milk
Ayumi Hamasaki, Kyoko Fukada - White Christmas
Two of the most famous Jpop idols sing a very special rendition of a Christmas classic. So catchy I still cant get it out of my head!
Two of the most famous Jpop idols sing a very special rendition of a Christmas classic. So catchy I still cant get it out of my head!
Morning Musume Rudolph the rednose reindeer
To be the top otaku Christmas music video you have to excel above the rest and provide something unique. The Morning Musume girls give us just the thing: weird cosplay. Watch as this troupe of cute girls sing in even cuter reindeer costumes.
To be the top otaku Christmas music video you have to excel above the rest and provide something unique. The Morning Musume girls give us just the thing: weird cosplay. Watch as this troupe of cute girls sing in even cuter reindeer costumes.
Private SNAFU: Spies
| "A cartoon in which Private Snafu, while drunk, reveals military secrets that allow the enemy to torpedo his ship. This is one of 26 Private SNAFU ('Situation Normal, All Fouled Up) cartoons made by the US Army Signal Corps to educate and boost the morale the troops. Originally created by Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and Phil Eastman, most of the cartoons were produced by Warner Brothers Animation Studios - employing their animators, voice actors (primarily Mel Blanc) and Carl Stalling's music." 1943. Animation available at Archive.org. | |
Extreme Drive Thru at McDonalds
| We were bored, so we decided to write a song and perform it through the drive thru at a local McDonald's. More coming soon. If you don't like this, you don't have a soul. | |
Moxie Online - Alternate Downloadable Commentary Tracks
Moxie Online - Alternate Downloadable Commentary Tracks
In 2002, Slashdot covered alternate-fan-commentary site DVDTracks.com, which had been inspired by a column by Roger Ebert suggesting that anyone with an audio recorder and an opinion could record his own alternate DVD commentary track and distribute it as an mp3, to be played in sync with a separate DVD player. This site subsequently inspired me to try my hand at an audio commentary of my own, for the Hayao Miyazaki film Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro. The track was generally well-received and I've been given some great feedback about it. Considering the recent popularity of "podcasting," and the availability of creator-made downloadable commentaries for shows like Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Doctor Who, it is arguable that DVDTracks was a couple of years ahead of its time.
But where is DVDTracks now? Apparently the owner lost interest and let the domain name registration lapse in early 2005; it is now in the hands of a scalper who wants $3,100 for it. But in the interim, plenty of podcasters started doing their own audio commentaries, and Renegade Commentaries--one of the largest contributors to the original DVDTracks site--kept going with a commentary site of its own. Renegade recently opened a sister site, Commentary Central, where everyone else can host or link their own commentary files. And watching these third-party commentaries just got less annoying thanks to Sharecrow, a DVD player for Windows that synchronizes a third-party commentary track with the DVD so that the DVD and track can be paused, fast-forwarded, and rewound simultaneously. (Their site also includes an index of third-party commentaries--which they call 'crows,' for 'Commentaries Released On the Web'--from other commentary sites.) Unfortunately, there is still no tool to make it easier to record a commentary in synch with a movie, nor is there a Sharecrow for non-Windows operating systems yet.
In 2002, Slashdot covered alternate-fan-commentary site DVDTracks.com, which had been inspired by a column by Roger Ebert suggesting that anyone with an audio recorder and an opinion could record his own alternate DVD commentary track and distribute it as an mp3, to be played in sync with a separate DVD player. This site subsequently inspired me to try my hand at an audio commentary of my own, for the Hayao Miyazaki film Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro. The track was generally well-received and I've been given some great feedback about it. Considering the recent popularity of "podcasting," and the availability of creator-made downloadable commentaries for shows like Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Doctor Who, it is arguable that DVDTracks was a couple of years ahead of its time.
