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Monty Python Banks On the Long Tail Via YouTube
JTRipper writes "Monty Python seems to have done the right thing. Instead of issuing take down notices of their videos on YouTube, they are doing it better themselves with their own YouTube channel. They are putting all their clips (including snips from their movies) up in a decent resolution, with the only caveat being a link to buying the movies and TV episodes from Amazon."
They are putting all their clips (including snips from their movies) up in a decent resolution ...
Um, that's kind of misleading. There are 24 clips as of this posting. That's not to say there isn't more to come but the channel description clearly states:
What's more, we're taking our most viewed clips and uploading brand new HQ versions.
Their announcement video shows more video clips than they have up right now (man with a recorder up his nose from And Now for Something Completely Different, etc) so hopefully there's more to come. I'm a bit disappointed the general populace doesn't watch The Flying Circus more often ... it's a shame every time I see a banana at a corporate function I have the urge to hand it to someone while instructing them to "come at me with that banana like you really mean it!" And they just continue to treat me like I'm insane.
And where's The Crimson Permanent Assurance (opening feature to The Meaning of Life)?! That single skit was probably more expensive than all other Python works combined--and a gold mine for office humor to send to your coworkers!
My work here is dung.
It could grip it by the husk.
Thank you Graham, John, Terry, Eric, Mike, and the other Terry that isn't the first one!
I had no problem getting a few ads to watch something online. Much like Hulu's service. If they want to start something like this, go for it! This is how it should be done.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
That's just a link to amazon.
A caveat would be a warning or proviso indicating terms of use, like that you have to pay them $1 million if you don't buy the video from Amazon.
nt
NI!!!
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
All your old business models are dead... it's time to find a better way and stop treating potential customers as the enemy.
(I have the entire flying circus on DVD bought and paid for... what a wonderful waste of time.)
Nooooobody expects the Monty Python clips on Youtube! Our chief weapons are . . .
Why is this thus? What is the reason for this thusness?
Are you suggesting that cononuts migrate to online services??????
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
A shrubbery!
.
Who is Monty Python and why should I care? Is it a band? From what I can tell they're just a bunch of fat Australians who need shaves.
I wonder who had the power to make this decision since most artists sell their work to a label/studio. According to Wikipedia for example, The Holy Grain is currently produced by Fox and EMI in the UK and Cinema 5 in the US (who I've never heard of). But the others seem to have other distributors. It's strange that they would upload portions from the entire collection when it seems that different parts are owned by different companies....
But it's welcome news. Maybe it will set a precedent for others to do the same.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
..the jokers at MPAA and RIAA don't get the joke while the funny ones do ;)
the penguin on top of your YouTube will explode.
That's not Picasso, that's Kandinsky!
Sir Lancelot: We were in the nick of time. You were in great peril.
Sir Galahad: I don't think I was.
Sir Lancelot: Yes, you were. You were in terrible peril.
Sir Galahad: Look, let me go back in there and face the peril.
Sir Lancelot: No, it's too perilous.
Sir Galahad: Look, it's my duty as a knight to sample as much peril as I can.
Sir Lancelot: No, we've got to find the Holy Grail. Come on.
Sir Galahad: Oh, let me have just a little bit of peril?
Sir Lancelot: No. It's unhealthy.
Sir Galahad: I bet you're gay.
Sir Lancelot: Am not.
Good to see that they've finally figured out how to port carrier pigeon technology to swallows.
This guy's the limit!
Can anyone explain the summary title to me? I don't understand what any of this has to do with the "long tail" as I've heard it explained. I mean, it might apply to youtube ... if youtube were selling it's videos.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
A man with twenty-four Monty Python clips!
... oh come off it!
'es watching youtube
Oh.. uh... a man with three legs!
'es run away
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
the people who wrote, produced and own the rights to something are putting THEIR work up for other people to view and are providing a link for other people to purchase the work they wrote, produced and own the rights to.
This is compared to telling people who didn't write, produce or own the rights to a work to stop posting said work which they didn't write, produce or own the rights to for others to view.
Yes, I can see the similarities.~*
* Testing out the new sarcasm tage
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I was a huge fan of the way id released their games back in the day, first episode is long and free, the next two will cost you something. Now with Monty Python, the last show went in the can years ago and they're not likely to produce anything new. But for newer shows, I think the PBS model would work. Give the content away for free but let the fans who really like it become direct patrons to support the arts. Let's face it, stamping out piracy is pretty much impossible and not every pirated copy is really a lost sale to begin with. Better to support the culture of patronage and count on the real fans to help you turn a profit.
One thing the networks are struggling to contend with right now is gaining an accurate measure of just how popular a show is. We know about Faux's surprise when Family Guy was canceled for poor ratings and the DVD set went on to become the #2 selling show ever. This sort of performance gap is continuing with geriatric-targeting CBS having great Nielsens while shows skewing towards younger demographics seem to be under-performing but this does not reflect the interest on p2p sites. ITunes only depicts a portion of the overall success online. And DVD sales aren't figured until long after the current season is over.
