News: One of my students brought this controversy to my attention. It’s delicious. Prince performed Radiohead’s Creep at a concert at Coachella. Some audience member taped it and posted a clip on YouTube apparently. Prince’s people then filed a DMCA notice demanding the removal of the clip. But Radiohead’s Thom Yorke wants the clip back up because Radiohead owns the copyright to the song. (More)
So now it’s back up on YouTube:
Analysis: Radiohead’s right that it owns the rights to the song. Prince is just performing Radiohead’s song, so he has no copyright to it. He might have an anti-bootlegging claim as a performer, but that falls outside the purview of the DMCA notice-and-take down procedure. So it’s not clear to me what YouTube should do when Radiohead wants it up.
News: Tech Crunch’s Erick Schonfeld has the best analysis I’ve seen about YouTube’s market share and business model. Google CEO Eric Schmidt openly concedes that it has faced difficulties in converting YouTube into a money-making venture in the same way Google has. Schonfeld estimates or speculates that YouTube’s advertising revenues (in the neighborhood of $200 million) represent only 15% of the online video market, even though YouTube commands 37% of all videos watched online.
This sounds like a time bomb waiting to explode. Really scary. If the studies substantiate these suspicions, then the entire mobile industry will be in serious question. (More) Here’s the largest study so far, the Interphone study, which has not yet proven a link.
Here are some things I heard recommended by Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN:
1. Do NOT wear your cellphone in your pocket; it should be kept in an approved holster (to reduce the spread of microwaves).
2. Do NOT hold your cellphone to your head. Use speakerphone or an earpiece (but don’t wear your earpiece around when not in use).
News: Reprising Tom Cruise’s most famous scene in Risky Business, American Idol winner David Cook has this cool commercial for the immensely popular “Guitar Hero” video game.
News: David Brooks has a fun look at “The Alpha Geeks” in an op-ed in the NYT. Here’s a cool passage:
“The jock can shine on the football field, but the geeks can display their supple sensibilities and well-modulated emotions on their Facebook pages, blogs, text messages and Twitter feeds. Now there are armies of designers, researchers, media mavens and other cultural producers with a talent for whimsical self-mockery, arcane social references and late-night analysis.
“They can visit eclectic sites like Kottke.org and Cool Hunting, experiment with fonts, admire Stewart Brand and Lawrence Lessig and join social-networking communities with ironical names. They’ve created a new definition of what it means to be cool, a definition that leaves out the talents of the jocks, the M.B.A.-types and the less educated.”
News: As this season of American Idol began, it was very clear who the favorite of the show’s producers was: the young, innocent looking David Archuleta, whose face was plastered all over Idol commercials. At the show’s finale, two of the judges, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell, openly coronated David Archuleta as the winner of American Idol. Well, last night, the American people voted. And the rocker David Cook won last night by a staggering 12 million votes. It wasn’t even close. He beat the favorite Archuleta in a “knockout.”
Analysis: This is the first year that Simon Cowell made a prediction at the finale, but was wrong. He said that David Archuleta gave a “knockout” blow with his last song “Imagine” and severely criticized David Cook for attempting to sing a new song instead of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” or Lionel Richie’s “Hello” (both of which Cook had sung with great flair earlier in the season). Cowell scoffed at Cook, “It was completely and utterly the wrong song choice for you on the night.” After Cook’s performance of “World I know,” he broke into tears, but after Cowell’s scathing disapproval, Cook looked like somebody just punched him in the gut.
Every season, Cowell makes his pick at the finale, and each year he’s been right. Well, I love it that this year he was wrong (so was Randy Jackson, I might add — leaving only Paula Abdul in the right). After the votes were in (but before they were announced), Simon Cowell even had to eat crow and “apologize” for what he said the night before to David Cook because Cowell admitted that he “was verging on disrespectful” to Cook. Not only disrespectful, I would say Cowell was arrogant, condescending, and just totally offbase. Like the hackneyed show itself, Cowell is losing his touch.
News: Both Tech Crunch and Silicon Alley Insider have excellent posts about the startup site Red Lasso. Basically, Red Lasso acts as a free Tivo-like service for bloggers, to enable bloggers to search Red Lasso’s copied content from TV and radio and then create embeddable clips for blogs.
Analysis: One huge problem: Red Lasso has no copyright permission from the TV and radio networks to copy their shows for this service. By the reports, all that Red Lasso is doing is copying the shows on their own and then offering it to the public (though now in private beta version) to create embeddable clips. This kind of activity falls outside of the DMCA safe harbors, and Red Lasso will be very hard pressed to defend this as a fair use. All of the TV networks have their own websites to disseminate their own copyrighted content as they wish — typically with advertising.
My friend told me about this interesting Internet project started by the Center for Court Innovation, a nonprofit think tank seeking “to promote justice system reform in the US and abroad.” The Center is using YouTube to spread word about its project. In this video, the Center relates personal stories related to drug addicts in New York who are trying to pull their lives together.
LisaNova is a hilarious comedian discovered on YouTube (also now on MadTv). This week she posted this LOL video spoofing how YouTube has become saturated with videos with teasers or still shots of women’s cleavage. Often the most popular videos each day have still shots of women’s breasts. (See here and here) It’s hard for other YouTubers to get their videos watched if the women’s cleavage shots get the most viewed.
So here comes LisaNova to the rescue, offering her services — and even clips of her breasts — for other YouTubers to use in their own videos. The video is a riot, but it’s even crazier that LisaNova is serious about offering free clips of her breasts for others to download and incorporate into their own user-generated videos. Her cleavage clips can be downloaded from her site.
Posted by utubeblog 
