Ooooops

It seems that YouTube have replaced the old Director's Account with something called a Partner Account. Even nicer, it seems that the older Director Accounts like mine are not affected by the new rules. It also turns out that the old-style Director's Accounts were stopped purely because people were abusing them, and the terribly nice bloke on the forums who came to my aid, told me that the ten minute cut-off point was to stop people posting whole episodes of TV shows instead of bit-torrenting them like gentlemen.

And, the assumption that so many people in authority seem to make about the attentiuon spans of the current younger generation, apparently has nothing to do with it.

So I barged in, guns blazing, for nothing on this occasion, and I apologise.

However, the battles continue....................

YouTube a-go-go

This is the time of year when most people are looking forward to what is euphemistically described as the `festive season`, and spending the long winter nights in the pub, or watching chestnuts roasting on an imaginary fire.... or something like that.

However, I am back on my soap-box again. Whilst trying to upload the latest episode of On The Track - our monthly webTV show, I discovered to my shock that YouTube had changed the guidelines of how "Director's Accounts" operate. Now it seems that nobody can upload films longer than 10 minutes. I personally think that this is shocking.

It actually looks as if - due to a loophole - I will be able to have YouTube still hosting `On The Track`, and if not they will be posted on Google Video, but I think that this is a very disturbing trend, and so I joined the YouTube Users Forum http://help.youtube.com/group/youtube-help and posted the following message:

"Whilst being very grateful to YouTube for providing a free platform whereby film-makers like ourselves can broadcast to the world, we believe that the recent decision to change the terms of service for people like us with Director's Accounts was a bad idea.

We are the only organisation in the world who produce high quality original films about cryptozoology and allied disciplines. Some of our films have been very succesful indeed - `Lair of the Red Worm` which we released on YouTube last year has now been seen by over 45,000 people.

From a purely aesthetic point of view having to cut our films into ten minute segments just feels wrong, but we believe that there is a more important political issue at stake here. By only allowing films in short, bitesized chunks we believe that YouTube is perpetuating the fallacy that young people today are so stupid, and suffer from some social analogue of Attention Deficit Disorder that they can only watch things that are under ten minutes in length, otherwise they will get bored.

We believe this to be totally false - young people are as clever, and as dumb, as they have ever been, and should be given the chance to benefit from the information revolution, rather than be stifled by it.

Come on guys, reconsider..

Yours,

Jon Downes,
CFZtv

I don't usually ask for help on this blog, but I am going to start. If you agree with what I have written, please go and join the YouTube User's Forum, and add your weight to what I have said. Don't be rude, don't rant, just make your point in a calm and reasoned manner. Let's see if a little bit of democratic reason can change things back....

My original posting can be found:

HERE