Comedy Central has no sense of humour

Well, it appears that Comedy Central just might be a humourless corporation. Instead of recognizing that YouTube is giving them millions of dollars' worth of free advertising in viral marketing, they have asked that all clips be taken down.

As of this writing, it appears that they may be changing their mind, but it's hard to know for sure. Until they figure out that this is the dumbest idea ever, I am putting them on notice:



Unfortunately for my sense of outrage, I feel strongly about copyright and intellectual property. I believe that all of the clips I've posted are covered as "fair use", but since the copyright holder has asked that they be removed, I will be taking down the Comedy Central clips in the following posts:

In case Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me... (October 21)
Oh my God! They killed Kenny! (October 13)

I will be doing this on Friday night unless Comedy Central and YouTube come to an agreement before then. If the clips disappear before Friday night, it means that YouTube deleted them - they have been deleting videos over the past few days.

It's not as if Comedy Central listens to me, but I have to say that this is truly a stupid idea. I would have thought that they would be excited to see the potential here for showcasing videos on the web. This is one of the most interesting viral marketing tools to come along, and it's unfortunate that their response is "Shut 'em down!" instead of "Cool. How can we use this to promote our shows?"