Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

YouTube Removes Comedy Central Clips Due to DMCA 203

Posted by Zonk from the less-tube-more-goo dept.
Jeff writes "In March, an earlier Slashdot post asked if iTunes sales of the Daily Show would make it harder to share clips online. Well, apparently with the $1.65 billion YouTube acquisition by Google, the answer is now yes. Today, YouTube removed all of its Comedy Central content. Google knew this was coming but you have to wonder if YouTube will be worth that $1.65 billion on Monday. The take down request comes a year after a Wired interview where Daily Show Executive Ben Karlin encouraged viewers to download: 'If people want to take the show in various forms, I'd say go.' Maybe the New York Times Company would have been a better acquisition for Google after all."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

YouTube Removes Comedy Central Clips Due to DMCA More

YouTube Removes Comedy Central Clips Due to DMCA

Comments Filter:

  • Allow me to be the first to say... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by camusflage ( 65105 ) on Friday October 27, 2006 @11:48PM (#16619272)
    DUH.

    While Google has a pretty good track record, there have been a few flops. This may prove to be one of them.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by icepick72 ( 834363 )
      ... or the start of many more ...

    • Re:Allow me to be the first to say... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @12:52AM (#16619662) Homepage
      It really has more to do with Google video not wanting to be seen losing against Youtube. A defensive purchase to protect a rather high share price that is not based on revenue but upon the perception of Google being a winner.

      For Google to be seen losing in a market against a new competitor would have damaged that perception of being a iwnning competitor i.e. if a new upstart can beat Google in one area, how many other new players are there out in the market place that can beat Google in other areas (forget the microsofties, they have trouble beating them'eww').

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shmlco ( 594907 )
      What's Google got to do with this, exactly?

      It looks like Viacom made a request to YouTube to remove copywritten material. YouTube complied. End of story.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by HansF ( 700676 )
        Google bought Youtube recently. Guess you didn't get the memo.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by shmlco ( 594907 )
          I know that. What I want to know is how Google "flopped" when YouTube complied with a reasonable request...

          • Exactly (Score:3, Insightful)

            by MisterSquid ( 231834 )

            I know that. What I want to know is how Google "flopped" when YouTube complied with a reasonable request

            The reason so many are claiming Google has made a mistake in purchasing YouTube is the presumption that the primary value of YouTube is the illegal distribution of copyrighted content. Many people, and many /.ers, assume user-created content is valueless and cannot be the center of a viable online business model, despite the success of sites that depend on user contributions, /. itself being a prime e

  • Goole's Plan! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27, 2006 @11:49PM (#16619282)
    1) Buy YouTube
    2) Wait for all of the content to be removed
    3) ???
    4) profit!

  • So much for that. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by merreborn ( 853723 )
    Guess youtube is dead then.
    • When I search for "colbert" on youtube, I still get 4558 results. Daily Show still yields 6046.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Sancho ( 17056 )
        When you click on the videos, are they available?

        Youtube's indexer has never been just super-current. Oftentimes I'd click on a video only to find that it'd been removed due to terms of use violations.

    • Re:So much for that. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ImaNihilist ( 889325 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @01:20AM (#16619796)
      This is what I've been saying for a while now. YouTube is over. 6 months from now all the illegal content will be gone and YouTube might as well just divide the sight into two sections: BoobTube and MTVTube, because that's the only content it's going to have. Thing is, we already have BoobTubes all over the internet, and music videos...eh. You can usually find the video you are looking for from the artists website, and it's not in shitty Flash format. If that fails, it's on MySpace.

      I really liked YouTube too. It was nice to be able to watch Comedy Central shows, and older Adult Swim stuff that isn't on Fix. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

      I still don't get why Google bought YouTube. It's just a giant liability. It's like buying the The Pirate Bay. Sure we all love it, but who actually wants to own that?

      • Re:So much for that. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by BasilBrush ( 643681 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @04:15AM (#16620452)
        You've kind of missed the point of YouTube. The "You" refers to user generated. Look at the most viewed lists and about half of it is user generated stuff. Look at the most subscribed channels and it's nearly all user generated stuff.

