Copyright and YouTube
I just noticed today that a video I had posted in YouTube was just blocked in the U.S. because of some music I used in the background. Specifically, they blocked my PC Transporter video that I used to demo some hardware I was selling on eBay. The video is pretty mundane, but I used a Señor Coconut track in the background along with various beeps and noises from the Apple ][gs. Come on, who is going to download the song with all sorts of disk drive noises on top of it? WMG thinks people will do this, so now only people outside the U.S. can view the video. But, get this, if you can view the video in your region, it gives you direct links to download the song on iTunes or Amazon! That is a brilliant business move, but apparently using user created videos as a promo tool in the U.S. is beyond the pea brains at WMG. So, for my sake, please steal Señor Coconut’s record off the Internet (search for it on Google, you’ll find it for download from Rapidshare or similar site) and don’t buy the record if you live in the U.S.A.! I will find a way around YouTube’s blocker soon and repost the video here as soon as I can.