Freie Inhalte für ein in freies Netz

Embedded videos — those hosted by YouTube but streamed on blogs and other Web sites — don’t generate any revenue for record companies, so EMI disabled the embedding feature. Now we can’t post the YouTube versions of our videos on our own site, nor can our fans post them on theirs. If you want to watch them, you have to do so on YouTube.

But this isn’t how the Internet works. Viral content doesn’t spread just from primary sources like YouTube or Flickr. Blogs, Web sites and video aggregators serve as cultural curators, daily collecting the items that will interest their audiences the most. By ignoring the power of these tastemakers, our record company is cutting off its nose to spite its face.

Damian Kulash Jr, Sänger der durch einige sehr lustige Video-Clips bekannten Band OK Go schreibt in der New York Times einen Free viral videos betitelten Kommentar, in dem er mit der Musikindustrie abrechnet: deren Vorgehen gegen das Einbinden von Videos widerspreche dem Geist des Netzes.