While skipping through a few older posts, I found this post containing a video that was no longer hosted on the video platform where I originally got it from.

A broken reference on a music blog might not seem like a big deal, but this particular case is one that I find very annoying. I am talking about the video “Stylo” from the Gorillaz.

Normally, when I am looking for a video, I go to YouTube, like most people do. For me, YouTube (and other video portals) have become the true successor to MTV since they stopped concentrating on music. YouTube is usually a great source for music video from all different genres, and I often use YouTube videos as references.

However, a while ago, YouTube introduced a technology called geoblocking . Essentially, what it means is that you can or cannot view certain videos depending on the country you are accessing that video from.

Geoblocking is relatively easy to circumvent, but when I referenced that video, I didn’t want to give my readers the hassle of having to figure that out. So I looked for a different source – and finally found one on Dailymotion. This worked for a while, but apparently it was an unauthorized video upload and they removed it.

Of course, anybody wanting to see the video will certainly find it, but this shows a serious problem of video portals: You can’t use them as an archive.
You can never know if any video will be taken down for legal or business reasons. And just because something is released in one country does not mean it will ever be accessible in any other country.

I can see the business logic behind this kind of decision, since from a marketing standpoint, you might want to have full control over what is realeased when in which country.
Nevertheless, from a cultural point of view, I am strongly against this kind of technology.

Music is an important part of our culture, and the internet should be used to enable access to it, not restrict it.

Anyway, the video is still cool, so here it is again. I hope it stays there.