audiblemagic

How YouTube's sucking up to Modest Mouse (and other giants of media)

Jackson West · 05/14/08 03:20PM

An eagle-eyed Valleywag tipster with a taste for Modest Mouse spotted an interesting new feature on YouTube. Uploads of music videos from the band by non-official sources now carry a link reading "Contains content from Sony BMG," which leads users to the official Modest Mouse page on the site. The unofficial version of the video "Float On" has over a million views — the official version only 235,000. Also, both the official and unofficial versions have had the embed codes which allow users to post the video on third-party sites removed. My question? Whether this is automated by YouTube or if Sony BMG is flagging their videos by hand.