YouTube "Content ID" Woes

As many of you know, I like to post quite a few videos to YouTube. As the most popular online video sharing site, it makes sense.

However, recently, I've been getting quite a telling off from YouTube. They don't seem to like any videos that happen to have 3rd party content in. That's fair enough if I was ripping off music videos, or full programmes from the TV, but they seem to be taking issue to some much smaller infractions. Namely:

Music pirates, earlier today.

• Videos with music playing in the background when it was filmed
• Karaoke videos of chart songs
• Cover versions of people jamming along to well-known songs

Now, come on. It's one thing to be out there stopping people from blatantly copying music, but it's completely another to be getting upset because a video happened to be filmed while a chart song was on the radio at the time in the next room.

Unfortunately, YouTube's terms of service mean that if you get three strikes - you're out. Not just from YouTube, but as they're owned by Google, your entire Google Account gets killed off. That includes your GMail, your Blogger account, and your Picasa albums, as well as Google Adsense too. So, my email would be gone, all my photos, videos, my website, and the monetisation stream from this site and my other online properties too.

That's just too high a risk to run... so I'm in the process of moving some videos over to Vimeo. Apologies if you're looking for a video and can't find it - it'll be back soon. Just not on YouTube.

ADDENDUM - 16 February 2012:
Just a quick side note for anyone reading this for more info on Content ID, YouTube have reached out to me and given me some info that has put some of my fears to rest and may help you too, so I've copy and paste it below for reference:

"a Content ID match (i.e. being notified that your content has been matched and ads maybe starting to appear) does not lead to a copyright strike. And further more, in the case that an account did get 3 copyright strikes and had the account terminated, that would only be your YouTube account - not the other Google services. Also, here's a blog post which talks about ways to have copyright strikes retired for 'good behavior' and after taking copyright school."

So indeed, straight from the source, your entire Google account won't get deleted if you're naughty on YouTube, and even if you are, you've still got a shot at redemption :)

ASDA Launches New "Smart Price" Logo

Just a thought - but is it just me, or does the new logo for Smart Price...

...look a lot like the current (and has been for a while) logo for Walmart's "Great Value" brand?

You know, just saying.

And yes, I know Walmart owns Asda. That's the point I'm making - that they're slowly trying to turn Asda into Walmart without anyone noticing. Just you wait - in a few years, "Asda Smart Price" will become "Asda Great Value". Next, the word "Asda" will fall off the logo, to match the Stateside counterpart. The rest will be a slippery-slope-esque gradual p-take from there... ;-)

Oh, and while we're on the subject of Smart Price, don't forget Valentines' Day is coming up... or should that be Value-tines' day?

CES Roundup

CES was amazing. It's so much bigger than I thought it would be, and I'm sure I could have walked around for days and still missed bits!

The Windows Phone team and the other VIPs were so cool. It was great to spend time with people on the same level, the same agenda, and the same level of nerdiness as myself.

Seeing Steve Ballmer's keynote was really good too - it was a real eye opener to find out what's next on the Microsoft roadmap, and how it all ties in to the bigger picture.

Thank you so much to all the VIP team for cooking up such a truly memorable, once-in-a-lifetime experience that I'll never forget.

Click here to see all the photos from the trip :)