[transmission from...Tyler Sonnichsen]

Now, first, I want to clarify a few things. Yes, I’m aware that each of the last three items I’ve posted on this site have embedded clips from YouTube. The title doesn’t mean that I have nothing against YouTube, though. I find it to be a microcosm of a major problem developing within the internet...this “information superhighway” (as it was called from 1994 until about 1997) in its consolidation among people aged 13-25 into essentially four websites: YouTube, Myspace, Google/Gmail, and Facebook. Oh, right, and that standard-bearer of the future of information, Wikipedia, where I was handsomely greeted by a pair of giant jpegs of dicks upon clicking a link to an article entitled “Gay Marriage in Spain.” (That’s what happens when you allow people near computers who oppose gay marriage that radically).

Before I launch into my main point about Viacom (check out their grasp here, a piece of essential reading), their collective head, and their collective ass in which said head has been lodged for quite some time, I want to state that YouTube is not as revolutionary as some people claim it is. In a lot of respects, I miss the days of trading videos the old-fashioned way. Mr. Show had a sketch where a few of the supporting players (Brian Posehn among them) played a group of stoned college kids who were part of the “underground tape railroad.” I still think that is funny as shit, despite the fact that you don’t need to go further than YouTube to see a guy lighting his ass hair on fire. Of course, the video is shot with a camera phone that all the kids have, and barely edited, and it gets 5,276 more hits per day than Don’t Fuck with Joe Deeley. Not that I’m bitter or anything. If I had my way, YouTube would be for the people who take this craft seriously enough, and YouTube would review the tags that people put on their videos to prevent convoluted searches.
Those two statements vary in feasibility as well as pure pretension, but I think that most people would agree on at least the latter one. Didn’t Google just buy YouTube for more than 1.5 billion dollars? That sounds enough like corporate consolidation to me. If I didn’t know any better, I could swear that this is less a matter of proletarian concern than two superpowers battling it out for superiority to the effect of the Yankees and the Red Sox, the US and the USSR circa 1957, and the list goes on. I wouldn’t say that lives hang in the balance here, but Viacom’s trying their best to put that sort of fear of God into us as internet users who enjoy themselves some YouTube.

On page A17 of today’s Washington Post, the editors granted Viacom General Counsel Michael Fricklas a mouthpiece for voicing Viacom’s concerns that led to their headline-making $1B suit against the internet media giant. Read the op-ed here. Some of the main points that Fricklas conjures up include, but are not limited to:
The DMCA (Digital Media Copyright Act) doesn’t protect YouTube… The public at large is not attracted to YouTube’s storage facility of technical functionality – people are attracted to the entertainment value of what’s on the site…Does YouTube have “knowledge” of copyrighted material on its site? Does it have the “right and ability to control” the content? Yes and Yes…Will forcing Google and YouTube to obey the law stifle innovation? Quite the opposite. Intellectual property is worth $650 billion a year to the U.S. Economy.

I can’t type that last line without starting to get angry. I understand that Mr. Fricklas is just doing his job, and his words are very eloquent and clear regarding Viacom’s public reason for pursuing action against Google. But, in the interest in cracking into this a bit further, here is what his letter could have been and he still would have communicated Viacom’s M.O. just as effectively.

Dear Everyone,
On behalf of Viacom, please stop appropriating our shit in a manner that does not make money for our stockholders. We really, really, really like money. The exorbitant amount of revenue we pull in ($20 billion annually) is not nearly enough. Please, we want more money and are kicking ourselves for not jumping on this “embedded video” site deal earlier.
Tune into the hott new show on MTV, SlutzhahaLOL this Thursday at 10,

Michael Fricklas


I’m sure the conglomerate responsible for the sophisticated programming and entertainment of MTV, UPN, VH1, Showtime, Nickelodeon (since the late 90’s), BET, Wrestlemania, “Crank Yankers,” “Good Burger,” “Grease 2,” “Pootie Tang,” and more would continue to harp on pretentiously about the sanctity of “intellectual property.” Viacom’s been responsible for plenty of good films and television in the past decade, too, so I understand that its unfair to highlight the aforementioned shit, but important regardless. And funny, too.