But where is DVDTracks now? Apparently the owner lost interest and let the domain name registration lapse in early 2005; it is now in the hands of a scalper who wants $3,100 for it. But in the interim, plenty of podcasters started doing their own audio commentaries, and Renegade Commentaries--one of the largest contributors to the original DVDTracks site--kept going with a commentary site of its own. Renegade recently opened a sister site, Commentary Central, where everyone else can host or link their own commentary files. And watching these third-party commentaries just got less annoying thanks to Sharecrow, a DVD player for Windows that synchronizes a third-party commentary track with the DVD so that the DVD and track can be paused, fast-forwarded, and rewound simultaneously. (Their site also includes an index of third-party commentaries--which they call 'crows,' for 'Commentaries Released On the Web'--from other commentary sites.) Unfortunately, there is still no tool to make it easier to record a commentary in synch with a movie, nor is there a Sharecrow for non-Windows operating systems yet.
YouTube and the Law
YouTube's Balancing Act: Making Money, Not Enemies
July 10, 2006
By Fred von Lohmann
If you had your choice of Internet companies to take to this year's prom, you'd choose YouTube, right?
She came out of nowhere, made you laugh and became one of the popular kids, yet hasn't let it go to her head. She even has a bit of an edge, a hint of danger about her. Racy!
So, is there anything to the bad-girl image? After all, Newsweek headlined its story in March about the company with a two-word question: "Video Napster?"
The good news for YouTube is that it stands on much firmer legal ground than the old Napster did, thanks to a special provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that protects Internet hosting services.
The question is whether YouTube's future business plans will jeopardize its copyright safe harbor.
Why YouTube?
On the surface, it's hard to understand why YouTube is such a big deal. There are more than 100 free, Web-based video-hosting services on the Internet.
Yet despite its competitors, YouTube dominates the online video world, streaming 50 million videos per day to more than 12.5 million people each month, according to Nielsen NetRatings. Google, Yahoo and AOL all have competing services, but none has attracted the crowd that YouTube has.
YouTube's content is entirely user-uploaded. Browsing Liz Phair music videos can lead to an amateur video featuring teenage gymnasts doing ninja moves. To post a video clip (maximum length 10 minutes, no porn please), just upload the file to YouTube's servers — YouTube takes care of transcoding the video, providing a browser-based player, managing the servers and paying for the bandwidth.
Copyright Issues
So how does YouTube's content fare under copyright law?
First, YouTube's 10-minute clip limit and tiny video window cater to clip culture, not pirates. A studio executive with a limited anti-piracy budget would be foolish to spend time and money suing YouTube while millions of full-length features are being swapped through public Bit Torrent indexes.
In addition, there is a flood of perfectly legal original creativity on YouTube — much of it from teenagers uploading video using everything from cell phones to Webcams to high-quality camcorders.
Also, an increasing number of media heavyweights (NBC, TVT, Epic and Atlantic Records, as well as E! Entertainment, MTV2 and Fox Searchlight) are licensing content for distribution on YouTube. No copyright difficulties there.
But that leaves an enormous quantity of copyrighted material that ends up sprinkled throughout the clips uploaded by users. This content includes television clips (most famously the "SNL" "Lazy Sunday" skit, which was ultimately taken down in response to an NBC letter), music videos, amateur lip-synched songs and the Hollywood trailer mash-ups (who hasn't received an e-mail with "Brokeback to the Future"?).
Some of the content is simply uploaded in its original form (music videos, movie clips), while a great deal more ends up "remixed" into original creative material.
All of these clips are, for the most part, things you can't buy from shops or authorized download services, even if you had known they existed before stumbling on them at YouTube.
Nevertheless, some copyright owners are unhappy. According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, Universal Music Group is urging the recording industry to crack down on amateur music videos.
Would UMG have a case? The creation of these unauthorized works implicates a copyright owner's reproduction and derivative rights. Uploading and streaming the video to others may also implicate the public performance right. And because YouTube hosts and streams the copies from its own servers, a copyright owner would have both direct infringement and secondary liability (contributory infringement and vicarious liability) theories available.
