of pitchfork's 100 awesomest, a mere 46 are still u2b'ed, rex notes. sure nips any brief utopian shared-culture illusions in the bud.

discuss.

In the crucial rippability vs. audio/video quality ratio, YouTube has got to rank as pretty safe, so I'm guessing this isn't to do with piracy or iTunes sales.

I'm guessing this is about control:- that by limiting where a video can be seen, you are better able to control where people go to see it. The official website can lead you past the chocolate counter on the way to the checkout, so to speak. There's news, gigs, forums and a bit of email harvesting to be chucked in en route.

Hmm. I guess I can understand the impulse, but it seems like a missed opportunity. Marketing departments might not give a fig for utopian shared cultures, but prohibition seems an odd way to exploit the emergence of a powerful new media stream. And especially when you consider how much effort is expended to get stuff shown on TV.

But then I'm not in marketing am I?

(anonymized, even? ok, i won't tell...)

For all the complaining that us younger-ish "new media" types do about the "big media enterprises" for their not "getting it" - it often seems that the old guys do a much better job of understanding what the kids want/mean than vice versa. sigh.

erm... how do you mean that, thiddy?

Or do the old guys do a much better job of dictating what the kids want? Maybe the kids claim the culture they are fed as their own by posting on YouTube.

Since every time the labels take it down, the kids will immediately post it back up, I don't really see what purpose taking it down serves.

Interesting. I can see why labels would want to use videos to direct traffic, but is that really more important than impressions?

There will be, and has been, some pretty smart tactical manouverings going on. A clip will be posted then pulled, posted again, pulled, inevitably with the intent to direct traffic to the clip in a desired digital atmosphere perhaps, after creating some buzz. This has to be expected. Is this what is going on here? I'm not sure, but perhaps it should be.

overdrive; specialten, molgan, bkanal, qoob, tunespoon, rage vod; democracy, joost; the brightcove backbone - where's the essay, sro?