Jerry Lewis went after me for posting an audio of a protest in Chicago where he used a ton of anti-disability epithets. his “manager” sent me a cease and desist, and i guess was fired himself for trying to extort a kickback from newsweek for an interview.

I like archive.org and google video, but even with youtube having completely draconian rules, you cant buy the publicity a top rated video brings…

a cripple video anarchist who should start a miro channel soon.

Mike R.

I appreciate your insight and like being challenged on my positions… keeps me on my toes.

I agree that the makeup of the new media landscape wasn’t particularly planned and that it can’t be altered with a single decision. But I do think that we have a direct influence on the market. PCF’s core strategy rests on the notion that we have the power to change our environment by providing people with compelling tools to engage their media.

YouTube’s dominance isn’t a mistake per-se, but I do think it would be a mistake to sit by and just watch Google’s dominance grow even stronger. I’m pretty sure we’re on the exact same page here… you say, “the best way to steer this avalanche is through building new services and keeping up the discussion.” That is essentially what we’re trying to do.

I probably come off as a YouTube hater. I’m not so hot on some of their policies, and I’m made uncomfortable by their relative size/dominance, but I really do appreciate how they pushed internet video to the next level. That said, video can be better still! When I think about how cool video could be, I get pretty enthusiastic about all the projects that are promoting this more decentralized media space.

I realize that it’s much more complex than open vs closed, centralized vs decentralized, or profit vs non-profit, so I’ll avoid getting tripped up by the intricacies of the market. Simply put, we (PCF) are doing what we can to make ‘open’ more appealing and profitable than ‘closed.’

–Dean

Thanks for your polite response. I agree with you on the main point: we are poorly served by the lack of several strong video platforms.

It seems Youtube have chosen not to comment on single user bans. I understand their willingness to avoid bad publicity, especially since there are no widely accepted and transparent ways of proving misconduct (esp. without using the banned videos). This is the second point of view I wanted to bring out with my previous comment.

I don’t thing I’d call Youtube’s dominant market position a “mistake”: it isn’t something that was planned or that can be changed with a single decision. It seems that the new media environment is prone to being dominated by a single service at a time; think social networking apps, search engines, web auction platforms or, to an extent, book stores.

The Web isn’t planned. It can be regulated to weed out the worst of the undergrowth, but as of now the best way to steer this avalanche is through building new services and keeping up the discussion. Lets hope and see. Maybe syndicating services are the next big thing – they would seem, at least, to avoid this particular problem while providing a richer media environment with even more strong voices (and probably its own set of problems).

Kari

The important part of this post isn’t why PH was suspended, it’s the fact that he was suspended without reason (twice). If a high profile user is treated so poorly, you can bet that all of the tens of thousands of lower profile users aren’t handled any more gently. None of this would matter if YouTube weren’t the sole entity allowing and barring access to their massive audience.

A different example: there are a lot of people who post questionable material on the internet. If their Host/ISP tells them their account is suspended, they can go to a different Host/ISP and still keep operating as normal. While I’m not advocating that people should be able to illegally post anything they want to the internet, I am arguing that having YouTube as the sole arbiter of what is and isn’t legitimate is a huge mistake.

–Dean

Perez Hilton has raised a lot of objections for violating photographers’, broadcasters’ and fellow gossipmongers’ copyright on his blog, and his celebrity gossip business gets him a lot of criticism from his subjects as well.

Although he says that he hasn’t received any notification of why he was suspended, I can think of a few reasons for this. It would have been the least you could have done to mention the controversies surrounding PH in your post: not every suspension is censorship.

I’m sure Perez Hilton can get his voice heard outside Youtube as well (does he have a channel on Miro already?), if they don’t want the traffic and the flak his videos creates.

The nicest part of independent media is the chance to get a more balanced view on the world. Wave the flag of independent broadcasting, but keep your brain tuned while you do it.

Thanks for a wonderful media platform,

Kari J.
Finland