4B-The Michigan Daily - Thursday, October 12, 2006 the b-side 4 1 $1.6 billion later, Google and You - Tube, that is By Forest Casey Daily Arts Writer "Don't be evil." That pretty much sums up the ethics code that internet giant Google has fol- lowed throughout its eight year history. It's like the Golden Rule. It explains why they decided to charge nothing for its unique services like trip planning and massive e-mail storage, why they announced a grand mission to scan the amassed written knowledge of the world and make it available for free to everyone and why they have yet to run a banner advertisement. The public image of Google is as spotless as their front page. Their stock is seemingly bulletproof - one of two true blue chip stocks of the NASDAQ. That other blue chip stock, of course, is Microsoft. And when Google announced two days ago that they were buying out their main competitor in the web video sector, YouTube, a collective feeling of unease crept through inter- net forums everywhere. Could Google, that cathedral of virtue, somehow turn into Microsoft, the true Evil Empire, for whom buying out competitors was a matter of course? From a distance, it's difficult to see what all the fuss is about. Google's purchase of YouTube seems almost unnecessary - Google already has a competent video service titled, unsur- prisingly, Google Video. For the aver- age user, the experience of both of these sites is identical: if you want to watch a video of, say, shrubs having coffee, you type your phrase into the search bar and both sites come up with the same result (nothing). But there are thousands of other pointless videos uploaded every sec- ond. With both sites, you simply create an account and start uploading videos. The two sites are fundamentally the same. It's helpful to think of this buyout like elections for high school class president. Going in to election day, Google was the clear frontrunner, with massive name recognition based on the near-universal use of its search feature. And yet, Google lost - not just to a similar opponent, but to the unknown new kid in school. How did YouTube win? Unlike Google Video, YouTube quickly built a community, much like MySpace or Facebook. Videos from YouTube are better-integrated into regular websites; you don't need to click an extra link, wait while your movie is download- ed or even install player software. It brings video to the masses, and that's precisely why Google bought it. Google has paid for users that it thinks will pay a small fee to down- load licensed content, registered users it can advertise to in (hopefully) a non- evil way. In buying YouTube, Google has lost the election, but successfully purchased the recount. How YouTube built its community is another story - it's popular because it's all sorts of illegal. It's like crown- ing the new kid high school president because he deals drugs. You might not be able to find shrub movies on YouTube, but it's easy to find copyrighted content. All it takes is someone with a DVR connected to a desktop to turn YouTube into a garden of network TV, all without commer- cials, and all completely illicit. Don't be fooled by talk of clever home videos - this is the true reason for YouTube's popularity. And it's not as if Google doesn't also show copyrighted material. It too is a user-controlled website where anything could potentially be uploaded, but with its strong market value, Google is an easy target for MPPA and RIAA lawyers. In contrast, YouTube has 67 employees and hasn't yet appeared on the legal radar. Google has an interest in vigilantly scouring their website and removing copyrighted material, and now that Google owns YouTube, it means that the copyrighted material will likely be taken down. Users that keep uploading it will be subpoenaed. In five years, people will talk about the age of finding free, copyrighted movies on YouTube with the same nos- talgia usually reserved for mentioning the golden age of Napster downloads. Google bought out a more popular competitor and will likely extinguish the very reason for its popularity. And that is evil. Art and politics come to blows in music videos By Caitlin Cowan Daily Arts Editor It seems as if mass culture is talk- ing more loudly than ever. But what, exactly, is it saying? Disposable art is everywhere, from movie trailers and YouTube clips to television spots, sound bites and music videos. Much of the jargon-laden trash that comes our way is absolute noise. Yet some still attempts to make a statement. Music videos are the hardest to come by today, which seems crush- ingly stupid considering that VHI, as you may remember, stands for "Video Hits One." MTV2 and rntvU are the last bastions of heavy-rotation music videos on basic cable. After watching only these two channels for the better part of a day while sick, I realized political music videos are very much in vogue. Musicians have always been vocal, and for good reason. They're highly visible, moneyed and most have a team of