Frankly, readers, I’m baffled. Allow me to sure my bafflement through the medium of the YouTube clip; here, for your delectation, is a specially-shot trailer for series 1 of Graham Linehan’s sitcom The IT Crowd:

What’s that? You can’t see the video? Well, exactly It seems that the video has been taken down “due to a copyright claim by Fremantlemedia Group Limited”. I’m not exactly sure I understand their reasoning; the video isn’t on the DVD, was filmed purely to promote the series (ie. it isn’t a compilation of clips or anything like that) and was aired only in the weeks preceding the first show’s broadcast. In other words, it’s a nice little sketch-ette that Fremantle (sorry, I mean “Fremantlemedia” — hooray for compound proper nouns, eh?) seemingly don’t want anyone to see because it might, um, promote their programme or something. Heaven forbid that in the run-up to the second series someone might, I dunno, post a promotional video to a blog or something!

Still, it’s a good job the BBC take a more enlightened stance towards YouTube:

Mr Highfield said the BBC would not be hunting down all BBC-copyrighted clips already uploaded by YouTube members - although it would reserve the right for example to swap poor quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that infringed other people’s copyright, like sport, or that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC’s brand.

“We don’t want to be overzealous, a lot of the material on YouTube is good promotional content for us,” he said.

And here to prove it is a clip from Friday Night With Jonathan Ross showcasing the talents of character comedian Marc Wootton:

Ah. Um. Okay.

This isn’t the BBC’s fault, though; this was removed “due to a copyright claim by Hotsauce TV”, Hotsauce (Christ, there’s another one; although to be fair, a quick Google search shows that it’s usually written “Hot Sauce” so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt this time) being Jonathan Ross’s own production company. I’m not disputing their right to have the clip pulled; however it makes the BBC’s much-publicised statement seem a little hollow when you realise that “other people’s copyright” doesn’t just include sports events but also a lot of programmes which you may think of as being by the BBC but which are in fact by outside production companies who are perfectly happy to have content taken down.

At first I thought this was because the accompanying description (”You’ll believe a career can sink”) was perhaps a little inflammatory (although true to an extent); had Jonathan himself requested it be removed as a favour to his management company, Off the Kerb (who at one time represented Wootton although his name is now strangely absent from the website)? However, it seems that mine isn’t the only FNWJR clip to be pulled. That makes me feel a little better about it, but also annoys me as a license payer to think that the money the BBC are shovelling in Ross’s direction is being partly siphoned off in the direction of some kind of online enforcer, scouring the web for the merest hint of a copyright infraction and gruffly demanding that the clip be removed while pointedly remarking about what a lovely website this is and wouldn’t it be a shame if anything were to happen to it? Of course, the reality is probably that it’s some underpaid temp or the work experience kid or whatever, but the thought of Ross turning up in his bubble car and cracking his knuckles at some unfortunate sysadmin tickles me for some reason.

But anyway, given the BBC’s online do-goodery in the field of NuMedia2.0 it seems a touch ironic that they’re also indirectly funding the antithesis of the “everything’s open, everything’s free” web that they’re working towards. Well, okay, that’s a bit of an over-simplification, but you get my drift.

So in conclusion? Erm, nothing really; I was just a bit cross that I’d had my videos taken down, that’s all.