Oscar Clips Pulled from YouTube: The Academy Is Clueless

Now Variety gives us more insight into the takedown, saying that the Academy wanted “to help manage the value of our telecast and our brand.� So where can you view authorized Oscars clips? They want viewers to head over to Oscar.com, which only hosts a five minute summary and a reel of the best acceptance speeches. Screw that. This is bad for consumers and ultimately bad for the Oscars, which is, after all, a brand. Lock the clips away, and nobody will bother talking about the brand anymore. In fact, as the LATimes pointed out this week, it seems that YouTube and MySpace have already stolen Hollywood's crown, with consumers more interested in their own celebrity status, and more concerned with the day-to-day lives of celebs than the movies they promote. Here's the problem for you, content providers: you're no longer in charge. The consumer is. And they'll watch your content where and when they want, or they won't bother watching it at all.