Vimeo version – click here

To see the original video of “Wrong” by Depeche Mode, click here.

QuickTime Plug In

In my ongoing issues with YouTube, I’ve decided that I needed to find another solution for posting videos. Sure, Vimeo is still a great choice, but I want to have another option ready to go in case they start caving to the thoughtless record company known as WMG.

I have decided to go with QuickTime. You will need to have QuickTime enabled on your browser(s) in order to view this. Every Mac user has this built-in, but Windows and Linux users may not. I will continue to upload to Vimeo, but should the hired goons find their way to that site, then the QuickTime option will be the only option I will provide.

• QuickTime for Linux – Mplayer
• QuickTime for Windows – Download

QuickTime has several advantages: the quality is nice, it works on not-so-newer systems [I've tested it on my daughter's Powermac G4 and it works better than YouTube or Vimeo] and it’s hosted locally on my site. It can be slow to buffer, but once it’s fully buffered, it works.

So give it a try and see if you like it. Hit me up in the comments and let me know what you think.

Scooter Sunday Season 2 Ep. 01 from Marty Mankins on Vimeo.

Vimeo FTW

I’m pretty much done with YouTube. They, meaning Warner Music Group [and not YouTube] are the cocksuckers that keep fucking with the audio and even after doing research to find out what band belongs to what label, I still seem to find a song or a piece of audio that belongs to WMG. So it’s Vimeo only for now.

I know there are a few of you that have issues watching these videos and I am working on another solution. Stay tuned.

Name The Scooter contest

There’s a new contest up and on its own page. Click on the cool little banner below for all of the juicy details.

Snowy Sunday Ep. 015 from Marty Mankins on Vimeo.

YouTube Users – No video upload this week. Because I used a WMG artist [Collective Soul], they stripped the audio out. They are getting good at this, as it was only minutes after it was uploaded that I got the “Content Matched” message. I promptly deleted the video. I apologize for this inconvenience.

No Snowy Sunday for Two Weeks

Well, at least not from me. I leave on Friday for Hawaii. But I’m not leaving you post-less while I’m gone. I have lined up some great guest bloggers who will be providing you with some good, clean, wholesome entertainment sinfully and carnally-pleasing blog posts. Here’s the line up:

• March 8th – Karl from Secondhand Tryptophan
• March 9th [week of] – Catherine from Seventh Notebook
• March 15th – Hilly from Snackie’s World

Plus, while I’m in Hawaii, I plan on doing a couple of short posts with some photos and a quick blurb telling you all what a great time I’m having. Yes, I’m nice like that.

See you later on this week.

YouTube and Warner Music Group (WMG) have gone through a divorce.

This all stems around WMG’s decision to not continue their license agreement with Google (owner of the YouTube brand), sifting through the millions of YouTube videos and removing songs “belonging to WMG” that were part of user-uploaded video submissions.

This decision has permanently changed any uploaded YouTube video that used a WMG artist’s song for any reason. Such is Warner’s far-reaching efforts to protect any of it’s precious properties that it takes out other label’s artists in the process.

For example, in my video Snowy Sunday Ep. 002, I use clips of three different songs: Dean Martin “Let It Snow”, Crowded House “Four Seasons In One Day” and Van Halen “Dreams”. Of these three artists, two of them are with Warner [Dean Martin and Van Halen]. Crowded House gets crowded out of the YouTube house, at least when their songs are used alongside any WMG artist in the same YouTube video.

In addition to Snowy Sunday Episode 011 having the audio removed from it [which I completely removed from YouTube right after I discovered it contained no audio], previous videos of mine that had soundtracks of WMG artists have also suffered the same silent fate. Here is the list, each one linked to their respective blog posts where you can still watch the “un-altered” videos using Vimeo:

• Snowy Sunday Ep. 004 – [Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under The Bridge"]
• Snowy Sunday Ep. 002 – [Van Halen - "Dreams"]
• Scooter Sunday Captured Ep. 009 – [Led Zeppelin "Tangerine"]

I will not be pulling these videos [at least for now], leaving them in their WMG-revised state.

A Better Solution

While WMG play their greedy fucker card, other labels have used better options for finding their licensed songs in a YouTube video. And I think it’s a WIN-WIN situation.

Let’s take Universal Music Group. There’s been a couple of my videos that have been flagged as having Universal-owned tracks in them. But instead of getting all “nose in the air” and greedy, they get smart: they give me the option to add links to legitimate places to legally download the songs.

The orange-circled area shows the iTunes and Amazon.com buttons to purchase music

Now how hard is that? Actually, not that hard at all. And both Universal and myself benefit. I get to keep the song in my video and they make money from additional purchases of the song [I'm sure Google also has a deal with the labels to make more money on the backend]

A pop-up banner comes up while the video plays, showing the title of the song

They also place a pop-up banner while the video is playing, but it’s easy to click away, if so desired.

The Future

So what am I going to do here? This has put me, a blogger that uploads regular videos, in a different place. Sure, I can be creative and make my own songs and music, but I’m trying to generate laughs on a different level.

