On July 3rd, I decided to list and link to my favourite clips on YouTube. Three months later, many of the clips I linked to have been removed. This is the problem with YouTube, the best clips are posted without consent from the copyright holder.
The National Film Board of Canada had YouTube remove "The Sweater" and "The Log Driver's Waltz", Major League Baseball had Joe Carter's '93 homer and the final out in '92 removed and "The Great White North" was simply removed because of an unnamed violation. All CBC footage or hockey footage remains, thankfully. Either the CBC and NHL understand the marketing potential of these videos or their lawyers just haven't got around to mailing that cease and desist letter yet.
Last week, Mark Cuban made waves when he stated that only a moron would buy YouTube. "The only reason it hasn't been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue", he said. Cuban has a point. If every stitch of copyrighted material was removed from YouTube today, I'd have little interest in returning. I'm there for the music videos, the old television theme songs, the episodes of "The Simpsons" and that goal / home run / slam dunk that everybody is talking about.
Lawyers screaming about copyright violations suck the fun out of everything, especially YouTube.
