Fox News Tries to Bully Bloggers – We All Fight Back

HA!

I have been following the story of Progress Illinois, a group that has posted a number of videos that criticize FoxNews and, under the well-accepted legal concept of fair-use, include clips of the FoxNews programs in question.

Via TechDirt:

The YouTube account had been taken down following multiple DMCA takedown notices from Fox, leading YouTube to institute its usual policy of shutting such accounts down. Progress Illinois sent a counternotice, and after Fox failed to sue the activist group, the account was turned back on. Paul Alan Levy points us to some more troubling details about the discussions between Progress Illinois and Fox. Apparently, Fox sought to have Progress Illinois waive its fair use rights on all future Fox material and demanded that it be allowed to run ads on the Progress Illinois site in exchange for allowing the content to be placed on YouTube. On top of this, Levy notes that Fox is apparently preparing a deal with another video site (that will include its desired ads), which Fox will apparently demand sites use in reporting on Fox News reports.

In support of Progress Illinois, embedded below is one of their videos including a FoxNews clip.  Hey Fox, why don’t you come after me, too? I’m just itching to counter-sue someone…

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Activision Viral Video Outed

Image via Wikipedia

This sort of thing just tickles me: A video was posted to YouTube containing a (pretty obviously fake) news report showing a failed assassination attempt on a Russian scientist. While obviously an attempt at a “viral” video, it was not immediately clear who was behind the scenes.

Well, if they were hoping to remain hidden they’ve failed.  What I love is how one dogged blogger found them:

I attempted to discover who is hosting the site, but all I was able to uncover was that it is hosted by mediatemple (great hosting service, but this tells me nothing). I then did several searches for content from the site: MIR 12, Nikolai  Demichev, etc and was once again unable to turn up anything.

I moved on to MIR 12’s twitter account, and finally got somewhere. The first twitter followers were all from LA. After a few minutes looking at their profiles, and doing a few linkedin, and facebook searches, I realized that the followers were comprised of employees of the LA office of ad agency DDB, and viral video seeding company Feed Co. A quick look at DDB’s site reveals Activision as a client – the most likely client to approve this type of work. Also, Feed Co has collaborated with Activision in the past, and worked on the recent Bike Hero viral, which I covered in an earlier post.

It all lead very cleanly right back to Activision, who is hoping this viral campaign will build buzz for their upcoming game.  The question is whether or not knowing who is behind the video matters in terms of marketing potential.

Oh, here’s the video:

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Seth McFarlane and YouTube are Back and It Feels So…Lame

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Much has been made about the YouTube deal with Seth “Family Guy” McFarlane in which Seth creates VERY short, occassionally funny animated pieces and they are combined with a McFarlane-esque pre-roll ad (this time from Priceline) and distributed via Googles video ad network.

This seems to be working pretty well for them in terms of overall views but I find the presentation to be, well, a total ripoff.

As an example, check out this episode:

If you were paying attention you might have noticed that the pre-roll ad was about 20 seconds and the actual cartoon was also about 20 seconds.  That’s a pretty crappy ratio of sales to original content.  It doesn’t help that the original content is just kinda funny, if that.

I can’t imagine this is a format that will work for most online webseries.  While people do whatever they can to avoid ads on TV they are not going to put up with having to sit through an ad that is as long as the program they wanted to see in the first place online.

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• Street Fighter on YouTube

Street Fighter on YouTube

Image via Wikipedia

As YouTube has expanded it’s offering to video posters, some video posters are getting pretty damn creative AND smart.

A new (probably short-lived) YouTube sensation is a clever re-imagining of StreetFighter using the “annotations” feature to turn it into a sort of “choose-your-own-adventure” and as NewTeeVee says, it’s paying off big-time.

Uploaded last week, YouTube Street Fighter videos have already garnered well over 5 million views, and counting. That’s not just due to gamer nostalgia over the coin arcade classic, or because it’s currently featured on YouTube’s home page. A lot of the views are generated by the way the videos were made.

Aside from being clever, the way in which the videos are linked creates an incredible number of views.  This is great for YouTube and the video producer who are collecting a pretty outrageous CPM:

After the first week it went online, Boivin told me by email, the videos had earned him $5,000 in YouTube advertising revenue.

Unfortunately, it is a total ripoff for the advertiser as viewers spend 10-30 seconds on each page and there is barely time for an ad to pop up, let alone be seen and absorbed.  So, while I totally applaud the creativity and the cashification I wonder how advertisers will be responding…

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Two Great Examples of Free Content Boosting Bottomline

Image via Wikipedia

Two stories caught my attention, both of which add evidence to the idea that giving your content away for free can actually increase your overall potential for montization – or as I like to say, Cashification.

First, Mashable has some follow-up to Monty Python’s innovative approach to combatting pirated clips on YouTube – they made their own YouTube channel where they posted everything they’d ever done for free.  They also provided links to the actual DVDs and CDs for sales at Amazon and iTunes.  Can you guess what happened next?

Monty Python’s DVDs climbed to No. 2 on Amazon’s Movies & TV bestsellers list, with increased sales of 23,000 percent.

Still not convinced.  How about this from TechDirt in their story about idpendent musician Coery Smith, who both offers his music for download free on his own site and for money via iTunes:

However, as an experiment, they took down the free tracks from Corey’s website for a period of time last summer… and sales on iTunes went down. Once again, this proves how ridiculous the claim is that free songs somehow cannibalize sales.

