New York Times article on Hollywood's uneasiness about YouTube. Even though, Hollywood for the most part has been embracing the YouTube phenomenon lately. Part of the problem now (and has always been) is that many of their movies land up on YouTube, even if it is broken up in several pieces (Youtube has a time restriction).

On my personal blog, I'd linked to a very important television series that I found in its entirety on YouTube. It ended up being the most popular post of 2006. Mind you, the content owners in question were not interested in bringing it to DVD or even releasing it (at the time) and it was too important to be shelved. Like many other movies, the television series was taken down to be only found at another hosting site.

I find many movies on YouTube, I am not really comfortable with this. Not because it is illegal but because I can't watch something for that long on my computer, when I can easily get it on Netflix. This annoys most people. But I'm sure Hollywood will spend a lot of money addressing this issue, especially when they get their numbers wrong: "No one knows exactly how much Hollywood-derived content is uploaded to the site without the studios' consent, but academics and media executives estimate it could be anywhere from 30 percent to 70 percent." I laughed when I read this.

The article also has many instances of compromise, for example, 8 Mile was found and then taken down from YouTube except for the songs. The article also shows Hollywood's uneasiness towards user-generated content which at times means "Hollywood-recycled" content. "Brian Grazer, a producer of '8 Mile,' said some of the mashups he had seen were 'pretty hip.' But he said he, too, viewed them as a form of piracy: 'It bothers me artistically. Here's this thing where you have no control; they are chopping it up and putting your memories in a blender.'"