you’re busy. There are 120 plus videos up and hundreds to go. In the first month, we had 5,000 visits which is a good start. Through embedding the number of viewers has exceeded 100,000.
We started using LiveLeak two months ago and that is awesome. The Amateur video of Challenger explosion by Optometrist on LiveLeak had 220,000 viewers which beat anything I’d done on YouTube.
That doesn’t make money but that’s not the point. The purpose is to tell stories, to report the news and entertain. That’s what we are here to do.
A few weeks ago, YouTube turned my account on again. I posted a few videos. Then they offered a small amount advertising revenue for the Challenger video. YouTube were quite insistent that I sign up. Like a fool, I took the hook and went out for coffee.
Slam bam, YouTube deleted the Challenger video. Then they posted copyright notices on two public domain videos from NASA.
I deleted my account. Who needs the hassle.
BTW check out this Chuck Berry video from the same session. He was a little flat in Too Much Monkey Business but he really rocks it out on Roll Over Beethoven with Keith Richards and Robert Cray. Notice the chin wag with Keith Richards. Berry wants to change the key and Richards tells him “no …!”
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