"Keep a Journal: How else are you going to get a good look at who you were?"

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Question:  Why have an open media forum like YouTube...and then censor its content?

Don't ask me.  I just like finding ways around it.

Example: Beyonce's "Single Ladies"...a flash mob performance that occurred at London's Piccadilly Circus in 2009 as part of a promotion for Trident Gum.

There are several recordings of the performance, some of them from private contributors (ie: people who were there that day and had a camcorder with them).

However the "official" high-definition recording of the event has no soundtrack...even though the music was kind of the whole point of the dancing, eh what?

Why, you ask?  Copyright infringement was claimed by the record company.  Apparently, the recording used in the performance is a little too good.

But...it's an easy fix.

Of the Private Citizens witnessing the event that day, at least one of them had a commercial quality video recorder, with stereo sound capability.  The video in this version is rather poor, but the sound quality is awesome.  I just call up both videos and then sync the audio from the one to the video of the other.  Viola!  The original YouTube posting with soundtrack.

Censorship: not just wrong, sometimes it's stupid, too.