Paranoid about YouTube at Paramount

Another example of a large corporate organisation not getting social media...

I post this priceless YouTube clip from a BBC series on Facebook. It reached me via an FB friend in the US and very quickly got picked up and passed on through my network because it is so, so funny. So funny that it topped 600,000 YouTube views. And that registers as viral in anyone’s book.

As I say, a BBC series, called Walk on the Wild Side. It’s an anthropomorphic compilation of wonderful Natural History Unit wildlife footage coupled with dialogue from some of the UK’s best new comedians and the likes of Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, Stephen Fry, Richard E Grant, Rolf Harris, and Sir Tom Jones. Clever, original and so laugh-out-extremely-loud funny, indeed, that ever since posting it on Sunday I’d been revisiting my profile a couple of times a day just for a quick fix. Which is what I did today, to reward myself for despatching an ebook to the graphic designer. Except that this time it wasn’t there. Or rather it was, but instead of the video there was this message:

‘This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Paramount Pictures Corporation (Paramount).’

Eh? Why? What’s it to do with Paramount? I’m assuming it’s some sort of distribution issue as Walk on the Wild Side is beautifully BBC British through and through. And, yes, the clip was a DIY job for sure — someone’s picked out two of the best bits and done a very neat editing job. But so what? What harm’s been done? Who’s losing what here? Nobody, is the answer. Whoever originally made the clip has gained nothing financially from it; all they’ve done is give pleasure to a lot of people — several hundred thousand people, to be precise.

And of course what they’ve also done is spread the word about this ace TV series which means it’s likely to get a wider audience wherever it’s shown. I’d never heard of it until I saw the clip on my American friend’s wall — now I’ll be tuning in for the rest of Series 1 and looking forward to Series 2. Am I the only one? Unlikely. And just in the UK? Also unlikely.

Are you listening, Paramount? While you’re getting your corporate knickers in a twist about some minor copyright infringement and letting loose your legal team on YouTube’s case, you’re completely and utterly missing the point. Can’t you guys see that what you’ve stuck your big fat verboten sign on is free publicity of the best possible sort, publicity that would cost a fortune to buy? Not that you could buy it — that’s the whole point. That’s what YouTube is about, what Facebook is about, what Twitter is about: spontaneous sharing of ideas in a perfect seamless stream which, if you’re lucky, can go usefully global without you spending a single cent. As happened here.

You’d think this penny would have started dropping by now, but apparently, depressingly not.

There is however a happy ending to this tale as there’s another version of the clip on YouTube. Let’s see how long it takes for Paramount’s heavy brigade to cotton on to this one...