On the other hand, YouTube and its users may have a number of good copyright defenses. In my opinion, most of this video-sharing should qualify as fair use — after all, this is noncommercial activity (at least for the end-users), and a company like UMG may have a hard time proving that there is a realistic licensing market for amateur lip-sync videos shot by 14-year-old girls.
Finally, because its systems are largely automated, it may be that YouTube simply hasn’t engaged in the necessary "volitional act" to cross into the realm of copyright infringement. (See CoStar v. Loopnet, 373 F.3d 544 (4th Cir. 2004) for a similar circumstance where an Internet hosting service was let off the hook.)
But outside of law school exams, we're not likely to see these difficult questions resolved because neither YouTube nor its audience can afford a courthouse showdown over every 3-minute homemade music video.
Safe Harbor
Fortunately, YouTube has an important legal shield that was not available to the old Napster: the so-called "online service provider safe harbors" created by Congress as part of the DMCA. One provision, Section 512(c), was designed to protect commercial Web-hosting services, which feared they might be held responsible for the posting habits of their customers.
After all, if you're Verio and hosting hundreds of thousands of Web sites for clients around the globe, you can't afford to be sued every time one of your customers copies a photograph from a competitor's Web site.
Because YouTube essentially stores material at the direction of its users, it can find shelter in the same safe harbor that Web-hosting providers do.
The safe harbor works like this: So long as YouTube plays by a few rules, content owners can't collect damages from it, even if its users infringe their copyrights.
Rule No. 1 is the implementation of a "notice and takedown" system to respond to infringement notices from copyright owners. YouTube, of course, has this in place and takes down material once properly notified by an owner that a clip is infringing. Section 512(c)(3) sets out exactly what a copyright owner must include in a takedown notice. (Note to content owners: If you use takedown notices to remove noninfringing content, you can be sued by YouTube or its users for abusing the system!)
Another rule is that you must have a policy in place to terminate the accounts of those who have been identified as "repeat infringers." YouTube has this policy in place as well, according to the "terms of use" on its Web site.
The safe harbor will not protect a Web host if it is "aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent" — in other words, if you make your living providing hosting services to pirates-R-us.com, don't look to the safe harbor for protection. YouTube doesn't appear to be sheltering any obvious pirate fleets, so this shouldn't be an issue.
Problems Ahead?
A hosting provider also loses the safe harbor if it "receives a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity."
Here's where things might get a bit sticky for YouTube. Some have argued that this may restrict the kinds of advertising business models that YouTube (and other video hosting services) might want to pursue, as ads tied too closely to an infringing video could be viewed as creating a "financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity."
Some pages on the site already feature advertising, and all signs are that YouTube will want to rely on advertising to fuel at least part of its growth. So far, YouTube has charted a cautious course, putting ads only on search results pages, rather than on the clip pages themselves.
YouTube will have to walk a careful line as it stumbles toward a business model. Losing the protection of the DMCA safe harbor could expose it to lawsuits that could be extremely expensive, no matter how they ultimately come out.
Litigation could also cast a pall that scares off investors and potential acquirers. A conservative approach also makes sense in light of the horde of entertainment lawyers already scrutinizing YouTube's every move.
All of this puts pressure on YouTube to come up with innovative business opportunities other than ads before, during and after the videos. Fortunately, there is almost certainly room for at least some ad-supported business models within the scope of the safe harbor. Starting with ads on search results pages is a good starting point — that way, the financial benefit is not tied "directly" to any particular video that might appear in a results page.
In addition, YouTube should experiment with different revenue strategies that do not raise potential legal problems. For example, YouTube may be able to charge content owners to be featured on the site. The "featured videos" section on YouTube's homepage is already valuable Internet real estate for which many companies would be willing to pay.
In addition, with its considerable expertise and infrastructure in streaming short videos, YouTube could offer a video-oriented version of Google's AdSense (a market that Google itself has recently entered).
YouTube's investors poured another $8 million into the company in April, and you can be sure that money will go toward buying top-drawer copyright advice.
-About the Author: Fred von Lohmann is a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group devoted to the protection of civil liberties, free expression and innovation in the digital world.
