Have you been following this youtube thing?  With NBC requesting the site pull all its videos?  How fucking stupid can you BE! 

Video Clip Goes Viral

"Lazy Sunday".  That’s what seems to be breaking SNL wide open after years of dormancy.  It’s just like a band.  You’re living in obscurity, and then the Net catches hold of you and you BLOW UP!  Can you say ARCTIC MONKEYS?  If you’ve got something good, you can’t keep it down on the Net.  It’s human nature, people want to tell EVERYBODY!

So busy enforcing their copyrights, major entertainment companies are shooting themselves in the foot.  This is the kind of hype, the kind of marketing, that can’t be bought.

Take KT Tunstall.  Fucking idiots at Virgin want you to PAY for her video on iTunes!  What schmendrick wants to pay for a video he probably hasn’t seen to BEGIN WITH!  But, saunter over to youtube, and you can see KT doing her act, performing "I Want You Back" on a French TV show.  THIS is the kind of publicity you desire.  If you’re BUILDING an act. 

I want you back – Live

and search on Tunstall in youtube to find OTHER clips.

And now there’s this Aerosmith thing.

Funny how it never occurred to me.  But it’s perfect.  Instead of JANIE having a gun, CHENEY’S got a gun!

Hate to tell you, but "Janie’s Got A Gun" is verging on twenty years old.  There are kids who’ve NEVER heard it.  Oh, Aerosmith is a perennial, but even MTV no longer plays their videos.  Their albums don’t sell, they’ve become a NOSTALGIA ACT!  And now, some enterprising Web denizen has BROUGHT THEM BACK FROM THE DEAD!  Giving "Janie’s Got A Gun" MORE airplay than it’s gotten in YEARS!  And, hear the parody and you want to hear the original.  And, ultimately you believe in the act.  Hell, I got e-mail from a friend’s niece, barely in double digits, asking what the underlying song to THIS parody was. 

I Bought on Ebay

Of course, it’s the Backstreet Boys’ "I Want It That Way".  She was TOO YOUNG FOR THE BACKSTREET BOYS!

All of this is anathema to rights-holders.  They must protect their rights at all costs.  To their detriment.  This is promotion in the twenty first century.  This is FREE MARKETING!

If you haven’t been e-mailed an mp3 of "Cheney’s Got A Gun", just Google it.  Or, see a Flash animation here:

Cheney’s Got A Gun