Posts Tagged ‘youtube’
With YouTube’s video annotations feature starting to get some momentum (see below for update), I thought it might be good to address the concept of interactive video. “Hypervideo” – the inclusion of dynamic hyperlinks into video on a time-dependant basis – isn’t particularly new. In early 2004, web ad technology company United Virtualities released their Shoshmosis engine, which placed a clickable Flash layer over streaming video. Before that, eline Technologies (now VideoClix) had a QuickTime-based solution complete with clickable objects that triggered contextual content alongside the playing video. But hypervideo has yet to penetrate into the online mainstream, and most web video experiences are still remarkably linear.
Last week EMI filed a lawsuit against the social network hi5 for allowing its users to upload videos with unlicensed music on their audio tracks. EMI alleges that hi5
“allowed infringement to go unchecked, content to profit handsomely from advertisements that appear side-by-side with infringing content, and from the draw created by their dissemination of [EMI's] copyrighted works.” (from the lawsuit)
OK. It’s understandable that EMI wants some control over how its content is used, who profits from it, and how much they pay for the right to do so. But this music-industry-has-hopelessly-oldschool-economic-model thing is becoming a tiresome truism. EMI is not going to be able to make money from teenagers using EMI songs in their homemade videos. EMI wishes it could. But that doesn’t mean the solution to the situation is to try to stop teenagers from using EMI songs in their homemade videos.