July 10, 2006
By Fred von Lohmann
If you had your choice of Internet companies to take to this year's prom, you'd choose YouTube, right?
She came out of nowhere, made you laugh and became one of the popular kids, yet hasn't let it go to her head. She even has a bit of an edge, a hint of danger about her. Racy!
So, is there anything to the bad-girl image? After all, Newsweek headlined its story in March about the company with a two-word question: "Video Napster?"
The good news for YouTube is that it stands on much firmer legal ground than the old Napster did, thanks to a special provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that protects Internet hosting services.
The question is whether YouTube's future business plans will jeopardize its copyright safe harbor.
Why YouTube?
On the surface, it's hard to understand why YouTube is such a big deal. There are more than 100 free, Web-based video-hosting services on the Internet.
Yet despite its competitors, YouTube dominates the online video world, streaming 50 million videos per day to more than 12.5 million people each month, according to Nielsen NetRatings. Google, Yahoo and AOL all have competing services, but none has attracted the crowd that YouTube has.
YouTube's content is entirely user-uploaded. Browsing Liz Phair music videos can lead to an amateur video featuring teenage gymnasts doing ninja moves. To post a video clip (maximum length 10 minutes, no porn please), just upload the file to YouTube's servers — YouTube takes care of transcoding the video, providing a browser-based player, managing the servers and paying for the bandwidth.
Copyright Issues
So how does YouTube's content fare under copyright law?
First, YouTube's 10-minute clip limit and tiny video window cater to clip culture, not pirates. A studio executive with a limited anti-piracy budget would be foolish to spend time and money suing YouTube while millions of full-length features are being swapped through public Bit Torrent indexes.
In addition, there is a flood of perfectly legal original creativity on YouTube — much of it from teenagers uploading video using everything from cell phones to Webcams to high-quality camcorders.
Also, an increasing number of media heavyweights (NBC, TVT, Epic and Atlantic Records, as well as E! Entertainment, MTV2 and Fox Searchlight) are licensing content for distribution on YouTube. No copyright difficulties there.
But that leaves an enormous quantity of copyrighted material that ends up sprinkled throughout the clips uploaded by users. This content includes television clips (most famously the "SNL" "Lazy Sunday" skit, which was ultimately taken down in response to an NBC letter), music videos, amateur lip-synched songs and the Hollywood trailer mash-ups (who hasn't received an e-mail with "Brokeback to the Future"?).
Some of the content is simply uploaded in its original form (music videos, movie clips), while a great deal more ends up "remixed" into original creative material.
All of these clips are, for the most part, things you can't buy from shops or authorized download services, even if you had known they existed before stumbling on them at YouTube.
Nevertheless, some copyright owners are unhappy. According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, Universal Music Group is urging the recording industry to crack down on amateur music videos.
Would UMG have a case? The creation of these unauthorized works implicates a copyright owner's reproduction and derivative rights. Uploading and streaming the video to others may also implicate the public performance right. And because YouTube hosts and streams the copies from its own servers, a copyright owner would have both direct infringement and secondary liability (contributory infringement and vicarious liability) theories available.
On the other hand, YouTube and its users may have a number of good copyright defenses. In my opinion, most of this video-sharing should qualify as fair use — after all, this is noncommercial activity (at least for the end-users), and a company like UMG may have a hard time proving that there is a realistic licensing market for amateur lip-sync videos shot by 14-year-old girls.
Finally, because its systems are largely automated, it may be that YouTube simply hasn’t engaged in the necessary "volitional act" to cross into the realm of copyright infringement. (See CoStar v. Loopnet, 373 F.3d 544 (4th Cir. 2004) for a similar circumstance where an Internet hosting service was let off the hook.)
But outside of law school exams, we're not likely to see these difficult questions resolved because neither YouTube nor its audience can afford a courthouse showdown over every 3-minute homemade music video.
