GooTube III

Because neither the owners of YouTube nor Comedy Central are talking about it, we're left to speculate as to just what content has disappeared from the popular video-sharing Web site. (Earlier this week we wrote how some YouTubers had been informed that some video they'd posted with "The Daily Show" "The Colbert Report" and "South Park"  had been taken down at the request of copyright holders.)

Jeff Reifman at Idealog has done a detailed analysis of what's missing and found this:

About 23 percent of the "South Park" videos were missing as well as 35 percent of the "Colbert Report" videos and 46 percent of the "Daily Show" videos. Contrary to speculation elsewhere, the videos still available on the site were not just the shorter ones. So, basically, I'm still not sure what's happened. Will keep on it.

I'm on a tech monetization listserv with the likes of Mark Cuban and others, and I can't understand the copyright fetish at all, particularly as it relates to daily programs like The Report, but also woebegone MTV snippets, etc. Maybe I'm crazy but weren't the purchases of outlets like MySpace, Youtube, etc. meant to capitalize on user-driven viral marketing? As YouTube loses its roguish charm, it's my belief that Bubble 2.0 will pop much quicker than the last time.

Comedy Central is also running ads this week to promote the fact that you can watch the full episodes of this week’s Daily Show Battlefield Ohio series online at comedycentral.com "instead of on some crappy blog." Seriously -- direct quote.