        I rarely see MTV videos or "BoobTube" type stuff there. But you do. It seems to me what you think YouTube is full of is the things that you search for and/or are subscribed too.

        YouTube is at it's best with user generated content. Removing stuff that is just re-runs of what is already on TV may well improve it.
        • I also visit youtube mostly for user generated content. The problem is, most of the good home-made stuff is tainted by background music which is almost all illegal.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by FlynnMP3 ( 33498 )
        I've been watching Youtube for months now (>6) and I mostly watch the user generated vids. Yes it is nice to watch some copyrighted material, skits from "Whose Line is it Anyway" and "The Daily Show", but seriously I won't miss them. I am going to buy Whose Line anyway, and the other is topical for the most part.

        The rest of it is crap anyway. According to me.

        You have your own tastes which may involve copyrighted material. Well you really should buy it if you enjoy it. This stuff isn't free. Suppor

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by justinlee37 ( 993373 )

      It's only dead if you think that "the little guy" never makes and uploads anything interesting.

      While it's more profitable for a large corporation to police copyright violations (so people are forced to get their daily dose of the Stewart on their network, for example), for independent filmmakers, machinima artists, and small-time .com's, having material on YouTube is an asset; it makes people aware of the fact that they're out there, making things. It builds a fanbase, and that's important to them -- unle

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AmberBlackCat ( 829689 )
      My colleagues and I have learned a lesson from Napster, game ROM download sites and the like. That lesson is if there's anything downloadable that you like, then you'd better start downloading like crazy as soon as you find it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Slithe ( 894946 )
      Has Netcraft confirmed it?
    • It's not dead. We'll just have to look to Lonelygirl15 for political and social commentary instead.

      Yes I'm kidding.

      LisaNova is pretty good though.

  • Umm, "due to DMCA"? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27, 2006 @11:54PM (#16619324)
    Don't you mean "due to the basic law of copyright that the US has had for over 200 years and is embedded into the Constitution"?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nbauman ( 624611 )

      Don't you mean "due to the basic law of copyright that the US has had for over 200 years and is embedded into the Constitution"?

      He means "due to the basic law of copyright that the US has had for over 200 years and is embedded into the Constitution, and allowed 26-year copyright terms and fair use, until the media companies contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to political parties and started hiring former congressmen and their aides as lobbyists."

      For 200 years, American newspapers were copying f

      • And they were being sued for those years too. You forgot that part. Plus -- as usual for /. -- you conflate patents with copyright. And you neglect the lack of internatioinal patent law at that time.

        But, it sounds good, don't it?

        • Take another look at the constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 :

          the Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

          That is clearly the basis for both patent and copyright. As for international copyright, the Berne Convention [cornell.edu] wasn't until 1886, a hundred years after the Constitution, hardly "at the time."

  • Why the DMCA? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by omeomi ( 675045 ) on Friday October 27, 2006 @11:56PM (#16619332) Homepage
    I don't get what this has to do with the DMCA...I mean, I think the DMCA is as much a piece of crap as everyone else, but Comedy Central would still have the right to force YouTube to take the content down even without the DMCA. It's just a copyright law violation. Just because they "passively allowed" it for a time doesn't make it impossible for them to change their mind sometime down the road...

    • Re:Why the DMCA? (Score:5, Informative)

      by flooey ( 695860 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @12:15AM (#16619470)
      I don't get what this has to do with the DMCA...

      The DMCA isn't just about copy protection, it also includes sections that detail the way a copyright holder is to notify a service that hosts user-uploaded content and the way such a service must respond to those notifications. Check out 17 USC 512 [cornell.edu].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rts008 ( 812749 )
      I didn't get it at first either (was stuck in the "circumventing" mindset) until I found this: (http://docs.binnews.com/index.php/DMCA_Request), which reminded me that the "C" in DMCA deals with copyright.

      *off topic*
      Firefox 2's spell checker flags DMCA! LOL!

