Just saying.

And a ton of UKers hang at the same places.

Viacom has given a new meaning to “Sweeps Week.” In its “sweep” of 100,000 insurgent videos, it caught up a large number of legitimate vidoes. Mine included.

I will tell you that it is a drag to have a video taken down, to receive a “DMCA Complaint” notice (actually, three for the same video) in your email box, and to be threatened with having all of your other videos destroyed. Here is what the notice said,

“Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others.”

Oh yes, and here is the “easy” way to contest the sweep and get your videos back:

If you elect to send us a counter notice, to be effective it must be a written communication provided to our designated agent that includes substantially the following (please consult your legal counsel or see 17 U.S.C. Section 512(g)(3) to confirm these requirements):

1. A physical or electronic signature of the subscriber.
2. Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled.
3. A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.
4. The subscriber’s name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located, or if the subscriberis address is outside of the United States, for any judicial district in which the service provider may be found, and that the subscriber will accept service of process from the person who provided notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) or an agent of such person.

try and purchase foreign music via itunes. npr had a piece on the other day how “underground” trade in foreign bases itunes gift cards is a great business here in the us. he specifically mentioned japanese and german new music and even played a short audio clip.

due to corporate contract issues this music cannot be legally sold to persons outside a certain geographic location.

do these suits realize the net has rendered the entire earth ones own backyard?

talk about stifling your potential.

Of course, it’s entirely counter-productive - as viral or word of mouth marketing is the best publicity you could ever hope for.

And it’s not just about YouTube. Here in the UK, for example, Heroes hasn’t even hit our screens - hardly anyone’s heard of it, and you can’t watch via the web if you’re outside the USA. But because I’ve managed to see the series (and like it), I’ve been talking it up - and now loads of my friends and colleagues just can’t wait to watch it when it eventually starts here. If the old guard had their way, that would never have happened.

The Comedy Central clips are being put onto iFilm, everything is beautiful about the display and the layout, but it looks like they may have disabled embedding on their Comedy Central clips. Maybe I’m missing it and I know it was there, but I see the easy embed feature on non-Comedy Central clips, but not on the official output

I can and will support their decision to only put their clips in place where they profit, but I’ll agree with the two hosts that the ability to embed is an important part of the equation.

Now, I’ll shut-up for a while; I promise.

By doing this, I am doing the show sampling that everyone wants to credit to YouTube and I’m doing it in a very functional embeddable player. I just have to sit through a pre-roll on iFilm’s site, which MTV Networks is profiting from and if I do choose to share the video via my blog, the clip will play without the pre-roll, which could be the direction that YT is headed, anyway.

You’ve just got to break the YouTube habit. They may have invented and popularized the embeddable player, but they’re not the only game in town. I mean, MTV paid money for iFilms years ago, why shouldn’t they reap the benefits of their own shows, especially if Google won’t play ball?

And even if it does take away from an “official site,” so what? The show has received terrific exposure by getting passed around. Networks obsess over promos - promos that nobody cares about and people fast-forward through. YouTube is the ultimate promo: find a clip of a show you like and tell a friend. Everyone wins.

When a network clip goes viral, it’s terrific exposure for a show. Against all its efforts, NBC has revitalized Saturday Night Live with the “Lazy Sunday” and “Special Gift in a Box” that took off on YouTube.

The old guard keeps missing the point. YT is the best promotion tool ever invented. Play along with it, don’t sue it. You win, your site wins and your show wins.