So I got my first YouTube video pulled on account of “Copyright Infringement” the other day, and while I’ll freely admit that I uploaded infringing content, I find the specifics of the situation rather humorous, so I wanted to share them with people. So there was a discussion taking place on the forum for the company I work at, and in the course of the thread, somebody posted a link to this classic “Learn to Make Games” TV commercial which is fairly well known & amusing to people who work in the games industry. In a (perhaps failed) attempt at making a witty response to this post, I uploaded one of my favorite Simpsons clips to YouTube & posted that as a reply. Several hours later I noticed that the video was no longer present on YouTube and shortly after that I got an email warning from them about the alleged infringement.
A few things:
- There is this thing called fair use. Unless I am misunderstanding the concept, it allows the quotation of “reasonable” amounts of copyrighted material to be used as part of a review, debate or other types of cultural discussion. The clip I posted was 23 seconds long. Was that unreasonable?
- The clip that I posted was ITSELF an example of fair use reference, in this case of Homer Simpson performing a humorous version of a song (”Tighten Up”) by Archie Bell & the Drells! So… What’s their excuse?
- I saw an AMAZING commercial for the Discovery Channel on YouTube the other day & my first instinct was to post *another* of my favorite Simpsons clips (”Ladies and gentlemen, `Hooray for Everything’ invites you to join them in a salute to the greatest hemisphere on earth, the Western Hemisphere! The dancingest hemisphere of all!”) in response, but now… I guess I won’t.
- Attention Simpsons copyright holders: Have you seen South Park Studios?? It allows random access to every single full-length episode of the show along with tagged and categorized access to hundreds of clips! Do you know how often I have wished for this exact same type of access to the entire Simpsons series? I spent the better part of 5 years of my life speaking pretty much entirely in Simpsons references! Books have been written about the cultural significance of the Simpsons! WHYYYYYYYYYY are you so intent on building a wall around this content that wants so desperately to be converted more freely into cultural currency & make you even MORE money than you already have? This is GOING to happen, you jack-asses, it’s just a question of whether you’re in on the profit share between now and when it does.
In conclusion, Eat My Shorts!
0 Responses to “Loosen Up!”