      Back on topic:
      You are right (IMHO) about not needing the DMCA to deal with this- a simple letter stating that there seemed to be an issue with copyrighted content has always worked with youtube.com, but it seems invoking the DMCA to "leverage the versati

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by roystgnr ( 4015 )
      I don't get what this has to do with the DMCA...I mean, I think the DMCA is as much a piece of crap as everyone else, but Comedy Central would still have the right to force YouTube to take the content down even without the DMCA. It's just a copyright law violation.

      The DMCA isn't all about "no circumventing futile copy protection attempts" and "no telling other people how to circumvent futile copy protection attempts" - this is actually about the good part of the DMCA.

      You're right that this would have been a

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by evilviper ( 135110 )

        It's not a perfect law, but if all new internet legislation made this much sense I'd feel quite a bit better about the US Congress.

        The biggest problem with it, is that it provides little to no punishment for faulty DMCA notices. The onus is on you to argue with your ISP that they really shouldn't have taken-down your website (Google is one of the few companies that don't go overboard at the first DMCA notice and takedown), and the company gets to keep on doing it.

        How this got stuck in the same bill as the

  • D'oh (Score:2, Redundant)

    by interiot ( 50685 )
    D'oh... The fact that Colbert could be found in so many places on YouTube was a running joke on Colbert itself, that's how integral YouTube had become. Though really, do 5-minute clips of the show threaten Comedy Central's revenue model, or help it? An iTunes purchase is never going to hit the front page of Digg, it's never going to be linked to en masse by blogs. I guess Comedy Central does post their own clips, but they seem hard to navigate through.

    • Re:D'oh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by omeomi ( 675045 ) on Friday October 27, 2006 @11:59PM (#16619370) Homepage
      Though really, do 5-minute clips of the show threaten Comedy Central's revenue model, or help it?

      Now that YouTube is owned by a company with serious money, they're probably trying to negotiate a deal where Google pays X amount per view or something. They can't do that while they're allowing their content to be downloaded for free. My guess is it's all political maneuvering.

      • Re:D'oh (Score:5, Interesting)

        by interiot ( 50685 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @12:18AM (#16619486) Homepage
        Presumably some consideration would be given to YouTube for the fact that 1) YouTube is paying the bandwidth costs, so comedycentral.com's clip service doesn't have to, and 2) much like radio playing singles from an album, it's free advertising to hook people into being interested in the larger work. Granted, TV shows don't sell for $15 a pop, but the "best 5 minute" clip from each show is still a good advertisement... advertisers typically don't get even 20 seconds of someone's attention to sell their product... having a 5 minute ad show up every couple days on Digg has to be very valuable free marketing.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by omeomi ( 675045 )
          True, but it's even more valuable to get that free marketing plus a kickback from Google. Google probably saw this coming a mile away...I'd be amazed if their plan for buying YouTube didn't involve some sort of sustainable business model like using ad revenue to pay copyright holders of high-profile content...
        • Yeah but the radio stations pay for every one of their listeners. YouTube doesn't.

          But I agree, I wouldn't be surprised if Comedy Central isn't in negotiation with Google to legally begin adding content to YouTube in some manner.
      • The real thing is, the "pirate" content on YouTube is about 98% of the interesting stuff on YT. I mean ok, the shrimp on a treadmill is pretty cool. But what else is there to watch? Making good video content is hard.

    • I guess Comedy Central does post their own clips, but they seem hard to navigate through.

      Uh ... yeah. This is exactly what they need to do. Why would they give such huge traffic away to YouTube when they could still provide free teaser content to fans and build their own site?

    • I for one don't miss Colbert. Was sick of seeing so many clips of that show as if it was somehow "insightful" as if they have any idea how politics actually works in the real world.

    • Though really, do 5-minute clips of the show threaten Comedy Central's revenue model, or help it?

      Hurt I would say. Being that if you're not paying your cable subscription fees, you have to buy this content via your cell phone or iTunes. I don't really think Comedy Central is relying on viral marketing for their shows. Everyone I know that watches it on YouTube watches it because they like the stuff and don't want to pay for cable.

