Britethorn and SNL

Well, the big new around Britethorn land is that I've pulled ALL of my SNL Reviews off YouTube. For a long time now I've worried that NBC/Universal's lawyers would come knocking at my YouTube door and yank the plug on those reviews because I don't have their explicit permission to post short clips from Saturday Night Live on YouTube.

The World of Internet Video is still very much in the Wild West phase, where its incredibly difficult to tell what you and and cannot do. But as time has gone by, I've noticed that that YouTube has become more and more vigilant about enforcing copyrights, and from what I've read in the Partner's Blog on the site (sorry, you can't go to that area of YouTube unless you're a Partner) they might very well have yanked my channel off the site if they decided that the SNL clips I was using were not covered under the "Fair Use" clause of the copyright laws -- a clause which is as gray as can be!

At any rate, my feeling was that I had accomplished what I had wanted to do with the reviews in the first place; and that was to shine a light on the profile of President Obama which was taking shape in the last days of the campaign, as well as the first days of his Presidency. The big point I was trying to make was that no other media outlet would have as big of a role in defining President Obama's comedic persona as would SNL. And having gotten that message out, I felt there was no good reason (other than posterity's sake) to leave the videos up any longer, risking the wrath of NBC and YouTube.

For those of you who enjoyed the SNL commentaries, "Thanks for watching." I know that there were an equal number of people out there in internet land who hated the reviews, wanting only to see the entire show clip, and who took out a LOT of their frustration on me. I'm just glad I'll never have to write the words, "Go to NBC.com or Hulu.com for Full SNL Clips."

Cheers,
JK