SVT and YouTube

Today, Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet carries a story about SVT fighting it out with YouTube concerning copyrighted clips being available on the net. When people put clips from Melodifestivalen on the net, SVT feels that is a violation of copyright as well as a violation of the MF rules, giving the songs available on the internet an unfair advantage on the other ones.

Therefore, most YouTube material on MF has been removed, and there will be many links in this blog that won't work anymore.

Of course SVT takes whatever measurements deemed necessary to defend their rights. I just want to stress that Posh & Becks never upload anything on YouTube ourselves. We only link to material posted by others. And as long as clips are available and we like them, we will still link to them.

We have used clips very frequently, because we think it is fun, because it illustrates our points of view or, simply, because we want to highlight a certain song. Of course that means that people can listen to music without paying anything for it. But I believe in the power of PR. I think we help promoting Eurovision and it's various sub-events, and maybe somewhere some of the singers we highlight will sell a record or two thanks to internet exposure, instead of losing out from it.

I understand that SVT doesn't want any private footage from dress rehearsals plastered on the net, but once a show has gone on air, all the songs are out there. People can listen to them as much as they want; watch the videos over and over, rip the live sound and listen to that, carry the songs around in their iPods. In that case, the songs from semi one has an unfair disadvantage anyway. But MF is their show, they call the shots and I respect their decisions.

It's just a shame we can't link "Empty Room" by Sanna Nielsen anymore. You would all deserve to hear it.