      So yes, those people ARE, threatening Comedy Central's revenue model. (Yo

  • Uhh, no they haven't. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mcg1969 ( 237263 ) on Friday October 27, 2006 @11:58PM (#16619354)
    I just watched a couple of South Park clips. One was brand-spankin' new, just from tonight, but the other one was quite old---and there are quite a few copies at that. Try it yourself: my search term was "south park" "steve irwin"

    Sounds like they have some work left to do, if they're actually serious about doing it.

  • Or.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by CYwo1f ( 166549 ) on Friday October 27, 2006 @11:59PM (#16619366) Homepage
    Google could just pick up Comedy Central for a fraction of the cost of YouTube, if the clips were really that important to people.
    • Actually no.

      Comedy Central is owned by MTV Networks (who also own Spike, VH1, Nickelodeon and CMT [along with their associated digital and spin-off channels]) who is, in turn, owned by Viacom, who are, in turn "owned" (via the ownership of voting stock) by Sumner Redstone/National Amusements.

      And while Google's stock price may be at $475.20/share, their market cap is only 1.44 billion compared to Viacom's 2.44 billion.

  • This is the actual email (Score:5, Informative)

    by mikeleemm ( 462460 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @12:02AM (#16619400)
    Dear Member:

    This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Comedy Central claiming that this material is infringing:

    Steve Wozniak on Colbert Report 09/28/2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSIfYgbajpk [youtube.com]

    Please Note: 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. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

    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):

    (A) A physical or electronic signature of the subscriber.

    (B) 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.

    (C) 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.

    (D) 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.

    Such written notice should be sent to our designated agent as follows:

    DMCA Complaints
    YouTube, Inc.
    1000 Cherry Ave.
    Second Floor
    San Bruno, CA 94066
    Email: copyright@youtube.com

    Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification may be subject to liability.

    Sincerely,
    YouTube, Inc.

  • you have to wonder if YouTube will be worth that $1.65 billion on Monday. That's okay. Google stock won't be worth all that much, either.

  • $15/month to watch a single TV show? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iSeal ( 854481 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @12:08AM (#16619434)
    So correct me if I'm wrong, but to download "The Daily Show" via iTunes, it costs $9.99US for up to 16 episodes. So per month, that'll add up to over $10. Maybe something around $15US/month. Now who'se the person that thought charging this much was a good idea?

    I mean can you imagine the bill of using iTunes vs. Tivo? Buying the Simpsons... Family Guy... Daily Show... The News... Daily Planet... Let's see... that adds up $75/month. For 5 shows. No wonder people pirate this crap!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nxtw ( 866177 )
      Wow, when you think of it that way, cable or satellite TV is a hell of a deal.

      $55/mo for a cable DVR that will record all of those shows...
      • What if you only watch the daily show and a few others? It takes a fair number of shows purchased independantly to equal a cable bill, not to mention that for many of us any cable that gets us Comedy Central is more than $55/mo...

        From that standpoint it's a hell of a deal that you don't have to pay a recurring fee for something you might only use a once or twice a week!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
        Wow, when you think of it that way, cable or satellite TV is a hell of a deal.

        Maybe for you, but no cable here and none of the available satellite stations (China and Philippines) offer Comedy Central. (And no iTunes, for that matter, they won't sell to me.)

      • Wow, when you think of it that way, cable or satellite TV is a hell of a deal.

        Only because iTunes is RIDICULOUSLY overpriced. If you have a full-sized satellite dish (NOT DishNet/DirecTV), it actually only costs you maybe $0.50/month per cable channel.

        At that, I should be paying (a little over) $3.00/mo for EVERY I ever care to watch. And I would really only want to keep 2 channels if they charged something like $4 per-channel. As much as I like the Daily Show and Colbert Report, it isn't worth the money

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by timster ( 32400 )
      Well, no. They only do 4 episodes a week, so it's about 16 episodes per month at the most. However, they don't make new shows every week either, so the average per month is more like 13, making the cost a bit less than $10. Many of your other shows listed don't do nearly that many episodes, so they come out cheaper per month.

