Comedy Central yanks clips from YouTube

Filed under: Video, Web services, Google, Social Software

Comedy Central yanks clips from YouTube

by Jordan Running Oct 27th 2006

Head over to YouTube right now and search for clips from The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, or South Park. You'll find your search discouraging, since clicking on most of those video links will get you naught but a big red "This video has been removed due to copyright infringement" or "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation." That's right, Comedy Central's lawyerbots are reportedly on a rampage and have asked that newly Google-owned YouTube take down copyrighted clips from their shows. That sound you hear is the sound of a million buzzes being killed or, as Agent Smith would say, "That... is the sound of inevitability."

As I wrote recently, Viacom--Comedy Central's parent company--and other media companies in similar situations could easily rectify this situation by simply offering the best clips from their shows on their own web sites with their own branded player that users can embed in their blogs and MySpace pages. This would allow them to directly control their content while still allowing their shows' biggest fans to do all the free promotion they want, and they could stick ads at the end for their other properties. Warner Music recently got a clue and struck a deal with Brightcove to do this very thing. Personally, if I were Viacom I'd rather pay a few engineers to give fans a legitimate alternative to copyright infringement than pay a bunch of lawyers to sit around watching YouTube.

Still, Viacom is well within its rights and Google's only option--its only smart option, at least--is to comply with their requests. This, as I've said before, is the shape of things to come.

[Image via NewsCloud]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Don Wilson said 11:02PM on 10-27-2006

Good for them, but it still feels weird calling Google as YouTube's parent company.

EngadgetSucks said 2:46AM on 10-28-2006

Hey, moron. These shows do offer clips on their sites.

ocellnuri said 2:47AM on 10-28-2006

They offer clips, true, but no easy way to embed the clips into other sites/posts. Comedy Central is certainly farther along than most, that's the truth, and they should get a ton of credit for it. There's still room to improve though, especially on making the content easier to spread and share. I think that's why Youtube has been so popular. A few clicks and you have the whole video wrapped inside your own site/forum post.

Dave M. said 6:33AM on 10-28-2006

What is the news item here? Comedy Central owns the material, they have every right to take the clips down. In fact, it's surprising that it hasn't happened sooner!

This is the 5th blog post (other blogs I read) that has posted about this as if Comedy Central has done something outrageously wrong.

If you are going to report the story, fine, then report it in an adult fashion and not resort to name calling.

Jordan Running said 12:02PM on 10-28-2006

Nobody called anybody names, Dave. Well, except for "EngadgetSucks" up there.

This is news because it could be argued that infringing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert clips played a significant role in YouTube's success. The question is, if media companies start asserting their rights and YouTube becomes bereft of pirated content, will it still be successful?

RG said 12:31PM on 10-28-2006

It was very obvious that if a big corporation takes over a place like youtube things will change. Google books not withstanding, google is no different than MS or any other big company in copyright issues.

Dave M. said 4:00PM on 10-28-2006

"Comedy Central's lawyerbots"

Mind you, not the worst of names to call someone, but still...

"This is news because it could be argued that infringing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert clips played a significant role in YouTube's success."

One could argue that YouTube owes Comedy Central some monetary reward for their success then, couldn't one? Almost makes Stephen Colbert's $700M (or was it $750M) "bill" valid.

I have been reading stories about more and more media companies willingly posting video's on YouTube. YouTube is a pretty good place to get a video seen by lots of people. It's in the best interest of YouTube and Google to placate the IP owners now, so that a relationship can be formed that might very well be beneficial to both parties.

Now, one could argue that if it were not for the illegal content on YouTube to start with, YouTube wouldn't have been that popular and then there wouldn't be studios and such wanting to put their content on YouTube. Or Google wouldn't have wanted to buy YouTube in the first place. I'll leave that to folks with way more knowledge in that area than myself to argue those points. :)

Mike Spurlock said 4:20PM on 10-28-2006

Now the cheap-ass liberals who still watch the Daily Show will actually have to sell their love beads and pay to get cable. I LOVE IT!!!

Jordan Running said 4:27PM on 10-28-2006

"Now, one could argue that if it were not for the illegal content on YouTube to start with, YouTube wouldn't have been that popular and then there wouldn't be studios and such wanting to put their content on YouTube. Or Google wouldn't have wanted to buy YouTube in the first place."

I'm pretty sure that's what I just said, i.e. "Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert clips played a significant role in YouTube's success."

Scott said 5:59PM on 10-28-2006

check out beta.ifilm.com, a site owned by viacom and showing embeddable versions of comedy central and mtv full episode shows...maybe they went after YT to get ready for this launch?

gabriel jones said 6:09PM on 10-28-2006

Comedy Central absolutely has the right to do what they want with their content. And I do not see anything wrong with them forcing Youtube to remove the content, or pay royalties for use of owned content.

If Comedy Central's clips played an important role in youtube's popularity is all the more reason for Comedy Central to get a piece of the pie, so to speak.

Would you like it if you spend your time and money to develop some cool "thing" (place material item here), and then I use the "thing" to make money, and give no royalty back to you? Your answer is a definite, no. Well guess what, that is exactly how Comedy Central is feeling.

There is going to be a strong trend of all content on that site that is copyrighted, to be removed. If you look at the fine print of youtube's recent corporate activity, you will find that they struck deals with BMI to essentially allow BMI to remove unauthorized content, and does not say that youtube explicitely has the right to show BMI content.

So if you are looking for professional content, Im not sure youtube is the best option. You might want to try your hand with http://www.gotuit.com or http://video.google.com. Both are reliable professional content providers.

Mike Spurlock, you need to get out more man. The social slandering of the early Bush years no longer works, try again.

Anthony Lynch said 7:43AM on 10-30-2006

At least they're leaving a few clips up,
I'd say youtube has gotten them some extra viewers.
I'd never even heard of the show before I saw it on youtube,
now I watch it regularly.

Pity some of the older clips will be gone though.
Some hilarious TV never to be seen again.

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