Like most people (I assume), when a YouTube I want to watch begins with a 30-second, I switch to another tab until it’s safe to come back.

So, could I please have a plug-in that will instead show me an ad-free video that I wouldn’t have come upon otherwise? Preferably something that will stretch my imagination, cast doubt on my assumptions, and enlarge my sympathy? Or at least a cat doing something awwwwwwwesome.

(Hat tip to MakeMarketingHistory.)

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This is a terrific public service announcement about the Special Olympics.

Unfortunately, take a look at the upper right at what YouTube thinks is a related video you might enjoy:

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Hamid Tehrani at GlobalVoices posts about how Iranian candidates for the presidency are using YouTube…including controversies about jokes and ad hoc footage…

[Tags: iran youtube e-democracy ]

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In a comment to a distressing post about YouTube automatically taking down any video that contains any copyrighted material, even if it’s covered by Fair Use, a commenter posts a seemingly learned post explaining why “Happy Birthday” may indeed not be under copyright.

And to think of all the years I spent singing “For She’s a Jolly Good Birthday” instead!

[Tags: copyright youtube dmca happy_birthday copyleft ]

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Two of the hands are especially good. This is a fun video.

[Tags: guitar youtube ]

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This video pretends to be from YouTube’s origins in 1985. Cute.

[Tags: youtube humor ]

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YouTube and PBS are asking us to video and post our voting experience. The videos will be collected here.

I was already planning on Flickring my absentee vote for Obama, just for the joy of it. [Tags: politics e-politics media youtube ]

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I just watched Mike Wesch’s talk at Library of Congress about YouTube. Mike, as you undoubtedly know, has made some astoundingly lucid and compelling videos that explain the Web that takes away the last excuses for not “getting” it. Brilliant stuff. This talk is not one of those videos. It’s a 55 minute lecture, with lots and lots of examples, explaining the importance of YouTube. And, like his own videos, it’s compelling, brilliant, and moving.

[Tags: mike_wesch youtube ]

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From BoingBoing:

YouTube Comment Snob is a Firefox plugin that nukes comments with too many spelling mistakes, weird capitalization or punctuation, and too much cussin’. It works pretty damned well, too.

Sure, you’ll miss some worthy comments that happen to be misspelled or contain some bad language. But in an age of abundance, you’ll find plenty of other worthy comments to read.

[Tags: everything_is_miscellaneous youtube ]

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Here’s how the DMCA has worked so far: A copyright holder (henceforth “publisher”) notices an instance (henceforth “video”) of what it thinks is a violation of its copyright on a site such as YouTube (henceforth “YouTube”). The publisher sends YouTube a notice that the video infringes copyright. YouTube then has a choice: It can disagree that the video infringes, and leave it up, or it can take it down and let the video’s poster know that it’s done so. If YouTube chooses Door Number One, it becomes liable if a court decides the video really was infringing. So, inevitably, YouTube takes it down. The video’s poster can then counter-notify YouTube that the video is not infringing. (In this one example, YouTube’s lawyers will actually take a look to decide whether they think it infringes or not. But YouTube is very special in this regard.)

On paper, this seems reasonable. And maybe if the whole thing were done with paper, it would be. But the claims of infringement can be compiled digitally — publishers like Viacom automatically generate lists of every instance of, say, “jon stewart” in a video’s title and submit lists of over a hundred thousand URLs, obviously without having actually reviewed any of the videos — while the response is analog, and thus hard, time-consuming, and risky.

Now there’s been some good news.
A federal judge has ruled that before a publisher submits a DMCA takedown notice to a site like YouTube, some human being has to look at it to decide if it actually infringes, or if it is protected by Fair Use. If this ruling is maintained, it will help re-balance the insanely pro-publisher, pro-protection, pro-restriction copyright regime by taking away the incentive to take down anything and everything that looks like it might maybe perhaps upset a publisher’s delicate sensibilities.

PS: Did you remember to join the Electronic Frontier Foundation to help protect your online rights? [Tags: copyright dmca youtube copyleft eff ]

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