This Video is Not Your Video!

Okay, so Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen do a rendition of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land” during one of the Presidential Inauguration Celebrations yesterday and it get’s posted to YouTube, no big deal huh?  Well, according to HBO, who had YouTube remove the video, it is a big deal.

Apparently the footage is the property of HBO or something to that effect so they had YouTube remove the content.  You know that it had to come to YouTube in the form of a “Cease and Desist” fax or email first thing this morning (we have all gotten them at some point in our career) because the video has been removed.  You can see however the opening shot of the video when you pull it up, it just has that the footage has been removed at the request of HBO (YouTube probably went out of their way to make it say that).

Does anyone else out there that has ever heard the lyrics to this wonderfully patriotic folk song see the irony in the fact that it had to be removed from free public viewing due to it’s ownership?  I don’t know why but I just thought that this was worthy of posting.  Way to go HBO.   

On Sunday, January 18, 2009 Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen performed at one of the Inaugaration celebration concerts – specifically at Lincoln Park.  A video of their duet performance of “This Land Is Your Land” was, of course, posted on YouTube.  It has since been removed at the request of HBO.

I’d link to the video, but obviously it’s no longer available.  You can see one single shot though in the embed here.

What I find most interesting about this, however, is the fact that YouTube lists exactly who requested the video be removed.  Obviously this is not a new practice, but it is worth taking note of the fact that YouTube is trying to lay the blame for the lack of a video where the blame is due, thereby easily deflecting the blame from themselves as well as making sure YouTube doesn’t get any negative response from their take-downs.

HBO Removes Pete Seeger / Bruce Springsteen “This Land Is Your Land” YouTube Video | IP Thieves