The fact that there are so many stories like these makes it ever more difficult to accept the current business practices of the major music labels and studios.  While they spend more time and money on hunting down and prosecuting their one-time customers their current customers are running our of patience and will jump ship, too.

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HBO, Facing Obsolesence, Tries Threatening Inaugural Ball ‘Tubers

Image by Army.mil via Flickr

HBO, which has a completely obsolete business model at the moment, took a shot at relevance by securing the exclusive rights to film and air Barack Obama’s Inaugural Ball.

Now, via TechDirt, comes word that HBO is attempting to force the takedown of personal videos posted on YouTube that were shot by regular folks lucky enough to be in attendance last night.

The majority of these videos seem to be short clips shot on cellphones and it is pretty hard to imagine how their presence online could harm HBO’s “exclusive” rights.  Nobody is going to watch those videos as a replacement for HBO’s professionally shot and produced video nor will anyone mistake those videos for the work of HBO.

Not only is it just plain mean to attempt to stop folks from sharing their personal looks into a major historical moment but it makes HBO look bad.  Considering how few reasons there are to pay for HBO, you’ve got to wonder why they would risk web backlash…unless they were blind and ignorant when it comes to New Media.

Nah…

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The YouTube Dilemma – Users vs. Copyright Protection

Image via Wikipedia

There is simply no denying that YouTube is still the most important video-sharing site, at least in the United States.  It is not likely to see this position change much, at least not in the next year.

As YouTube has grown it has been forced to decide if they want to side with the users who have made the site what it is or the rights-holders to a lot the material that users have posted.  More and more, YouTube is siding with rights-holders, even in cases where fair-use can easily be argued.

YouTube is trying to avoid a never-ending string of lawsuits (justified or otherwise) from RIAA, DMCA, et al. with pre-emptive actions against their users.  Unfortunately for both YouTube and its users this means that the site is rapidly becoming a very unfriendly destination for the kinds of “mashup” entertainment that independent video creators and viewers so enjoy.

Here are just a few of the things YouTube will take down and eventually ban users completely for doing:

1) Dancing to a pop song not in the public domain

2) Remixing videos to existing songs not in the public domain

3) Using TV news clips to make a political statement

4) Kids singing Hannah Montana songs at a birthday party

5) Video-collages of Hollywood movies. (like every time they say “fuck” in Pulp Fiction)

The really sad part is that the vast majority of these kinds of videos are completely fair-use but there is no way to argue that with YouTube.  It is also incredibly short-sighted of rights-holders not to understand the intrinsic value of being used and exposed via these kinds of videos.  It is hard to imagine how Warner Music loses money when a teenager lipsyncs to the latest top-ten single.

The end-result will be that people who want to create these types of videos are going to find a new host.  And a smart host could make a good amount of cash providing a legal safe-haven.

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YouTube the New Court of Public Opinion

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

There is no question that YouTube is THE place for people around the world looking to spread their message through video.  User-generated videos of major news events like the earthquake in China or the protests in Burma have made YouTube the go-to site for the news that doesn’t make it to the mainstream channels.

So, it should come as no surprise that governments are now taking to YouTube to spread their own message.

According to various news reports, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) created its own YouTube channel carrying videos that include black-and-white aerial footage of attacks on Hamas weapon sites, and clips of Hamas terrorists loading rockets into trucks. (via)

Who knows what effect this will have on global public opinion but it is fascinating to see what has happened now that the power to distribute your message to the world is no longer limited by heavily controlled access to the masses.

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30 Rock’s Keith Powell Goes Web

Image via Wikipedia

At this point, it is fair to say that there is a specific genre of webseries featuring actors with varying levels of existing exposure playing slightly modified versions of themselves.

The best of these, in my opinion, remains Mayne Street on ESPN.com, but these things tend to be pretty subjective.

This certainly isn’t a genre birthed by the web.  In fact, most of these series owe a certain creative debt to “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”  Of course, with the relatively low costs of creating a webseries, many of these stars are free to basically do whatever they want without the pressure of creating a hit.

One of the latest entries into this genre is “Keith Powell Directs a Play,” starring Toofer from 30 Rock.  A funny premise in which a (we hope) egotisically enhanced version of Keith Powell sets off to direct a regional theater production of Uncle Vanya.

Here’s episode one:

Unfortunately, it looks like this series is facing a problem similar to so many attempts at episodic online content – a massive dropoff in viewership after the first episode.  In this case, on YouTube, episode one has been viewed just over 100,000 times.  Episode 2 sees that number drop to just over 10,000.

This will remain the biggest challenge facing webseries creators both large and small – how to maintain an audience after the buzz of episode one wears off.

Those who answer that challenge will be the winners.

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NYT Sees Gold in YouTube’s Hills (wow, bad metaphore…)

Michael Buckley –                         Image by feastoffools via Flickr

The NYT has a splashy piece about people making “real” money posting videos on YouTube.

Actually, it’s about one guy making real money, sort of through YouTube and a lot of other outlets.

“What the Buck” is the YouTube show profiled and it is the one most often trotted out to show how great the YouTube partnership program can be for independent video creators.

The only problem with the article is that makes it seem like what Michael Buckley has done is something that is/could become common on YouTube but that’s just not the case.  The vast majority of semi-pro video makers simply don’t put the sort of time, energy and commitment into their work and thus, do not get much in the way of rev-share from YouTube.

It takes a staggering combination of artistic vision and hard work to make a go of it online, to break through all the noise and to actually produce a consistent product that keeps viewers coming back.

While there is nothing especially wrong with the NYT piece, I think it falls short of communicating how impressive it is for Buckley to have done so well.

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