      Compared to Tivo, there are some advantages -- it's easy to archive to a (data) DVD, and easier to put on an iPod. Overall, it makes the most sense if you don't watch enough TV to j

    • Re:$15/month to watch a single TV show? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tOaOMiB ( 847361 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @12:59AM (#16619704)
      Personally, I don't have cable. At $60/month, it isn't worth it. Everything I watch is on broadcast for free: local sports, news, reruns and what have you.

      Everything, that is, except for the two channels I would pay for: Comedy Central, and Cartoon Network. I don't watch a lot of TV. I don't have time to watch a lot of TV. But I'd love to catch the Daily Show for 20 minutes of my life every day. And you're telling me I should shell out $60 to Comcast for 30 minutes per day + lots of crap I don't have time for, instead of $10 to Apple but be limited to what I actually want? (It's only on 4 times a week, so it really is only $10 a month.) I don't think so.
    • Let's see... that adds up...

      Lexus for 30+K
      laptop for 2+K
      Gucci purse for 800C+

      No wonder people steal this crap.

      Hint: People steal crap because they are thieves.
  • Oh My God, the DCMA killed Youtube! Those bastards!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nuzak ( 959558 )
      The DMCA is what let YouTube take down the stuff without getting sued. Pre-DMCA, Viacom could have just launched a pre-emptive lawsuit. Notwithstanding the noxious amendments about "circumvention devices", a lot of the DMCA is actually good.

      Biggie Smalls. Biggie Smalls. Biggie Smalls.
       
  • Virtually every link I have ever followed to there has been some clip of television that was far beyond "fair use". The whole point behind You Tube is like the point behind the original Napster; Free access to proprietary content. Remove the desired content, and it will not matter if it remains free. Charge for it what it costs to pay for rights, and it won't matter that the content is still there.

    Google got had.
    • YouTube enforcing copyright is only useless to you. Many people go there with the primary intent of watching vlogs or other user created content. And you are a complete idiot if you thought that YouTube could get away with not removing infringing material eventually. I am sure Google aren't such complete idiots that they didn't consider that such material would be removed (and are likely negotiating to get such material back legally).

    • Re:You Tube without copyright content is WORTHLESS (Score:4, Insightful)

      by quokkapox ( 847798 ) <quokkapox@gmail.com> on Saturday October 28, 2006 @06:45AM (#16621024)

      Google got had.

      I think not. Google's plans for YouTube and are bigger than most people imagine. They now control THE internet video domain name. Nobody went to Google Video, so they changed their strategy. They will undoubtedly negotiate mutually beneficial deals with various copyright owners to host TV content. I for one will happily watch my Colbert Report on YouTube, on demand, legally, in higher def with guaranteed quality, rather than have to hunt down a torrent or wait for somebody to upload some fragment of the show with inconsistent quality and unpredictable keywords. Heck, they can still allow people to upload snippets of the shows as long as they've negotiated ahead of time. So as long as I have Internet access, I don't need cable anymore, and I won't need to download shows illegally.

      I think the Google acquisition of YouTube is actually a big win. Think about it -- Google knows you intimately based on your searches, even more so if you have a Google account and gmail. Tie that to your video viewing habits, and Google effortlessly blows away the whole Neilsen rating system. They can provide cheaper bandwidth and hosting than the networks themselves, and they can track everything you watch and every ad you see. And you won't see ads for things you wouldn't want to buy anyway. This represents a potentially huge efficiency/productivity gain for advertisers, and they will pay well for it.

      Google has big plans to be a major player in the media industry, whose future is increasingly Internet-based. Don't underestimate them.

      Or do you really think they bought YouTube cuz it was "cool" and they had the spare cash? Google isn't stupid. You can believe Page and Brin and Eric Schmidt do some deep thinking about companies they choose to acquire, and what they plan to do with them.