One of Viacom’s biggest beefs with YouTube is the proliferation of copyrighted music videos on that site. But if they cared about the intellectual property of the artists behind great videos like Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” for example (the writer Rivers Cuomo, the director Spike Jonze, the song’s producer Ric Ocasek, all connected to Viacom capital in one way or another), they wouldn’t have dumped music videos from their stations’ format.



8 videos per hour equals 8 chances to change the channel for bored teenagers who became the network’s target market about 16 or 17 years ago. I think that spreading videos all over YouTube, regardless of legality, is among the best functions that the site could serve. TV networks are so reluctant to broadcast music videos, so allowing people to choose which videos they want to see when they want to see them is an option, and a better one at that. I’ve become interested in a number of musical artists via YouTube, and have gone on to buy music or go see them in concert as a result. Therefore, I’ve spent money on said artists that I would not have if YouTube and/or Google adhered to strict legal codes. So long as the videos are posted with the artist’s name and proper title, etc., no one is ripping off anyone’s “intellectual property.”

In fact, the only time one usually hears that term brought up outside of PR pieces like Fricklas’ is in court, over a matter of copyright infringement or a similar issue. The only monetary value that “intellectual property” has is the dollar signs that major market media heads attach to it. Copyright laws, in general, are devices through which these media corporations extort every penny they can and subsequently lull the population into compliance. I’ve made it clear before on this site that I oppose all copyright laws outside of those that counteract plagiarism. Personally, I think that so long as the artist gets some form of credit within the presented piece in a forum like YouTube, everything should be square. Nobody is getting rich off of the site except for the guys that created it and, however indirectly, the advertisers that Fricklas indicated in his op-ed.

Good luck forcing every young kid out there who aspires to make films or television to conduct an original score for his movie that he and his buddies gathered on occasional weekends when three of four of them didn’t have to work. Better yet, prevent him from using a favorite song of his that would push a certain scene or certain shot through the roof because it’s ‘stealing.’ If the kid is selling this 5-minute film to a local or national distributor for $20,000, it’s a slightly different story. For now, he’s someone trying to rise above the ass-hair-fire videos with a little class. Don’t put a price on that. That may sound braggadocios coming from me, but there are thousands of guys and girls who grew up with similar aspirations, doing the exact same thing, in most cases better than me. Public TV stations were tentative about airing some things I’d done due to copyrighted music and some video clips I used sporadically, but eventually aired most everything the way I’d laid it out. (I did utilize the non-copyrighted Music Bakery to make people happy on a couple occasions…that shit was horrible). This was before the internet showed signs of becoming the predominant conduit for short-form (and alternately long-form) entertainment. It was before anyone had to worry about eradicating a problem that is, contrary to Mr. Fricklas’ idealism, nearly impossible to pin down or eliminate. This whole “problem” isn’t even a problem except for those who force it to be one.

I’m sick of people imposing limitations on promising new media nearly every year. Most everyone weighed in on Napster, from Lars Ulrich and Dr. Dre whining about how free music downloads would drain their careers (which were both well past their prime by 2000 anyway), to artists like Billy Corgan who saw it, realistically, as “the future of music.” I don’t even like mp3’s or most digital media, but that doesn’t mean that people should have to live in fear if they use the resources provided by these corporations to save some money, especially if they are in college or just poor to begin with. I hate how YouTube is watering our culture down in a lot of respects (it is the new fad central, though Leroy Jenkins is still as funny as ever), but that doesn’t mean that money-devouring conglomerates like Viacom should feel the need to impose their hegemonic standards. Apparently, having exclusive advertising rights on all buses, subways, trains, kiosks, billboards, and other venues in every major and most minor US cities isn’t enough for their influence to strangle.

And, no, that ass hair fire video was merely hypothetical, so don't search for it on my word. Sorry if you're disappointed.