Toonbots message board: Communist Monopoly

Emsworth Mon Jul 24 11:21:26 2006 Re: Communist Monopoly > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfIpnd7wN8o&NR > YouTube is cool. It's TV on the Internet. What could go wrong? Well, what could go wrong, and has gone wrong, is companies putting pressure on YouTube to yank thousands of clips and ban people, including some items that were in the public domain. But yeah, it has its benefits. Do a search, and you can find Batman and Robin making a black and white animated appearance on Sesame Street!

gopher Wed Jul 26 10:39:28 2006 Re: Communist Monopoly > Well, what could go wrong, and has gone wrong, is companies putting > pressure on YouTube to yank thousands of clips and ban people, including > some items that were in the public domain. > But yeah, it has its benefits. Do a search, and you can find Batman and > Robin making a black and white animated appearance on Sesame Street! No visible source of revenue is another problem, but hey, that's what the internet's for.

Michael Sun Jul 30 22:09:24 2006 Re: Communist Monopoly > Well, what could go wrong, and has gone wrong, is companies putting > pressure on YouTube to yank thousands of clips and ban people, including > some items that were in the public domain. That's not something that went wrong -- that something that was *already* wrong. At least YouTube is getting this stuff out there. And gopher -- sure, no actual income is a problem, but whatever services build on the YouTube start will fix that, somehow. I'm just excited about the very idea of the video Internet. It's cool. Searchable video (well, not yet). All this newfangled stuff is interesting. Makes me wish I had time to deal with any of it.

Emsworth Sun Jul 30 23:20:54 2006 Re: Communist Monopoly > That's not something that went wrong -- that something that was *already* > wrong. At least YouTube is getting this stuff out there. And gopher -- > sure, no actual income is a problem, but whatever services build on the > YouTube start will fix that, somehow. Yeah, but it seems to me that YouTube was at least bit out of bounds banning people, without even checking in some cases to see if the files were in fact copyright violations, and deleting accounts, without even issuing a warning. They were under pressure, but I like to think they could have responded differently. It's still cool in its way, but anything you want to watch on YouTube, it's best to watch immediately, lest it get yanked. I missed a ton of stuff due to being on dial-up and no speakers. They pulled down a slew of WKRP in Cincinatti clips (not whole episodes even, just clips put up by a blogger to illustrate specific arguments about the show).

Michael Tue Aug 1 22:40:09 2006 Re: Communist Monopoly > Yeah, but it seems to me that YouTube was at least bit out of bounds > banning people, I'm not arguing about that (although "out of bounds" is a little over the top; having run a free service for many years, I know that sometimes it's just too damn much trouble to be the one who has to stand up to the Man.) (Although I did so, wherever possible.) I'm not arguing about the specific actions of any particular actor in the ongoing soap opera that is today's Internet. All I'm saying is that the existence of sufficient broadband out there to make it feasible to manipulate video in the same way that we've been doing all along with static graphics and text is really, you know, NEAT. And secondarily, that I've noticed that the whole Web2.0 thing is snowballing, and that's kinda neat, too. Progress is neat. I thought that was a pretty simple point.

Emsworth Wed Aug 2 09:24:57 2006 Re: Communist Monopoly > I'm not arguing about that (although "out of bounds" is a little > over the top; having run a free service for many years, I know that > sometimes it's just too damn much trouble to be the one who has to stand > up to the Man.) (Although I did so, wherever possible.) True, but it seems to me to be worth taking the time and trouble whether the people you're deleting accounts from are offending "the man" to begin with. Not every WB cartoon is actually owned by Warner, and same goes for the Fleischer stuff, thanks to the wonders of public domain before perennial rights extensions became the order of the day. But of course, I'm not the one who had to do it. I'm just saying that that's something which "went wrong" in a sense, and inasmuch as your praise for YouTube was apparently not for the home made videos but for the distribution of rarely seen commercial productions.