Safe Harbor
Fortunately, YouTube has an important legal shield that was not available to the old Napster: the so-called "online service provider safe harbors" created by Congress as part of the DMCA. One provision, Section 512(c), was designed to protect commercial Web-hosting services, which feared they might be held responsible for the posting habits of their customers.
After all, if you're Verio and hosting hundreds of thousands of Web sites for clients around the globe, you can't afford to be sued every time one of your customers copies a photograph from a competitor's Web site.
Because YouTube essentially stores material at the direction of its users, it can find shelter in the same safe harbor that Web-hosting providers do.
The safe harbor works like this: So long as YouTube plays by a few rules, content owners can't collect damages from it, even if its users infringe their copyrights.
Rule No. 1 is the implementation of a "notice and takedown" system to respond to infringement notices from copyright owners. YouTube, of course, has this in place and takes down material once properly notified by an owner that a clip is infringing. Section 512(c)(3) sets out exactly what a copyright owner must include in a takedown notice. (Note to content owners: If you use takedown notices to remove noninfringing content, you can be sued by YouTube or its users for abusing the system!)
Another rule is that you must have a policy in place to terminate the accounts of those who have been identified as "repeat infringers." YouTube has this policy in place as well, according to the "terms of use" on its Web site.
The safe harbor will not protect a Web host if it is "aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent" — in other words, if you make your living providing hosting services to pirates-R-us.com, don't look to the safe harbor for protection. YouTube doesn't appear to be sheltering any obvious pirate fleets, so this shouldn't be an issue.
Problems Ahead?
A hosting provider also loses the safe harbor if it "receives a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity."
Here's where things might get a bit sticky for YouTube. Some have argued that this may restrict the kinds of advertising business models that YouTube (and other video hosting services) might want to pursue, as ads tied too closely to an infringing video could be viewed as creating a "financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity."
Some pages on the site already feature advertising, and all signs are that YouTube will want to rely on advertising to fuel at least part of its growth. So far, YouTube has charted a cautious course, putting ads only on search results pages, rather than on the clip pages themselves.
YouTube will have to walk a careful line as it stumbles toward a business model. Losing the protection of the DMCA safe harbor could expose it to lawsuits that could be extremely expensive, no matter how they ultimately come out.
Litigation could also cast a pall that scares off investors and potential acquirers. A conservative approach also makes sense in light of the horde of entertainment lawyers already scrutinizing YouTube's every move.
All of this puts pressure on YouTube to come up with innovative business opportunities other than ads before, during and after the videos. Fortunately, there is almost certainly room for at least some ad-supported business models within the scope of the safe harbor. Starting with ads on search results pages is a good starting point — that way, the financial benefit is not tied "directly" to any particular video that might appear in a results page.
In addition, YouTube should experiment with different revenue strategies that do not raise potential legal problems. For example, YouTube may be able to charge content owners to be featured on the site. The "featured videos" section on YouTube's homepage is already valuable Internet real estate for which many companies would be willing to pay.
In addition, with its considerable expertise and infrastructure in streaming short videos, YouTube could offer a video-oriented version of Google's AdSense (a market that Google itself has recently entered).
YouTube's investors poured another $8 million into the company in April, and you can be sure that money will go toward buying top-drawer copyright advice.
-About the Author: Fred von Lohmann is a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group devoted to the protection of civil liberties, free expression and innovation in the digital world.
Mayerson on Animation: The YouTube Purge and a Copyright Rant
Mayerson on Animation: The YouTube Purge and a Copyright Rant
A good overview of the YouTube Purge as well as Amid's post over at Cartoon Brew. The most important point made here is that a black market will develop where copyright holders refuse to sell their properties. It's all about availibility.
A good overview of the YouTube Purge as well as Amid's post over at Cartoon Brew. The most important point made here is that a black market will develop where copyright holders refuse to sell their properties. It's all about availibility.
