Why Do Movie Companies Pull Movie Trailers From YouTube?

1. SoL
   July 28th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

   Trailers are pulled from YouTube regularly because the movie studios make exclusive deals ($) with specific websites to host their trailers (and thereby generate traffic to that website for the purpose of selling more advertising!). Another way to maximize revenue streams.

2. Neatoramawontsendmeapassword
   July 28th, 2008 at 6:25 pm

   Yeah, but I never go to the official trailer sites. They're usually slow and require something my browser doesn't have. YouTube could bring more people into the theatres...

   I wonder which is actually more advantageous: showing your trailer on YouTube and getting lots of people excited about your movie... or putting your trailer on an official site and getting the advertising revenue from a smaller number of people who'll tolerate ads.

3. hojo
   July 28th, 2008 at 7:07 pm

   Franchises are required to protect their copyrights no matter what. If they tried to sue someone for a copyright infringement for that trailer, the judge would cite the previous failure to remove the item from youtube (or wherever) and would then deny them the right to it.

4. Sofar
   July 28th, 2008 at 7:22 pm

   I see most accusations of copyright infringement as sort of a "get off my lawn" mentality. There's no harm being done but people like to tell others what they can and cannot do with their property. If someone were posting pictures I drew on their website or walking on my lawn, I'd tell them to stop simply because it's my property and I cherish the few chances I get to tell other people what to do.

5. Perceive
   July 28th, 2008 at 8:08 pm

   hojo, you're thinking of trademarks, which requires vigilante defending for the claim to persist. Copyright, however, will exist regardless of whether the claimant defend every single possible breach of it.

   I think SoL is right. The movie studios see some of their trailers as another source of revenue rather than as pure advertisement. They also count on exclusivity and hype to generate buzz and interest. Which is not to say that this practice isn't completely asinine.

6. SuperJdynamite
   July 28th, 2008 at 8:14 pm

   "YouTube could bring more people into the theatres…"

   Be that as it may, in the business world, it's not what you know, it's what you can prove (via PowerPoint). Revenue that can't be measured via GAAP makes corporations squeamish.

   "Franchises are required to protect their copyrights no matter what."

   1) Trademarks require this but I don't think it applies to copyright. Trademarks can be abandoned from lack of use or failure to police infringement, but copyright generally takes the opposite tact (especially under contemporary legislation) -- it's easy to establish and lasts just about forever.

   2) US copyright law provides for small excerpts of protected works to be copied for critical purposes (movie reviews, etc). I think there's enough wiggle room there to allow YouTube to host movie trailers.

7. Johnny Cat
   July 28th, 2008 at 10:26 pm

   When I started out in film editing, I thought one area I'd love to be active in was the production of the Trailer. It's an art form if done correctly, and sadly, that doesn't happen often. Too often they show too much, sometimes leaving the viewer to remark, "Well, that was a nice movie."

8. Lars
   July 29th, 2008 at 2:05 am

   This could also have quite a bit to do with a red band trailer being released on the internet -- which depending on the studios agreement with the MPAA CARA ratings board could be in direct violation of MPAA guidelines. Studios are often accused by the MPAA of releasing unrated materials virally, and this can cause repercussions when they go in to get the actual film rated.

9. Lasse
   July 29th, 2008 at 3:07 am

   Not only are trailers on youtube ads, they are ads volunteerly distributed from user to user, from targetgroup to targetgroup. This is a marketing departments wet dream. But not for movie companys, i guess.

10. Christophe
    July 29th, 2008 at 5:59 am

    Shaky cam no! I've been to 'Hancock' and was placed a little bit up front in the theater: I felt like puking...
    Maybe that's the punishment we should give to trailer pirates!

11. Ray
    July 29th, 2008 at 6:05 am

    Might also be a quality issue... YouTube recompresses videos to an unacceptable level.
    Plus, maybe the movie companies don't like prospective customers to see all the negative, idiotic comments that always appear on YouTube.

12. Gerry
    July 29th, 2008 at 7:05 am

    Pulling the ads is stupid.

    But I'm more outraged at the ADD-style movie trailers these days. I'm sick to death of half-second strobing of images.

    Are the movie companies trying to give us all epilepsy??? Hopefully, someone will have a full-blown siezure in a theater and sue the hell out of 'em....

13. Worrymon
    July 29th, 2008 at 10:49 am

    Some good points, but I think there's another reason. Lack of control. If I put a trailer on a specific site on the internet, I know that what's on that site is what I created. If someone takes that and puts it on YouTube, there's no guarantee to the producer or to the viewer that what is posted is what was produced.

14. Adam Stanhope
    July 29th, 2008 at 11:10 am

    1. Studios need to maintain control over the different varieties of trailers they produce for a given film. If Trailer A ends up testing bad in Market X, they will move quickly to replace Trailer A with Trailer B. They cannot maintain that degree of control with trailers hosted on YouTube.

    2. A *significant* percentages of EMBEDDED YouTube videos will report, "That video is no longer available" in the embedded version - when in fact the embed is simply unable to talk to the server. Anytime you get the "no longer available" message in an embedded YouTube video, get the URL of the video itself on YouTube and attempt to watch it there. You'll find more often than not that the video is there and has not been pulled.

15. JC
    July 29th, 2008 at 4:28 pm

    SoL is right, but in final terms they are losing. Anyway, there are infinite ways to get access to movie trailers other than youtube.

16. patrick
    July 29th, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    youre right, it doesn't make sense... though i think some companies purposely make some of their previews for YouTube

17. Johnny Cat
    July 29th, 2008 at 9:42 pm

    On a side note, I've always thought that trailers in theaters that precede an R rated movie should be allowed to have R rated elements (swearing, nudity, etc.)

18. pollardito
    August 1st, 2008 at 11:18 am

    The real problem with them on YouTube is that they're put up there earlier than they're released elsewhere on the internet. Movie production companies want you to go to I Am Legend to see the new/extended trailer for Batman, etc. They tie trailer premiers to other movies all the time in an effort to grab some ticket sales to people who are excited to see a new trailer, but if someone goes in with a camera and films the trailer to put on YouTube than people don't need to buy a ticket to see the trailer early.

19. saba
    August 1st, 2008 at 8:24 pm

    a very informative debate...thnks guys

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