I'll be happy when the middle-men are completely done away with and first-run shows are produced with no need for networks. We're already seeing quirky comedies doing well on Youtube but those are extremely low-budget. It'll take some bucks to put together something like Firefly on a fan-funded basis.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Why did you have to tell me that. Bang goes the rest of the week...
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
If only MTV would do this with The State.. Along with creating a DVD they could link to to buy. You know, so, even if I had to pay, I could watch the funniest show ever.
Whale
I hate laugh tracks.
No, scratch that -- I am annoyed by laugh tracks. Partly because I'm used to them, and when I notice a laugh-track it's often too late.
Please, Pythons -- your sketches are funny (on albums) without the degrading use of laugh tracks. Do you still have the masters from which to make better video clips, without them?
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Is this the where I come for an argument?
YouTube will be inundated with spam.
Going WAY back on this one...
http://xkcd.com/16/
I think they should tax all foreigners living abroad.
I'm afraid you'll have to do with the laughter.
"We're sorry, this video is no longer available."
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
No, its just pining for the fjords.
"with the only caveat being a link to buying the movies and TV episodes from Amazon"
Am I the only one who views this as a service, not a caveat? Link = resource.
I hate laugh tracks.
You must understand that these shows were produced almost four decades ago, when producing a comedy without at least a live audience was not only unheard of, but unthinkable.
That said, I always hated laugh tracks too, even back when Monty Python was new (and I was young); particularly LOUD laugh tracks. Monty Python doesn't seem to be a particular offender here. But if it's funny it doesn't need a laugh track; there isn't any laugh track to my stupid slashdot comments but I regularly have people telling me I owe them a new keyboard.
Lack of a laugh track is one reason I like My Name Is Earl so much. That show is hilarious (Patty the Daytime Hooker with her hand caught in a soda machine: "I'm not trying to steal a soda, I have a client who's into dead people").
I was telling a guy at Felber's (a bar here) who hardly watches any TV about it.
"What's it called?" he asked.
"My Name Is Earl."
"I thought your name was Steve?"
Free Martian Whores!
"What's it called?" he asked.
"My Name Is Earl."
"I thought your name was Steve?"
"THIRD BASE!"
Bow-ties are cool.
to wit: "with the only caveat being a link to buying the movies and TV episodes from Amazon."
caveat? -caveat-? Holy crap. The people behind the actual stuff can't put a f'ing "BUY THIS NOW" link with their videos without being chastised for it now?
The "me me me" generation needs to move along and die - the sooner the better.
I've always said (search my comments - I'm sure I've ranted on this topic here before) that the content owners should have a two-part strategy..
1. yes, by all means, send DMCA takedown notices of clear rips (if for no other reason than that I am tired of the leading title sequences for clips saying "video made by GangFunksta!!!!" in bright yellow on blue put together in windows movie maker, followed by the actual video overlaid by "made with unregistered hypercam" in the corners all over, and the sound too quiet to hear without setting the volume to 11)
( Note that I say 'clear rips'; somebody playing some stupid song in the background of their kid dancing shouldn't get a DMCA takedown. Somebody putting up a still image with the artist name and title of the song with the music in good quality -should- be DMCAd left right and center. )
2. Make an official and -good- quality version available themselves. Doesn't even need to be high quality or HD - leave that for sales if you want, but just set up good quality versions, add links to other productions of yours, add links to amazon, to swag, insert special promo codes - whatever you think would bring you more customers instead of driving them away (and to those crappy rips).. heck, put in an actual ad at the end of the video.
I'm sure with the right amount of effort, it could be removed.
Laugh tracks are annoying because there are exactly the same. Actual laughter tends to varies.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No, you haven't!
Watch great movie opening scenes!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monty_Python_Instant_Record_Collection
Next they should release the instant video collection that fills your hard drive with a collection of dummy video files that makes it look like you have a large collection.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Monty Python to use the 'comfy chair' technique!
and associated quotes....
yaaaaaaay!
Going to throw in here the finest bit of meta-humour I've come across.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykN-00i7VVs
I think the best model that any show has come up with is South Park's. Every episode from every season posted online, full, without commercials. The newest episodes are posted the week after they air.
This policy has encouraged me to watch South Park. And what do you know: I even watch it on TV sometimes. +1 viewership by enlightened understanding of digital distribution.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
The way Detroit is going, soon they'll be pining for the Fords...
If you've watched any of MP's sketches then you'll know that they don't use laugh tracks. You'll notice that many of the jokes bomb with the live audience.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
Actually I believe that Python was produced at a time when the BBC was opposed to using any canned laugh track. The exterior shots laugh track were presumably recorded while playing back the tape to the audience as a prelude to the interior, live filming.
