And the Oscar for stingiest over-reaction to fan appreciation goes to…the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Just today YouTube complied with a request from the Academy to remove all unauthorized clips of Sunday’s awards broadcast.
Will Ferrell’s hilarious musical about how comedies never win Oscars? Flushed. Sexy Beyonce belting out a tune from Dreamgirls? Outta here! All that remains from the telecast is (surprise!) an Apple commercial promoting whatever new gadget it wants you to shell out your hard-earned dollars for.
It’s a good thing the Academy anticipated that millions of movie fanatics would like to re-watch some of their favorite clips from the show by making them available on Oscar.com. Oh wait, no, they didn’t anticipate jack. Variety.com reports that all you’ll find is some worthless five-minute highlight reel of acceptance speeches and a smattering of host Ellen DeGeneres spots. Maybe this year’s show was so boring even the Academy won’t watch it again. That, or it’s trying to pinch as many pennies from fans as possible by pulling clips because it can’t show million dollar commercials on YouTube like on TV.
Here’s what Will Richmond, president of Broadband Directions, a firm that deals with internet video says, "Media companies and content owners have not been that aggressive about two things: offering lots of clips on their sites and offering interactivity, like the ability to include a clip in a blog or email it to a friend." Translation: the Academy is behind the times, probably still befuddled by this YouTubey thingy and certainly out of touch with how fans interact with their entertainment.
Richmond also adds "The absence of both of those elements has created this vacuum into which YouTube and others have jumped."
No one wants to see copyrighted material stolen, but media conglomerates and distributors have got to get with the program with these days. Google (which now owns YouTube) recently announced that it will soon make technology available to companies to prevent their material from getting pilfered and put online. Maybe with safeguards like that there can be a compromise, but until then expect corporations to continue this wack-a-mole approach with fans and their troublesome YouTube vids.
