For awhile now, I've been disappointed in what I view as the slow but steady degradation of YouTube's value as it becomes ever more nerfed by modern copyright law and "Intellectual Property" laws.
Not that long ago I could put up almost any AMV on YouTube, and it would be viewable to everybody all around the world. Now such an AMV is typically instant blocked in "some countries" (almost invariably including the ones where most potential viewers are living in).
As annoying as I found this, I could at least see where
music companies are coming from on this (anime companies I really couldn't see having much basis here). Yes, it is an entire song used in the AMV, after all. A song that they might want to sell for the same price as a cup of coffee through an online seller like iTunes.
However, late last night I ran into what is likely the most asinine case of a YouTube takedown I've ever experienced.
I had recently discovered on YouTube a meme called "Guile's Theme Goes With Everything", referring to the theme song of playable Street Fighter character Guile. Just for some shits and giggles, I tried Guile's theme with a few scenes from the last episode of
Madoka Magica.
So for all intents and purposes I created a spoof video involving about 5 minutes of an anime episode, and a 4 minute theme song. Yes, the video is admittedly very spoilerrific, but it has only about a quarter of an anime episode in it. The "song" is the theme instrumental of a video game character.
I put that up on YouTube, and not only was it blocked from "some countries", it was completely deleted by YouTube.
Because I guess seeing a few minutes of raw Madoka Magica (no subtitles) done to a video game character's theme music is going to totally kill sales for Madoka Magica and Street Fighter games...
To see the sales-crushing mash-up vid in question, so you can judge its financially destructive nature for yourself, you can download it from
here.
Friends, this is completely ridiculous. There's just no other way to put it. It's madness. It's actual madness.
And it's already here, without PIPA, SOPA, ACTA, or any of the rest.
So I don't think it's enough any more to simply react to bad copyright, trademark, or intellectual property bills/acts when they come up.
No, I think it's time to go on the offensive, partly to get back what has already been lost, if it's at all possible.
There's also the fact that, in politics, when you simply react to what your opponent is doing, you'll inevitably lose ground over time. This is because every fight you win doesn't cause your opponent to lose ground, but every fight you lose causes your opponent to gain ground. Taking a purely defensive or reactive approach in politics will not be fruitful in the long-term.
So, maybe we should try to think of ways to go on the offensive here. Maybe we should think of ways of creating a paradigm shift in how copyrights, trademarks, and IP are viewed, both legally and by society as a whole.
I don't have any easy answers right now, that's for sure, just some vague and broad ideas. But I would be interested to know what everybody here thinks.