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Colbert Video Clip Pulled from YouTube & IFILM



Thanks to James for alerting us via a comment that CSPAN has stepped in and asked both YouTube and IFILM to remove the Stephen Colbert Bush roast videos from their websites. James points out:

C-SPAN is asking sites like YouTube.com to take down the Colbert clip. Nothing sinister (it’s for copyright protection which is legally enforceable) but I’m sure someone on high asked them to do it… mainly because it is probably the most viewed clip that has ever come out of C-SPAN’s archives!

Strangely enough though, it appears that Google Video is hosting the video with the blessings of CSPAN. By that I mean that CSPAN has already been working out a content licensing deal with them, and this appears to be falling under that deal - but with the stipulation that the entire boring correspondents’ dinner be displayed, rather than exclusively the most scintillating tidbits.







6 Reader Responses

  1. overlord_mordax Says:
    May 10th, 2006 at 8:15 pm

    Nothing sinister in my opinion. Just a little honest greed. I bet Google offered them mucho dinero for the exclusive right to air the video.

    I actually saw it yesterday on googlevid. I have to say it wasn’t his funniest work, but I was amaed by the awsome power of his sheer ballsyness. There is no way that i would be able to make ‘jokes’ like that less than ten feet away from the president and in a room full of his supporters.

  2. arjuna93 Says:
    May 11th, 2006 at 12:35 am

    “Nothing sinister”? “Just a little honest greed.” There is nothing I find more sinister than “honest” greed.

    C-SPAN is a private, non-profit company, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a public service. Our mission is to provide public access to the political process. C-SPAN receives no government funding; operations are funded by fees paid by cable and satellite affiliates who carry C-SPAN programming.

    Don’t we get enough “honest” greed from Washington and the corporations that control Washington. When your mission statement has “public service” and “provide public access to the political process.” in it shouldn’t that be what you are doing not back room bargaining to screw over Google’s competition.

  3. james Says:
    May 11th, 2006 at 2:27 pm

    I think the greed’s the thing. I didn’t know about the Google Video thing until right now.

    I was into Google Video for a while but when I found YouTube I was hooked. I think a lot of people feel the same way.

    Luckily, whoever posted the original WHCD footage probably TiVo’d it, and will keep posting on underground sites to get it out there for free. I was lucky enough to have downloaded a copy off of a political site before this edict was handed down.

    btw: when I said “Nothing sinister” I was referring to my tendency to look for the CT in every news item. People who know me also know that I’ll blame Bush for everything from insurance rates to why I got cut off in traffic today.

  4. ah Says:
    May 11th, 2006 at 4:06 pm

    Just so you know, the Colbert video is hosted at google and you can watch him w/o the other lame, self-congratulatory, unfunny crap. I watched it for the first time in its entirety today. I was wrong. Colbert was funny, and he struck a blow for all of us out here who swear impotently at our television sets. There’s no way the audience of (mostly) stuffed shirts, empty suits, and quislings could fail to get what he was telling them. These pundits–conservative and “liberal”– who say otherwise either don’t know what they’re talking about, or know too well what they’re *not* talking about.

    Colbert is a righteous Old Testament prophet who happens to be disguised in a dark suit and boring haircut. Nevertheless, the conservatives will still try to make him look like a smug, mean liberal intellectual beating up on poor Bushie, and a certain percentage of all-American lemmings will buy it. What can you do??

  5. Robert S. Robbins Says:
    May 11th, 2006 at 9:16 pm

    I watched that video on Google today. I’m glad I can find such things on the Internet. I cancelled my cable TV this week because $50.00 a month is more than I can afford and the United States now has state-run television that just gives you the official lies. Only a complete idiot would pay $50.00 a month for the privilege of being lied to over and over again. I’m referring to Fox TV of course but MSN followed them in becoming less critical of the government.

  6. james Says:
    May 12th, 2006 at 2:18 pm

    It just gets better. People are calling Colbert a hero, a tag I’m sure he’s reluctant over. But it goes to show how accurately he gauged the zeitgeist of that moment in time:

    http://alternet.org/story/36067/



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