Flash Pan

(def: Panning rapidly across a scene causing blur; also, accidental ignition of gunpowder in muzzle loader) In this new feature I’ll bring topics of minor interest for your brief consideration. 1. Warner Music Group (WMG) goes greedy. When Google bought YouTube they got major deals covering the use of music in videos posted on YouTube. In other words, if I used “unauthorized” music in one of my posts, WMG got paid for each play anyway. But apparently that wasn’t good enough, the contract expired, and now YouTube is systematically removing the “offending” soundtracks but leaving the video up. This explains the missing sound on (currently) 4 of my videos. If you wish to contest YouTube’s actions, they caution you to have a lawyer handy. Fair use? Who knows. For now, I’m leaving them up without sound. I’ll just wait to see what happens. 2. On a positive note, The Huffington Post picked up a DenverDirect video and gave us a little bump. Thanks, Arrianna. Call me when you get a chance. 3. Status Report – a. DenverDirect – 175 videos posted since June 19, 2007 with over 53,000 views to date. b. Magneticbottle (former channel) – 59 videos posted since May 1, 2006 with over 12,000 views to date. c. DenverDirect.tv blog – over 40,000 hits to date. d. AstoundingNews.com blog – over 6,000 hits to date.