Monty Python is a success. Offering free stuff to encourage people to buy the DVDs and CDs and stuff. I feel like actually looking for them at the stores now.
M*A*S*H tried a program without a laugh track and the network went nuts, so it was produced with a track. But never in the OR
Have any of the new DVD releases undone BBC or American censorship? I refer specifically to the Prince and the canc^H^H^H^HGANGRENE spot, and the All-England Summarize Proust competition ("What are your hobbies outside summarizing?" "Well, it's golf, strangling animals, and masturbation.")
Jokes are funnier when you're told they're supposed to be funny.
Oh GOD, it will never end now. Entire new generations will be quoting this stuff over and over until we all gouge our eyeballs out with sporks. Monty Python, the Led Zeppelin IV of humor, will continue to be the millstone around all of our necks.
Seriously I love Python, I guess. I think I do. I forget. I think after the 50,000th time of having to sit through Holy Grail, I could no longer tell how I once felt.
I'm going to cry.
Thank you Python, thank you - it's wow, I'm inspired like I am by the Top 500 Classic Rock Songs of All Time they do around Labor Day each year because like Layla or Hotel California, I just gotta hear the Parrot sketch ONE MORE TIME because it is so funny, it's like, oh, saying a Rosary or something, you don't really get the whole gestalt of the experience until the 9000th Hail Mary.
Someday when we are all extinct aliens will be digging through our garbage and they will record one thing in their logs: "We left after exploring only .0000000000000000005% of Internet content because we couldn't take the 'Knights Who Say Ni!' references *ANYMORE*."
Oh god, kill me now. I suppose I should look on the bright side (err, yeah). I've got at best another 40 years left or so on this planet.
Under the original terms of US copyright law (14 years with optional 14 year renewal if author is still alive, and zero copyright protection for foreign works), most monty python material would already be in the public domain in the USA.
Just something to think about...
perfect, hopefully they just keep adding videos though as there are only 24 videos right now. and it'll all be easily accessible all in one page and if they keep up with what their offering we wont need to search for certain clips :)
Oh good that'll save me the trouble of downloading them from torrents. Youtube's censorship is a joke.
Well played Master
The weathers here - Wish you were beautiful
And as property of the BBC it is property of licence payers who provided the money for the clips.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
JTRipper: http://entertainment.slashdot.org/entertainment/08/11/19/201255.shtml :)
JTRipper: I is famous
AR: no
Are you implying that coconuts migrate????
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
You say "Who's on first" one more time, I'll break your arm! ;)
"Ekke Ekke Ekke Ekke Ptang Zoo Boing (unintelligible muttering)"
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Ever seen an episode of Mash without the laugh track? The DVDs give you the option. I recommend it - it gives the show an entirely unexpected level of depth.
"Good evening. Tonight on Slashdot, we examine the phenomenon of déjà vu. That strange feeling we sometimes get that we've read something before, that what is posted now has already been posted. Tonight on Slashdot we examine the phenomenon of déjà vu, that strange feeling we sometimes get that we've ... "
erroneous: look me up in a dictionary
( Note that I say 'clear rips'; somebody playing some stupid song in the background of their kid dancing shouldn't get a DMCA takedown. Somebody putting up a still image with the artist name and title of the song with the music in good quality -should- be DMCAd left right and center. )
Does this include videos including clear rips of 20- to 30-second snippets of several songs intended to prove a point about these songs?
microsoft does something like this (ala joining the fray) its 'embrace extend extinguish' however when monty python (also a commercial franchise) does it, we're looking at a good thing?
im a big enough fan to go out and buy the DVD box set. they're worth it.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I am looking for a specific sketch. It might or might not have been called "French Art Film". It shows a woman in a white dress, standing and sitting around a landfill. From lots of angles. Often. They have a close-up of a chair, standing on heaps of trash. Again, the woman. More perspectives. Then a soldier in a Vietnam chopper, firing his machine gun. End of sketch.
I have been looking for this one for more than a decade and I could not find it. If you would help me, I would be a *happy camper* and finally able to *enjoy the sauce*.
Well naow, 'at's a bit uv aw roight!
Toad
Monty Python has been pretty friendly to their fans using/viewing their material for a long time. I was a regular on the alt.fan.monty-python USENET newsgroup back in the early 90s, and used to host an ftp site with lots of scripts from the movies/shows. They gave their blessing and said they had no problem with it as long as we also put something up about where to buy copies of the "official" books with the scripts if people wanted them.
I also ran a ewtoo talker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talker (kind of like the old telnet MUD, but more social based instead of combat based) that had a strong Monty Python based theme. Not only were they completely fine with that, they also offered to host it on their official pythonline website. A lot of other MUDs at the time were being sued over trademarks/copyrights.
They pretty much looked at it as free advertising and encouraged people to trade scripts/etc, as long as you weren't profiting from it.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.