The End Is Nigh !

May 20, 2010

..at least for The Daily Hitchens YouTube Channel. I received my second copyright strike in a short time and was informed that "A single additional claim against your account will result in the termination of your account". These claims seem to be genuine, one for the Bill Maher interview in March and one from Emory. What to do now? With 558 Hitchens videos on YT I feel that the 3rd strike is inevitable. I could stop uploading videos and hope my account won't be terminated. I could continue uploading and hope I won't get more strikes, which I'll do. Why have a Hitchens channel if I can't upload his material? At this point I don't think it matters what I do, the account is coming to an end. This will affect the Daily Hitchens site as well. Most videos are embedded from the DH YT channel and thus won't work on the site. When this happens I'll lose most of my archive but I'll start posting embedded videos from other sources to continue DH. It's not the end of the world losing an YT account. The only thing I'd miss are the great, funny, clever, thought provoking, outrageous, interesting, stupid, intelligent comments on the YT videos. These are delivered to my mailbox and I read them all. Well, we'll see what happens. I just thought I warn you if this happens and you can't find my YT channel. Tom

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

even journalists can't plead discussion or satire anymore on copywright.

ironic how the internet is becoming the new instrument to control thought and information(google/utube; apple).

well at least you aren't a black man in texas on your third strike.

Mike.

Anonymous said...

If it happens, you should be able to appeal the decision to YT directly. As long as you aren't uploading stuff from those who have already sent notices, you shouldn't have it cancelled.

A guy at the richard dawkins forum said recently he went from Islamic fundamentalist religious teacher of children to atheist triggered by a few videos of Hitchens on Islam. Said at first he was furious but the truth just kept coming. Youtube is the public square.

Anonymous said...

I suppose, then, that I should take this moment to thank you for the work you have done with this site. I hope Mr. Hitchens is aware of what you do (I bet he is) -- you've probably helped him sell more books in the past year or so than any other means. This site is a tremendous resource for devotees like me. If there's any kind of support I can offer, please let me know (slylocknyc@gmail.com). I recently met Christopher at a debate in Connecticut. He's quite receptive to his followers. -Daniel

Anonymous said...

I LOVE this site and wanted to thank you so much for all the work you've put into it. I've listened to hundreds of hours of Hitchens here, which has fed my own friendly debates with religious friends.

I've also bought several books from Hitchens, and several other "horsemen of the apocalypse" after finding this great site!

I drift asleep many nights while listening to the continuous play lectures, debates and panels and will miss it tremendously. Thank you again,

-D

angelo.:.corbo said...

Tom,

I could re-iterate every comment made here so far, because the feeling is entirely mutual about your work here, but I won't.

Instead, I would like to suggest you look into hosting your video content elsewhere. It's a bit more work on your part, but it would certainly ensure continuity.

I don't know, a web-hosting facility somewhere else in the planet, where copyright law enforcement (or censorship) is "approached from an alternative viewpoint".

There's so much I have been able to find out about Hitchens through your site, that it would be a serious blow to say the least, a major loss, not to have it readily available.

So... if I can be of any help, I'm at angelo.corbo@gmail.com

Regards,

-adc

Anonymous said...

Hi,

whatever happens, please keep this site alive. I visit it, well, daily, and can't imagine not being fed the mixture of cleverness and humor it offers.

take care,
Michal
Warsaw, Poland

Unknown said...

This is a real shame. People Like Hitch need to be heard by as many as possible to spread a bit of sense in this world.

Try to keep the site going somehow and keep up the great work. Hitch would be proud.

Peter in NZ said...

No no no.... can you put the media on an ftp server ? I stopped downloading Hitch vids because I could find them on your great channel. We mustn't allow this historical resource to be in one place only, how much disk space do you need for them all ?

Anonymous said...

FAIR USE, FAIR USE, FAIR USE --memorize these words

Anonymous said...

I used to run myself ragged findind Hitchen's videos and was greatly appreciative of this site where I could find them all. I hope someone has a server that can preserve this great collection and those yet to come. I'm sure some of your followers can help who are more savvy about servers. I hate that this is happening. It's a great site. Keep us posted.

complexity said...

Thanks for your work. As someone who has experienced similar issues, its painstaking, I wish you the best of luck. Even "God knows" that you don't make shit off this site, the people who have a vendetta against you are hypocritical, vindictive, power grabbing assholes, who will stop at nothing to feel they are in complete control. Unfortunately, for them, and us, they are not, and as long as you keep the energy, this site will be here for years to come or until the faithful hitch takes his final shot.

Anonymous said...

sad to hear this. I just discovered your site. I'm a longtime fan of Hitch and am always looking for more things on YT. I really hope you can find a way to keep your work, his work, your site, alive for the future. More of the public needs to discover this intellectual.

Anonymous said...

You can always use rutube.ru (Russia's version of Youtube). The Russians don't care about such things as copyrights.

Anonymous said...

I really hope they don't shut down your youtube. I too just discovered your site and absolutely love and appreciate all the information that you manage to gather! I know its a lot of work. plus updates on hitchens videos is so hard to find in one place!

 
 
 

Christopher reads from Hitch-22: A Memoir