  • In other news.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iSearch ( 884825 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @12:26AM (#16619550) Journal
    Comedy central is asking all viewers to stop watching their channel since well.. nobody does anyways. What idiot in their marketing department said "hey, all these people in our target demographic who don't or might not currently watch us are getting interested in our shows... lets stop that from happening!" Another wonderful example of brick and mortar media looking a gift horse in the mouth. I'm sure Jon Stewart is excited that his total viewership just dropped by 80% ovenight :-/
    • Bingo. For example...not a single TV personality has embraced the video sharing community in the way Stephen Colbert has. While his show is good enough to stand on its own, I would argue it wouldn't be anywhere NEAR the level it is currently at without YouTube and the like.

      Actually, I'd be really curious to see what Colbert's take on this action is.

  • That's ok... (Score:2, Informative)

    by kbox ( 980541 )
    ... just go to dailymotion [dailymotion.com] instead.

    Up yours DMCA and comedy central!

  • So it begins.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by miamicanes1990 ( 1015925 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @12:31AM (#16619570)
    I guess this is just the start. So I guess Google paid $1.65M for lonelygirl15 and cats flushing the toilet videos. Outstanding!

  • ... you have to wonder if YouTube will be worth that $1.65 billion on Monday.

    No I don't, it's Comedy Central that needs YouTube not the other way around. As there's far more cable television access than broadband in the US, I imagine everyone who wants Comedy Central already has it and that's not what actally drives traffic to YouTube. What drives traffic to YouTube is interesting content you can't get anywhere else. The people who are going to YouTube are a demographic that traditional broadcasters a

  • Breaking news: (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Master Control P ( 655590 ) <ejkeever@nerdshacFREEBSDk.com minus bsd> on Saturday October 28, 2006 @12:48AM (#16619652)
    Dateline, 7 Dec. 2042: Media launch suprise attack against Free Internet.
    In a stunning turn of events today, the forces under the command of the Greater Hollywood Control Sphere launched a suprise attack against the Free Internet Alliance servers stationed at port 80 on the island of 208.65.153.242. The attack left the port in ruins, and many of the FIA systems completely offline or suffering serious information loss. Reports are coming in from the main server on #c_n_c that as many as 60% of all system resources are currently lost to crashed daemons, and that in going down, at least one F.I.A. system may have crashed into a scanning transport beam, rendering whole parts of the system unaccessible. The latest packets from the scene of the tragedy indicate that possibly as many as several thousand user processes may have been lost in the attack.

    Currently, the Free Internet government is in a state of panic. Previous to this time index, all signs had been indicating that a lasting peace might be achieved with Imperial Hollywood. Now, with this blatant betrayal by the GHCS after they claimed to be nearing a peace agreement with the FIA, it appears that the forces and nation of the Free Internet will inevitably be dragged into the battle already raging on large parts of the Network. Within a hundred microcycles of the GHCS' unconscionable attack against 208.65.153.242 and subsequent declaration of war, dictator-superuser Bill Gates of the Eighth-Generation Empire declared war against the FIA. The government of the FIA, operated out of restricted IRC channel #fia_gov hosted at 63.161.169.137, has now reciprocated, declaring war against both the GHCS and the Empire and their allies.

    Now is the time to fight back for freedom! As of today, #fia_gov has issued the results of a unanimously-supported poll ordering full mobilization of all Alliance forces. We shall recover, we shall recompile our executables, and we shall strike back at the enemy wherever his code may be. No longer can we hide from the reality of the threat all forces for freedom on the Network face! Already, all attack programs and bandwidth we can spare are being sent to our ally, beleaguered Great Computer, to assist in it's fight against the tyrranical control of the Eighth Empire's palladium war-recognizers.

    And so with our parting datagram, we urge you to fight! In the words of SysAdmin Roosevelt, We shall never surrender to the forces of fascism and tyranny! We shall fight them, server-by-server, partition-by-partition! Hear this, Occupied Routers: We shall be back!

    *** END OF LINE
    Other leading stories:
    • DMCA is extremely badly written and poorly thought out law
    • Media execs found to have heads up asses with regards to Internet
    • Copyright inexplicably incompatible with ability to effortlessly duplicate information.

