In Jean Burgess’ and Joshua Green’s YouTube: How YouTube Matters, the success of YouTube is portrayed throughout the reading. One will soon realize that these numbers are most often impressively staggering. However, YouTube did not achieve this status single-handedly. As a matter of fact this website actually depends on ‘big media’-related events which contributes greatly to YouTube’s successful rise (3). YouTube’s 2005 ‘About Us’ page vaguely puts it as “Show off your favorite videos to the world” combined with its slogan “Broadcast Yourself”, users have the freedom to share any video they would like. Although, some times these videos that are uploaded may generate so many hits that the original producers of the short-clip will demand that they be brought down under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (3).
I have a personal experience with this as one of my favorite clips to watch on YouTube was taken down once ESPN noticed the hits it had been generating on YouTube. It was a documentary film titled Four Days in October on the Boston Red Sox historical 2004 World Series Championship baseball season. The film was about an hour long, separated into six 10-minute parts. Since this was an ESPN “30 for 30” special, the film would be developed and sold to fans. One fan decided to do what it said in YouTube’s ‘About Us’ section in 2005 as he showed off his favorite video to the world. Whenever I search for the film on YouTube on our Apple TV back home, a disappointed-looking face pops up with the text “Sorry, this video was removed for Copyright reasons.” So, this goes completely against what YouTube said its users would be able to do. The ‘About Us’ page in 2005 told its users to post whatever they wanted, but they never once in that page state anything about your videos being at risk of disobeying the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. So, the ‘big-media’ that YouTube thrives on basically gave them a slap on the wrist. However, as far as I am concerned, this only affects YouTube as they lose the video that produces hits for them. The person who uploaded the whole film was either able to convince ESPN “30 for 30” to allow him to upload the introduction to the film, or they just don’t know about it. To see the introduction video, follow the link below.
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