"YouTube" Web site has Japan's broadcasters in a tizzy - MSN-Mainichi Daily News
"YouTube" Web site has Japan's broadcasters in a tizzy - MSN-Mainichi Daily News
"YouTube" Web site has Japan's broadcasters in a tizzy
Since the end of last year, the number of Japanese Netizens visiting the "YouTube" site has gone through the roof. According to Shibuya-based Net Ratings, a firm that tracks Internet utilization, visitors leaped from 200,000 a month in December 2005 to 4.1 million by May 2006.
That latter figure correspondents for 9.68 percent of Japan's Internet users. Even more remarkably, the number of YouTube viewers in Japan, on a percentage basis, surpasses the 8.83 percent of visitors in the U.S.
"Considering that it's an English-language site, these figures are off the wall," Net Ratings President Masayuki Hagiwara tells Shukan Asahi (7/7).
Koichi Mizugami, who operates a site covering Internet trends called "All About IT Industries Trendwatch," attributes the site's popularity to its being full of stimulating visual contents, free, and easy to access using Japanese-language search engines.
YouTube was launched in February 2005 by three former employees of PayPal. The site's "Broadcast Yourself" video contents are uploaded, and shared, between the users. Contents originating from Japan run the gamut of clips of the very first "Doraemon" animated cartoon (about the misadventures of a blue robot cat) first broadcast back in 1979, to the 1985 knife murder of Toyota Shoji President Kazuo Nagano, a notorious swindler, who was slain on live TV by two self-professed members of a right-wing group, as several dozen Japanese reporters and photographers stood by and clinically recorded the action.
Another segment shows former AUM Supreme Truth "guru," and current death row inmate Shoko Asahara, appearing in a variety show on the NTV network, in which he told viewers he habitually washed his hair using baby shampoo. This was the same man, mind you, who ordered his minions to release toxic nerve gas on the Tokyo subway system in March 1995.
But Shukan Asahi was surprised to see that some of the YouTube contents was quite current. A video clip corresponding to one of the stories, carried on its pages just one week before, was being flaunted as "proof" that Liberal Democratic bigwig Shinzo Abe, the top contender to succeed Junichiro Koizumi as Japan's next prime minister this autumn, had sent a congratulatory cablegram to the Unification Church.
On another, er, note, YouTube viewers can also see, and hear, Larry King release gas from his posterior live on CNN.
The Japanese media, sensing its proprietary material is being illegally reproduced, appears to be swiftly abandoning its heretofore hands-off position toward YouTube. NHK recently contacted the site's operators to demand that a video clip of the children's song "Supu no Ekaki Uta" that had been broadcast on May 30 installment of the "Okasan to Issho" TV show, be removed.
Indeed, a perusal of YouTube now displays the words "This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Japan Broadcasting Corporation because its content was used without permission" in red letters, enclosed within a red border.
However, the same video soon popped up on a different site, and NHK has been forced to play a game of hide-and-seek --- or perhaps blind man's bluff might be more descriptive --- with Web pirates.
"Piracy of web contents, both in Japan and abroad, has been increasing recently," an NHK spokesperson tells Shukan Asahi. "NHK devotes time to confirming these violations one by one, and requests their removal. Even if extra efforts are involved, we believe that it serves as a discreet means of preventing illegal use of program contents."
Japan's commercial channels are also becoming increasingly flustered by such purloining of images. A spokesman for the NTV network tells the magazine it is determined to go after offenders, even those operating outside Japan.
"It's practically impossible to track down all copyright offenders," a spokesman for the Fuji TV network tells the magazine. "Our hands are already full just with domestic violators."
One of Japan's top promoters of showbiz talent, Johnny's Jimusho, the office of Johnny Kitagawa, said it is mulling legal action to make sure its performer's rights are not infringed upon. A spokesman for the agency said it was determined to "root out" YouTube and similarly predatory web sites.
Still, tracking down violators is in some ways akin to hunting for a needle in the proverbial haystack. YouTube is said to receive some 35,000 new submissions per day.
If networks find it so annoying to see their lowbrow contents being recycled on the Web, perhaps the only solution will be for them to cease broadcasting it.