I will still continue to use YouTube as an alternative viewing option for my regular videos [sorry, but Vimeo kicks ass in all areas], but I will have to come up with different options when confronted with these new rules.

I can use music from artists that are not on any WMG label, which is what I will try to do. But there are some videos where a certain song fits just right. And sometimes that song belongs to a WMG artist.

I respect the position of any person or company that owns the rights to their music and their efforts to protect that. I’m in no way against that. I’m simply suggesting that there are smarter ways of doing that, where both the end-user and the license owner benefit. It’s called “Fair Use” and it appears to be working for Universal. It can also work for Warner, if they want it to. They just have to put the greedy mindset aside and think like a modern and progressive company should.

Yeah, I’m not waiting, either.

Snowy Sunday The Winners List from Marty Mankins on Vimeo.

More YouTube Downsizing

As I mentioned in last week’s Snowy Sunday post, I will not be using YouTube as a location for any videos that contain Warner Music Group (WMG) artists. This week’s episode uses a clip of Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Give It Away”, which prevents it from being uploaded to YouTube intact. I tried to find another song that would fit this week’s topic, but this one fit so well that I decided to stick with it. It’s a short clip used at the beginning and end of the episode.

BUT WAIT….

… I didn’t want to leave any YouTube users out of the loop on finding out if they won or not. So, in an effort to skirt around the greedy fuckers at Warner, I have “improvised” the clips used at the beginning and the end of the YouTube version for this week’s video. Sometimes, you have to do what you got to do. This will most likely NOT be a regular feature [sorry, I don't believe in inflicting torture on any human beings]. The Vimeo version contains the beginning and ending clips of the actual song.

Click here for the Snowy Sunday – The Winners List – YouTube Edition

I am writing a separate blog post that will go into more detail about this WMG/YouTube issue, which I will post sometime this week. I didn’t want to take away too much from the excitement of this week’s Snowy Sunday with an extended rant.

ATTENTION WINNERS

I will be contacting you via email this week, asking you for your mailing address, so I can send you your prize.

To All of My Readers

Thanks to all of you who visit here on Banal Leakage. You have read my posts, listened to my rants and watched my silly mug in the videos I post. I hope to keep providing more entertaining, informative and thought-provoking posts in the future, occasionally celebrating blogging milestones by giving away free stuff.

Snowy Sunday Ep. 011 from Marty Mankins on Vimeo.

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ATTENTION YouTube Users

This week’s video is not available thanks to WMG (Warner Music Group) removing the audio from it [Read the details here in this CNET article]. This tends to happen with some record companies, as there have been a couple of videos I’ve done that have had copyright warnings. Oddly enough, the videos I’ve previously used songs from a couple of WMG artists [Red Hot Chili Peppers, Van Halen] have so far been left untouched. Universal Music has been smart enough to leave the audio alone in my videos, adding a link in the details of the YouTube video page to purchase the song. Evidently, Warner Music Group isn’t that smart. I’m not surprised, given who runs WMG. So until Mr. Edgar Bronfman Jr. pulls his collective head from his greedy ass, I will not be uploading any YouTube videos that contain any music from Warner Music Group.

For a list of Warner Music Group artists, click on this link.

The Vimeo video above has not been affected and unless things change at Vimeo, I will continue to use that service for all of my weekly videos. If for some reason you cannot access Vimeo, let me know and I will provide another option for downloading and viewing this week’s episode of Snowy Sunday.

Thanks for your patience.

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100 Posts Giveaway

For those that only come here for the videos, you may be missing out on other blog posts… like the giveaway I have going on. Last week, I reached 100 posts out here…. I know, pretty cool. So to celebrate, I’m giving away a few things. It’s easy to enter. Just go to this post, read the rules then leave a comment. Who knows.. you could be a winner.

 
“you like-a the Video, eh?”

Thanks to all of your comments, emails and in person props, I got lots of positive feedback on the first Scooter Sunday Captured video I did last week. Given this popularity and the fact that I love making videos, I decided to make it a regular feature here, at least until I have to put the scooter away at the end of the season.

As for what I will be doing for the months I don’t ride my scooter, I am currently working on ideas for that. I may give some sneak peeks in a few weeks, but for now, it’s all just brainstorming and writing down every idea that comes into my head.

 
Scooter Sunday Captured

This week’s video is a bit shorter than last week’s. I’m trying to keep them under 3 minutes, including credits [like Wayne does with his DITL video blog entries, although credits don't count in his 3 mins and he tends to have bonus footage]. Anything longer has me making tweaks for hours, which is fine for making cool videos, but adds to the delays in this actually getting posted sooner.

I am also providing a YouTube option, due to some of my readers not being able to view the Vimeo version. Vimeo will still be the default format, as it produces a better quality video [at least in my side-by-side comparisons].

And without further bantering delay, here it is:

Scooter Sunday Captured Ep. 002 from Marty Mankins on Vimeo.

NOTE: Due to Warner Music Group (WMG), this video has been removed from YouTube.

 
Until Next Week….

Thanks for visiting. In addition to the video next week, I’ll have some extra coverage to add to this post.