It looks as though NBC has been exerting their copyright control over one of my favorite sites YouTube.com. What makes YouTube such a neat place is that it’s a collection of all sorts of video (copyrighted and not) from around the world. In some ways, it acts as a repository or a gateway to a wide variety of video cultures (for example, Japanese music videos and television shows). The Times article points out one of the site’s benefits to copyright owners:
Several online commentators noted that NBC’s response to YouTube, while legally justified, may have been short-sighted. The online popularity of “Lazy Sunday” has been credited with reviving interest in “Saturday Night Live” at a time when it is in need of some buzz.
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“We got e-mails from college students, and a lot of them said it’s the ‘Lazy Sunday’ clip that turned them on to potentially watching ‘S.N.L.’ again,” she said.
It is something to consider: relaxing control over one’s copyright holdings may actually bring in more revenue from an increased fan-base. I would think that this is what the people who originally posted the “Lazy Sunday” video would have agreed to. It’s essentially a nod saying, “hey, go check this out.” Statements such as this aren’t intended to bring harm to the creator (even though it may prevent a few $2 iTunes downloads), rather it’s perhaps an easy form of review/comment/criticism (which understandably is not protected under fair use).