"Once, TV would broadcast a segment and that was the end of it," recalls a program director. "But now things have come to the point that anybody can watch things anytime and anywhere. This is creating a sense of alarm among the people on the production side and can be expected to impact on programming quality. To discourage lowbrow piracy, it might be better for us to try to improve, even slightly, the type of programs we air on a daily basis." (By Masuo Kamiyama, People's Pick contributor)
July 1, 2006
"YouTube" Web site has Japan's broadcasters in a tizzy
Since the end of last year, the number of Japanese Netizens visiting the "YouTube" site has gone through the roof. According to Shibuya-based Net Ratings, a firm that tracks Internet utilization, visitors leaped from 200,000 a month in December 2005 to 4.1 million by May 2006.
That latter figure correspondents for 9.68 percent of Japan's Internet users. Even more remarkably, the number of YouTube viewers in Japan, on a percentage basis, surpasses the 8.83 percent of visitors in the U.S.
"Considering that it's an English-language site, these figures are off the wall," Net Ratings President Masayuki Hagiwara tells Shukan Asahi (7/7).
Koichi Mizugami, who operates a site covering Internet trends called "All About IT Industries Trendwatch," attributes the site's popularity to its being full of stimulating visual contents, free, and easy to access using Japanese-language search engines.
YouTube was launched in February 2005 by three former employees of PayPal. The site's "Broadcast Yourself" video contents are uploaded, and shared, between the users. Contents originating from Japan run the gamut of clips of the very first "Doraemon" animated cartoon (about the misadventures of a blue robot cat) first broadcast back in 1979, to the 1985 knife murder of Toyota Shoji President Kazuo Nagano, a notorious swindler, who was slain on live TV by two self-professed members of a right-wing group, as several dozen Japanese reporters and photographers stood by and clinically recorded the action.
Another segment shows former AUM Supreme Truth "guru," and current death row inmate Shoko Asahara, appearing in a variety show on the NTV network, in which he told viewers he habitually washed his hair using baby shampoo. This was the same man, mind you, who ordered his minions to release toxic nerve gas on the Tokyo subway system in March 1995.
But Shukan Asahi was surprised to see that some of the YouTube contents was quite current. A video clip corresponding to one of the stories, carried on its pages just one week before, was being flaunted as "proof" that Liberal Democratic bigwig Shinzo Abe, the top contender to succeed Junichiro Koizumi as Japan's next prime minister this autumn, had sent a congratulatory cablegram to the Unification Church.
On another, er, note, YouTube viewers can also see, and hear, Larry King release gas from his posterior live on CNN.
The Japanese media, sensing its proprietary material is being illegally reproduced, appears to be swiftly abandoning its heretofore hands-off position toward YouTube. NHK recently contacted the site's operators to demand that a video clip of the children's song "Supu no Ekaki Uta" that had been broadcast on May 30 installment of the "Okasan to Issho" TV show, be removed.
Indeed, a perusal of YouTube now displays the words "This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Japan Broadcasting Corporation because its content was used without permission" in red letters, enclosed within a red border.
However, the same video soon popped up on a different site, and NHK has been forced to play a game of hide-and-seek --- or perhaps blind man's bluff might be more descriptive --- with Web pirates.
"Piracy of web contents, both in Japan and abroad, has been increasing recently," an NHK spokesperson tells Shukan Asahi. "NHK devotes time to confirming these violations one by one, and requests their removal. Even if extra efforts are involved, we believe that it serves as a discreet means of preventing illegal use of program contents."
Japan's commercial channels are also becoming increasingly flustered by such purloining of images. A spokesman for the NTV network tells the magazine it is determined to go after offenders, even those operating outside Japan.
"It's practically impossible to track down all copyright offenders," a spokesman for the Fuji TV network tells the magazine. "Our hands are already full just with domestic violators."
One of Japan's top promoters of showbiz talent, Johnny's Jimusho, the office of Johnny Kitagawa, said it is mulling legal action to make sure its performer's rights are not infringed upon. A spokesman for the agency said it was determined to "root out" YouTube and similarly predatory web sites.
