EMI/Capitol Records Works Hard To Make Ok Go's Viral Video Less Viral
from the marketing-geniuses dept
You probably know of the band Ok Go's famous treadmill video:So, with the band coming out with a new quirky video, you would think that it would be readily available all over the place. However, Martin points us to the news that the video was put up on YouTube by the band's label, Capitol Records, a subsidiary of EMI, but it did so with geoblocking and with embedding disabled. In fact, if you go to the original treadmill video, you'll see that Capitol Records has disabled embedding on that video as well. Notice that I have it embedded above? That's because I used the embed code from an earlier post back when embedding was allowed. Yet now, go and click on the video... and it gives you an error message saying embedding has been disabled. All those people who helped spread that video? Capitol Records broke them all. Nice of them. It's impossible to fathom what the folks at EMI/Capitol are thinking here. They are making it more difficult to make a viral video viral. Both blocking it from being viewed in various regions and blocking embeds makes no sense at all.
Of course, the band recognizes this and are pissed off about it:
As for the issue of geoblocking, we're incredibly upset that the youtube versions of our videos can't be embedded. Just one more example of major labels accelerating their own demise. We (and every individual band out there) have exactly zero leverage in this particular battle, however. So we post to other sites as well.In fact, the band itself has now put the video up on Vimeo as well, which does allow embedding:
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Filed Under: embedding, ok go, regional blocks, viral videos
Companies: capitol records, emi, vimeo
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Hookers and cocaine. You've got to love Rock & Roll! You know what Rock & Roll doesn't love?
Copyright infringement.
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I think that's a real shame though, cause I really liked some of their older songs, especially Here it Goes Again.
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Re: Lachlan Hunt comment viral video
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The whole value of a viral video is the impulse click & share nature. Remove the impulse, you remove the value.
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Gotta start somewhere...
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Open Music for the masses.
opsound.org
2 more sources for free music that will not give you problems if you distribute them.
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No wonder I basically hate everything at this point:
Sell your soul to Satan, and then complain when he comes to collect.....brilliant.
The only reason I can actually think of for them signing at all, is that despite all their supposed fan-friendliness and anti-DRM stance, and pro-Internet babbling, they *still* harbor some notion of cashing in on the archtypical "celebrity lifestyle" the major labels made possible.
Maybe it's time for artists --- REAL artists, I mean -- to realize that the Internet has basically kicked the shit out of the whole IDEA of "celebrity", and people should stop trying to resurrect it.
(OF course, if they *really* wanted to leverage the Internet, they wouldn't have simply uploaded this thing to centralized setups like Youtube or Vimeo -- they'd also dump it into every torrent tracker they could find, and/or urge their own fans to host it, a la "Grey Tuesday".
But no, instead they'd rather just bitch about it.
Serve's 'em right for "signing" in the first place.
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Re: No wonder I basically hate everything at this point:
i say this in total ignorance regarding this band, however.
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Not only that, but maybe their recent activities have been part of them realising their mistakes? Nearly 10 years of experience would have taught them the error of their ways, yet the contracts enforced by major labels usually run at least a decade, often more if a large specific number of albums is contracted.
I'd suspect that if OK Go were just forming this year and still signed for a major, you might have some valid points. A band already working for a major for nearly a decade and trying to make things more fan-friendly should be welcomed, not attacked.
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Re: Henry Emrich
I'm sure you knew they would have been able to afford their last few tours, albums and ridiculous stage shows without any financial muscle and marketing whatsoever. So they clearly planned this all out very carefully with the intention to whine and bitch about the situation they knowingly threw themselves into.
*Lowest form of wit: deactivate*
I saw them last night and they were damn good. I wouldn't have gone to the gig or bought their three albums across the last few years if I wasn't given a copied album to listen to in the first place.
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EMI/Capitol Records Works Hard To Make Ok Go's Viral Video Less Viral
Every band should get their own publisher of sorts going to push the big names out of business. Bands should own their own material, not be subjected to the will of some mulch-billion dollar scum sucker company who did nothing to create art other then take nearly all the royalties and revenue from it.
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