Culver City (CA) - YouTube, the massive video sharing website, is allowing users to post up clips from Comedy Central shows. Last week, YouTube pulled thousands of Comedy Central videos after Viacom, Comedy Central's parent, complained about copyright violations.
Viacom and YouTube are apparently in talks to legally share the videos and for the mean time are allowing Comedy Central videos to be posted. Most of the videos were from popular shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.
The shows have become a cultural phenomenon and many fans were upset after the videos were pulled. One guy posted up a short video titled, "Why did Comedy Central assert copyrights now?" and questioned why Comedy Central had waited so long to pull the videos.
Such is the double-edged sword content producers face when dealing with sharing sites. Some television shows have turned a blind eye towards sharing, in the hopes of drawing in even more viewers to the regular shows. Battlestar Galactica, the popular sci-fi remake of the 1970s series of the same name, has hundreds if not thousands of video clips on YouTube. The danger lies in the sense of entitlement viewers could have if they view too many videos.
Most of the Comedy Central clips are back up on YouTube, but some videos are still unavailable.