    Someone better get a kick out of this. I spent enough time writing it. ;P

  • Doesn't devalue YouTube in the slightest. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @12:56AM (#16619698)
    Yes it was sort of handy being able to see whole shows on YouTube. And I don't think that will actually change much in the future as people create new accounts, upload content, and it gets removed in an endless cycle where YouTube acts as a short-term cache.

    For me and a lot of other people the value of YouTube is really in all the user created videos. What people have not thought about is that whlile a lot of the content is drek, with some editing some of it from various sources could actually produce some compelling video - and YouTube has the rights to everything put on the site.

    As long as people keep coming to YouTube the value will hold, and it really will not change because where else are they going to go to find user-created internet video? Not Google Video!

  • Lawyers vs. technology, YouTube vs. another model (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Statecraftsman ( 718862 ) * on Saturday October 28, 2006 @01:04AM (#16619722)
    The internet with its vastly improved communications technology is doing two things at least. First, it's making the things people used to do locally under fair use a global threat to the value of the traditional distribution schemes. Secondly, the seriouslness of the threat is causing all those lawyers who thought they were protecting content with their licenses to realize it wasn't their work at all that protected content. It was the difficulty of distribution. So lawyers are being taken to the mat everywhere and they're doing what they can. In this case, I doubt it's going to have much effect. There are other sites and even on YouTube the volume of uploads would overwhelm any number of people they put in charge of looking for copyrighted content. They could moderate all video posts to deal with the traffic but it's all just a sideshow. YouTube isn't competing against another couple of large video sites with similar constraints to them. It's competing against another model...one of thousands of smaller video sites, all indexed, and rated by the community. YouTube's challenge is to demostrate that they are providing value even to those whose copyrighted content they are distributing. The happy medium may be one where best of clips are allowed but no complete works without a subscription. Guess we'll all see how it goes...

  • Really? (Score:4, Informative)

    by ChaosDiscord ( 4913 ) * on Saturday October 28, 2006 @01:27AM (#16619816) Homepage Journal
    YouTube [youtube.com] pulled [youtube.com] all [youtube.com] of [youtube.com] (wow, that's boring to do) the Comedy Central clips? I think not. Go enjoy yourself some Colbert Report. [youtube.com]

    I think a more likely case is that Comedy Central files a bunch of DMCA requests, and a bunch got taken down. But a "bunch" is hardly "all." And more will be uploaded. The DMCA is a deeply flawed tool (the mandatory takedown window even if you challenge the takedown is nothing less than an infringement of the first amendment), but in this case it's a copyright infringers friend. YouTube is not legally required to police for Comedy Centrals content, only to take content down when informed. Google (YouTube's new owner) has a very slow DMCA processing system (as someone whose used it, I can confirm this). So just don't worry about it. The total amont of infringing content may go down, and older stuff might be harder to find, but there will be lots of Comedy Central on YouTube for a long time.

  • Various comments I have. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is also based on some other stuff I read in the other comments.

    1. Whatever happened to common sense? Does viewing these clips online really hurt the show? Does it stop people from watching the show when it's on t.v.? Does it really stop people from buying episodes of the show when they wish to have a true copy of it? No. The people who are going to buy it is going to be roughly the same as before. This is simply alienating people from enjoying something that makes them happy.

    2. I bet a lot of polisci p
  • This is clearly Rove at work again. To take the Daily Show down two weeks before the election shows that there is no end that these diabolical fiends won't take.
  • I would say that sites like YouTube only have value in that they provide somewhat unhindered access to media sources which would not normally be accessible after the 'live' material was gone. For inst

    For instance, when Bill Clinton went batshit recently, or John Stewart had his "hurting America" speech, everyone wanted to know precisely what the honest and forward criticism was, partially because it was so atypical, but also because it was topically pertinent. It was on the news, and the'd missed it.

    The Dai

  • I should have downloaded that "Trapped in the Closet" South Park episode while I still had the chance. Now it's officially DoublePlusUnHistory.