Still, tracking down violators is in some ways akin to hunting for a needle in the proverbial haystack. YouTube is said to receive some 35,000 new submissions per day.
If networks find it so annoying to see their lowbrow contents being recycled on the Web, perhaps the only solution will be for them to cease broadcasting it.
"Once, TV would broadcast a segment and that was the end of it," recalls a program director. "But now things have come to the point that anybody can watch things anytime and anywhere. This is creating a sense of alarm among the people on the production side and can be expected to impact on programming quality. To discourage lowbrow piracy, it might be better for us to try to improve, even slightly, the type of programs we air on a daily basis." (By Masuo Kamiyama, People's Pick contributor)
July 1, 2006
"Shinobi Prevue"
Watch movie (Quicktime, 2.4 min, 12.1 MB)
Original post, from AnimeHELL VideoBLOG:
Its Romeo and Juliet with NINJAS!
File Download (2:10 min / 12.1 MB)
(Via Mefeedia)
Helmet Cam - Viosport - LANC Remote, Tony Hawk Cam
Helmet Cam - Viosport - LANC Remote, Tony Hawk Cam
Helmet Cam. Probablly won't work for HELLcasting...
Helmet Cam. Probablly won't work for HELLcasting...
"Mini Lotto Hero"
Watch movie (Quicktime, 0.3 min, 0.6 MB)
Original post, from AnimeHELL Podcast:
Lotto Sentai Heshin!
File Download (0:18 min / 0.6 MB)
(Via Mefeedia)
"Toto 3 Goal"
Watch movie (Quicktime, 0.3 min, 0.6 MB)
Original post, from AnimeHELL Podcast:
Goooooooooooooooooal!!!
File Download (0:19 min / 0.6 MB)
(Via Mefeedia)
Teen Blog: Teen Blogs, Vlogs, Cool Teen Blog Sites, Moblogs and More at VarsityWorld.com
Teen Blog: Teen Blogs, Vlogs, Cool Teen Blog Sites, Moblogs and More at VarsityWorld.com
I wonder what the script is for the embeded video....
I wonder what the script is for the embeded video....
Nissin Noodles
"NISSIN U.F.O."
Watch movie (Quicktime, 0.6 min, 3.4 MB)
Original post, from AnimeHELL Podcast:
Japanese commercial for Nissin U.F.O. noodle bowls.
File Download (0:34 min / 3.4 MB)
(Via Mefeedia)
Winston tastes good like a.....
"Fred and Barney smoking Winstones"
Watch movie (Quicktime, 3.2 min, 30.2 MB)
Original post, from AnimeHELL VideoBLOG:
Banned commercial selling cigarettes with cartoons.
File Download (3:00 min / 30.2 MB)
(Via Mefeedia)
VLOGDIR The Videoblog Directory Of VLOGS and VODCASTS or Video Podcasts - Get Yo Vlog On! - : Comment on AnimeHELL VideoBLOG
mefeedia videoblogging directory: the most complete videoblogger directory: videobloggers and counting.
mefeedia videoblogging directory: the most complete videoblogger directory: videobloggers and counting.
AnimeHELL VideoBLOG Feed
AnimeHELL VideoBLOG Feed
Heino
Heino
Heino's page on the Internet Movie Database. He's been in alot more movies then I realised. Plus it lists many of his television appearances that may be on video, too.
Heino's page on the Internet Movie Database. He's been in alot more movies then I realised. Plus it lists many of his television appearances that may be on video, too.
Why? Why not?
OtakuHELL is the name of my show, a subset of the AnimeHELL shows. Often there's some confusion about the name. Is this AnimeHELL or OtakuHELL? Well, it's both. AnimeHELL is more of an umbrella, a collection of shows put on by a group of people over the country. While OtakuHELL is me. Me and my color commentators and conspiritors, Michael and Bruce and Katie and others. That's what this blog will cover. I hope to post things here that won't fit on the AnimeHELL blog. And I wanted to claim the name.
So, we'll see.
So, we'll see.
