The Academy Is In Feud With YouTube

by Christopher Campbell Feb 28th 2007 // 4:33PM

It is apparently not enough that Sunday's Oscar telecast had better ratings than last year's show. The Academy ordered YouTube to remove all clips of the program, including a video of the musical number by Jack Black, John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell, which was viewed over 250,000 on the site before being taking down. This is obviously a bad move on the part of the Academy, because these unauthorized clips could very well drive viewers to next year's telecast. Considering the Oscars are not replayed or released in any other way, the Academy isn't really losing out by having YouTube host the clips. They are actually gaining fans via the promotion of the only few worthy parts of the show.

Unfortunately the Academy doesn't see it this way. For one, they argue that Oscar.com has its own video clips, from which they receive ad income -- though these clips don't include most of the popular moments that were being viewed on YouTube, such as the previously mentioned performance. Still, Academy exec Ric Robertson stated that even if there was no outlet for Oscar fans to see highlights, the YouTube clips would have been ordered shut down. Robertson also said that the authorized clips on the official Oscar site will be taken down eventually to, "whet people's appetite for next year's show." Certainly the YouTube clips would do a much better job of that. I seriously believe the day will come when the Academy embraces YouTube's benefit as a promotional tool, but I fear that with it will come full-view ads on the stage of the Kodak so that even unauthorized views will be paid for. And the Academy probably wonders why it can't attract audiences as big as it used to.

Update: Hollywood Wiretap has pointed out that many clips still exist, in a variety of languages, including the Black, Reilly and Ferrell number.

2 Comments

Tags: abc, academy awards, AcademyAwards, cinematical, film, jack black, JackBlack, john c. reilly, JohnC.Reilly, movies, will ferrell, WillFerrell, youtube

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-28-2007 @ 7:03PM

marty said...

The Acadedmy are SO STUPID! What do you expect from them especially during Melissa Ehteridge's global warming song that these Hollywood starts love, on the big screen behind her they were telling the audience how to save our planet and one was was to catch PUBLIC TRANSPORT! Yeah right! Not one of those Hollywood stars would ever catch a bus or train BUT they did catch their stretched limousines. However, they do catch airplanes which many of them gladly used to attend the Oscars depsite the fact that airplanes are the worst offender of carbon emissions. Ah, such hypcrisy. Only in Hollywood!

2-28-2007 @ 7:20PM

Cath said...

The Academy protects its trademarks and copyrights like a mother bear with her cubs, even when there is no threat to them. What I can't get over is who gives a rat's ass to see lame reheated Oscar footage? Perhaps the Academy's trying to punish those of us who can't be bothered to sit through 3+ hours of nonsense by "depriving" us of that one or two minute bit the plebes are talking about. If you want it that bad, TiVo the damn thing and watch it on fast forward.

Add your comments

Your comments:

Remember me

E-Mail me when someone replies to this comment

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.