So, after a hard day in the boilerroom you or yr significant other open your fave Steely Dan vid., like “Don’t take me Alive”, and a few pesos are tossed into Larry Carlton’s jar (as well as to Becker-Fagen, Inc). There are other related issues: what if some enterprising uh “video-montage-ahhtiste” takes that SD chestnut and sets it to his favorite Malibu rollerbladers or something? That would seem to be copyright protected, but you do see that on yt with music and movies.

That said, there’s a great deal of crap on youtube, and as a whole it probably contributed to more dumbing-down of the Net and converting it to a type of online television. Many bloggers (at least ones who aren’t exactly Christopher Hitchens) now seem to rely on youtube soundbites nearly as much as prose. Those who can’t write, embed.