Who Needs Big Music on YouTube? The Best Video of 2009 Is Homegrown.
by Peter Kafka
Posted on March 7, 2009 at 9:52 PM PT
YouTube and the big music labels are spending a lot of time and effort trying to figure out how make money off of music videos. If only they were as inventive as Kutiman.
Who? I hadn’t heard of Kutiman until today, either. But turns out he’s an Israeli musician who’s getting lots of praise this week for creating the best video of the year–using other people’s YouTube clips.
Check out “Mother Of All Funk Chords”–the first of seven songs Kutiman has made using audio and video he found on Google’s (GOOG) video site. If you’re one of the people who puts great stock in the promise of user-generated content, here’s your best-case scenario:
And here’s Kutiman himself, explaining (sort of) how he does it.
How cool is that? Also, how legal? Not sure about the second question.
I’m pretty sure that Kutiman didn’t get permission from anyone he sampled, and I’m assuming that anyone whom Kutiman sampled could complain to Google and try to get the clip edited or taken down.
Perhaps that’s already happened. Kutiman provides an extensive list of links explaining where he found the stuff on YouTube, and one of those links already leads to a dead clip (see complete list at the end of this post).
On the other hand, it’s not as if he’s sampling stuff owned by the big labels. I’m pretty sure most of the folks he’s included in this mashup and the others he made are going to be ecstatic.
Like “stringquartet,” who left this comment on Kutiman’s video after learning his guitar solo is featured: “I just found out about this tonight. Thank you for making this video! (I’m the guy soloing at 1:38) THANK YOU! this was done so creatively.”
Agreed! More, please.
Here’s the source material list:
TheHitman1990 (Bernard “Pretty” Purdie clip), drums
stringquartet (Eric), guitar solo
meewsic (Brian Fox), blues harp and vocals
originalguitarlesson (BJ Cunningham), rock guitar
shellman1982 (Eric Budd), contrabass trombone
expertvillage, trombone, baritone horn,rhodes piano
[removed], guitar bridge
miracleministries, orange team cheer
Csuperjo1 (Jimmy Persad clip), crazy sax
Imitationn*gger (Richard Barret clip), guitar licks
Comments
That’s the best music mash-up I’ve ever seen done on YouTube. I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of them given the popularity of the form musically. Where’s Danger Mouse for this?
Posted by Drew Kerr at March 8th, 2009 at 5:30 amAbsolutely groundbreaking. Forget Dangermouse and those that mashup familiar songs & videos. They’re hacks compared to Kutiman. Kutiman has created a whole new genre.
Posted by Gerard Babitts at March 9th, 2009 at 12:00 pm