LipDub videos and stupid record companies

I made a Barenaked Ladies LipDub movie with some friends in Dundee over Christmas as a wedding present for a friend. It was inspired by a fantastic LipDub movie of the Black Eyed Peas' song "I Gotta Feeling." It's such a fantastic clip, I think I've probably watched it more than a dozen times (also see the follow-up 'making of' video). It's impossible to watch without it putting a smile on your face.

I tried to upload our movie to YouTube. OK, the video has the Barenaked Ladies' song "If I had $1000000" playing throughout, but I just assumed that YouTube would automatically add a "buy this from iTunes" link that you often see on videos with music in them.

Nope, YouTube just blocked the video as soon as it was uploaded.

I knew that most of the major record companies had been getting their knickers in a twist about arranging licensing deals with YouTube so that their music could be posted. Turns out Warner Music Group has thrown a major hissy fit and now all their music is blocked. There are amusing/annoying stories about of people's videos being blocked because some copyrighted music is playing in the background i.e. on the radio or something!

Wonderfully, YouTube gives you the option of uploading the video with a) no audio, or b) audio from YouTube's library of available music. Me thinks that might somewhat spoil a LipDub movie. For example.

I don't really have a problem with record companies protecting their music per se. I've always been against file-sharing as it just feels like stealing. However, I do think that the record companies are being quite short-sighted with the opportunity that YouTube presents to them. When I listened to the I Gotta Feeling LipDub, I immediately bought the tune on iTunes. A few months later I bought the whole Black Eyed Peas album (should I really be admitting this?!).

I didn't buy them through YouTube, so Google gets no money from this - just Apple, the record company and the band. However, I bought them because of the video on YouTube. I wouldn't have bought it otherwise.

Warner Music Group apparently don't get this. I therefore presume they are run by thickos and I fart in their general direction. Black Eyed Peas' record label, Interscope (part of Universal Media Group) are clearly much more enlightened.

Of course everyone wants to get their video on YouTube so they can have their 5-minutes of fame! Instead I have uploaded the video to Vimeo, which is a really beautiful video website. They've actually been encouraging people to make LipDub movies (and even claim to have coined the term). Sadly though, they're getting sued for their efforts.

Anyway, here is the video we made. I expect the morons from WMG will come along eventually and issue a takedown notice, but in the meantime please enjoy:

$1000000 LipDub from Steven Renwick on Vimeo.

A LipDub movie we made to Barenaked Ladies' "If I had $1000000" for Kev and Hilary's Wedding (8th Jan 2010). Filmed at various locations in Dundee and Carnoustie.

Image from Flickr user Tracy Russo used under a Creative Commons licence.

Free Alan Johnston

YouTube News

One thing that YouTube does is give lazy BBC reporters something to write about.

For some reason the BBC News website keeps reporting on videos on YouTube that have apparently become incredibly popular. What 50,000, 100,000 views? Maybe 500,000? Nope - some of the crappy videos they are telling us about are getting a few thousand! That's like Z list movies for YouTube.

BBC Scotland is one of the worst culprits, reporting on a clip of a couple of guys doing Proclaimers songs which got 5000 views! Yup, read it in astonishment - a whole 5000!

The most recent movie to feature in BBC Scotland is about a movie of pictures of Edinburgh, which has, so far, got 13,000 views. "Huge Hit" says the BBC. Hmmm, me thinks not.

Imagine if someone from Scotland had made the recent Ladybird Sex on my Hand video. 625,000 views so far! That would be stop the press stuff! My God, how many times have mating ladybirds landed on me and I haven't made a video of it. So many wasted opportunities! If only I'd realised how perverted YouTube users are!

Preston on Never Mind the Buzzcocks

On the one hand, the man's wife was getting insulted. On the other hand it was hilarious. Watch Preston from the Ordinary Boys have a hissy fit when Simon Amstell takes the pi$$ out of his wife's autobiography.

Part 1:



Part 2:



It seems that most of Never Mind the Buzzcocks is on YouTube now. Which is great because it means I just watched the episode I missed with Donny "Oooh look at me I'm a rufty tufty punk" Tourette from the Towers of London. It's in theree parts and all worth watching:







Interstingly, after linking to all these videos, the BBC's money programme had a story on the TV tonight about the YouTube phenomena and was talking about how many people watch more internet content than they do watch TV anymore and asking why people bother posting content at all. Here's the Money Programme's profile and some videos on, you've guessed it, YouTube. I probably do watch more internet content (oo-err) these days than regular TV.

I have posted some videos on YouTube but not in a "look at me way". Apparently my videos have had 1976 views to date. They's actually decent videos (imho) although one of them is just of a snotty friend walking in a train station (evidence to appeal against my fine).

Dundee's misery

One of Dundee's last big manufacturing employers has announced that it is to cut 650 jobs in Dundee and move production to a plant in Hungary.

How depressing. Dundee has lost a lot of manufacturing jobs over the years, but this one, with the knock-on job losses to suppliers etc., really is sad. I can imagine there must be a real black cloud hanging over the city at the moment. It's just a sad consequence of globalisation. There's no way manufacturing in the UK can compete with cheaper workforces in Eastern Europe and beyond.

I was watching a BBC2 programme the other day with Jon Snow explaining that the UK was moving away from manufacturing to become a "knowledge economy". Fair enough. Dundee has a very good biotechnology sector, which now employs around 3,800 people and accounts for 15% of the local economy.

Somehow though, I doubt these 650 NCR workers will be donning lab coats and taking up molecular biology. With no offence meant to people who work in supermarkets and the like, I always think it's a real shame when these skilled workers are told that they could get a job stacking shelves or working a checkout till. That must be so demoralising.

I sometimes wish I was a rich Richard Branson-type, and could invest all my money in Dundee. Trying to help set up companies and stuff like that. I think I've played too much Sim City. Hey, you never know - maybe one day I'll be a Venture Capitalist and set up a fund for biotech start-ups in Dundee!

Big Brother is listening to you now

I've just finished reading the George Orwell book 1984. I decided I need to start reading some "must-read" novels, so have started with this one. Harry Potter is entertaining, but it doesn't really broaden the mind.

I don't think I read it before but I do have a memory of an English class at school where we watched the version of the movie, which was made in 1984. I'm not sure why we would watch the movie but not read the book. It must have been one of those 'last day of term' things. I remember there was nudity in it which wasn't the sort of thing you expected to see in a film your teacher has put on. I also remembered something about rats...

Orwell is very prophetic in some ways. Particularly in the way that CCTV surrounds us all the time now, forever 'observing' our actions. If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear, right? Hmmm...

Amusingly, seeing as I have just finished reading the book, I noticed this story on the BBC. The police intend to use 'eavesdropping' microphones to pick up crowd conversations at the London Olympics. I actually don't mind the use of CCTV, but this is going too far! Sounds like an idea straight from the Thought Police!

I actually slept quite badly in Prague. Every night my dreams were full of "thoughtcrimes" and "newspeak"! Creepy!

I wonder how many people in the UK actually realise that "Big Brother" comes from this book, and was not dreamed up just by some Dutch TV producers to satisfy the TV habits of simpletons worldwide? Would be interesting to actually survey that