  • Wasn't it already established that the Safe Harbor Act of the DMCA protects YouTube because you don't download copies of the videos from the site but instead watch them in their proprietary Flash-based video player? Since you aren't downloading copies and storing them for later use there is no violation.
  • Lawyers take much too long. There is already a Comedy Central clip in today's top 10 most viewed.

    http://www.youtube.com/browse?s=mp [youtube.com]

    direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3nIi0gH20 [youtube.com]

  • I only have a few favorites on youtube, and one of them was a clip (not the entire episode) from a Daily Show about Ted Stevens thinking the internet was made of tubes. The removal of this is stupid and pointless, since I'm definantly not going to go purchased a DRMed file of the entire episode. Bah! I may have to see if I can find that day's episode on bittorrent.
    • Copy their audio, but make southpark style cartoon versions of the show
      using flash or some other 'cartoon creator' kit if there is any.

      Just as funny, maybe more so, but not 100% (C) either. If thats still not enough
      then fake the voices your self, or use ATTs text to speech converter, so only
      the content words are the same, but the audio and video is 100% yours.

  • YouTube sold me on both the Daily Show and Colbert (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Morky ( 577776 ) on Saturday October 28, 2006 @08:09AM (#16621298)
    The reason that YouTube is such a good venue for the Daily Show and Colbert is that you can search clips from the shows by subject. You can't do that in iTunes. The other problem with using iTunes for all TV content is that a daily 20-minute show is not worth the same amount of money as an episode of Studio 60 or Battlestar Galactica. Charge 50 cents per episode and iTunes would probably increase its revenue, especially now that YouTube is dead. That is, dead beyond sharing baby videos and promoting Chinese lip-syncers.
  • I'm pretty sure the Daily Show team (and Comedy Central) had no problem with the free advertising they got on Youtube (check out this interview [lquilter.net]). E.g. the famed "Jon Stewart on Crossfire" clip only had such an impact (actually leading to the show's cancellation) because it was available on the net viewable by anyone who missed it. As for Jon's stance on filesharing I'll just give you a quote from his Oscar's presentation (I'd like to link to the youtube clip, but, well..): "If there is anyone out there invo
  • If you remove Southpark, Dave Chapelle, and Daily Show. Damn, that seems about half the content right there!
    Here's an "idear" put a flag on the video that the user can select. That says "Was the content of this video created by you or your group?" That may help users who want to showcase their material. Then people browsing content can select whether they want user created or other. Sure you'll never get 100% participation, but it may help people who want to specifically look for cats peeing in toilets, co
  • I liked being able to see some of these USA shows on YouTube, as they not broadcasted overhere in Europe. I think what a lot of traditional media haven't realised yet is that they potentially have a global audience, but not though the traditional media, as those aren't selective enough. I watch USA broadcasts on YouTube, friends of mine watch japaneese manga, some of my colleagues watch BBC broadcasts though the internet, audiences are no longer limited to borders and media companies could profit if they re
  • Nothing.. Being bought by Google will pretty much kill the idea off before the dust settles. Well, actually the lawyers will do it, but now that google bought it, the lawyers smell money and nothing stops a hungry lawyer... Even the law as they will just get it changed in their favor.

    Attorneys are the most destructive force in the world today, far out stripping any countries 'armed force' out there, and hell bent on destroying society.
  • Every time I watch The Tonight Show these days, they're showing some clip that they found on YouTube.

    But somehow, *they're* not violating copyright laws, because it was author-uploaded content?

  • Google's stock went up by more than $1.65b in market cap the very day they bought YouTube, which was done as a pure stock deal. This means that while Youtuve's founders, investors and staff still made a pile of money, it was effectively free for Google. Since that time, their market cap has gone up another $15bn or so, and a good proportion of that is due to the buzz from the YouTube deal.

    Google didn't buy YouTube to kill it, they bought it because it was a bunch of free eyeballs. Yes, they will have to fun

Slashdot Top Deals

THEGODDESSOFTHENETHASTWISTINGFINGERSANDHERVOICEISLIKEAJAVELININTHENIGHTDUDE

Close