high-powered, fearless pub- licists, stylists, directors and consul- tants who constantly shroud them. But saturation is undoubtedly the issue today. This feeling of scraping' the bottom of the political barrel with a rusty spoon is currently exempli- fied in many ways by many artists. Take John Mayer's video for his latest single, "Waiting on the World to Change" Mayer struts around a city drained of its color while he simultaneously chastises his gen- eration for their apathy and attempts to call them to action. "They say we stand for nothing and there's no way we ever could," he sings while arty pictures of hazmat masks and urban youths switch back and forth. "When you trust your television / What you get is what you got / 'Cause when they own the informa- tion, oh / They can bend it all they want' His statements are true. But the problem is that no one is going to write a letter to Congress or start a demonstration after watching his video. It's too watered down and general. It sucks. On the other end of the spectrum, master of political paranoia Thom Yorke has a video out for "Harrow- down Hill." Widely known to be written about the death of British Ministry of Defense employee Dr. David Kelly, who was found dead on the hill days after testifying in front of a parliamentary committee concerning a report on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, "Harrow- down Hill" is a scary, angry song, and Yorke knows it. Some con- sider his death to be a murder, even though his official cause of death is listed as suicide. "You will be dis- pensed with / When you've become inconvenient," Yorke warbles as the outline of a predatory falcon soars through an oil-paint sky. Narrating as Kelly himself, Yorke asks, "Did I fall or was I pushed? / Don't ask me / Ask the ministry." By being less explicit about the next course of action and more specific about the details of a single, startling event, Yorke's video doesn't use as much trite imagery (with the exception of the riot footage placed at the end) and is much more effective (not to mention artistic.) Hip hop has woven a socially con- scious thread through its tapestry since its inception. But it seems that this genre, too, is stalling out. The video for Mr. Lif's "Brothaz;' while certainly startling, is hardly a video at all. Lif's rapping is clean, quick and cutting, but the statements that flash across the screen in capital letters take away from his message rather than adding to it. It's hard to hear his cutting, clever raps like ""People drawn and quartered / Castrated, slaughtered, burned, disgraced / Gang raped, displaced / But live it up / We 'bout to burn in hell 'cause God knows" when I'm reading things like "TODAY MORE THAN 300,000 CHILD SOLDIERS ARE FIGHT- ING IN MORE THAN 30 COUN- TRIES." The sad fact is that no one wants to read while they watch film and television. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone in a video store say "Oh, it has subtitles? Ugh. I really don't want to read all that," I'd have more cream than the Wu-Tang Clan. Jurassic Five and Dave Matthews collaborated on the track "Work It Out' and the video is the crowning glory of all absurd commentary. Talk about a total lack of artistry: In the video, a George Bush look-alike jogs gaily through the streets of a major city while the police profile black men and the NSA taps phones. At one point Bush's doppelganger runs past men with signs that say "Out of work." He turns around, whips out a sharpie and changes the words to "Work It Out" - as in work it out on your own. The video is kind of funny, but it's incredibly stupid. Has political art been declawed by the indifference of a genera- tion? Or should the artists blame themselves when their messages go unnoticed? People seemed more inclined to laugh than vote when Diddy commanded the youth to "Vote or die" And remember when Sinead O'Connor tore up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live years ago? No one did anything then, either, because that also wasn't art. If musicianswantto make a politi- cal statement through art, they can't discard the art in favor of piling on more politics. It simply doesn't work. Record labels and video producers will continue to buy up politically charged records and film idiotic vid- eos like these, but if this disregard for creativity continues, no one will ever take political art seriously again. SCHOOL OF EDUCATION Graduate Information ti IsDay at/IOdter42 0i I' EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY. CONVOCATION CENTER SOEgB EU el asa Antarcs, 1400( 734-;64.7,; Learn about our.. *variety of degrees MA Phi MAIt;rptioa * research programs * areas of study * Professional activities Meet our... s tutents and faculty 6 1ickefsaveilable atNieCoaoo eitertkketoffice Online: www.emich.edulconvocation Charge by phone: 734.487.2282 For ~ fehformawCourtesy of treefingers.com, hiphopgalaxy.com and namm.com oSres tt 6 d TOP: Thom Yorke. MIDDLE: Diddy. BOTTOM: John Mayer. M DAILY ARTS. WE'RE LATE.