Different strokes

Yup, different strokes for different folks. I'm not sure whether I blogged about it, but last year on the Culture Night here in Oslo I went with the gang to various events ... one of them, the first, was in the Cemetery of Our Saviour, in the so-called Honor Grove where a number of great artists and politicians are buried. Think Henrik Ibsen, Edvard Munch. A kind of theater performance was presented to those assembled, I filmed some of it and made a video. Which I uploaded to Youtube. This was in September. Now, months later, I suddenly get a message from someone affiliated with the theater group who performed these theatricals - they're called Røde Rom, apparently ('Red Rooms') - demanding that I remove this video. This is their copyrighted material and bla bla bla.

I obviously can't show you the video, it's gone ... but I have to say that I think it's advantageous for people like these - ie, performing artists - to have their work featured on Youtube. Personally, I know that if I hear about a new band or whatever I'll go to Youtube and do a search ... and if nothing or very little comes up, my conclusion is usually that they're no good or really unpopular. Nobody likes them enough to want to share whatever it is that they're doing. In my opinion, it's completely a good thing if someone sees a performer or group of performers and think that what they see is so enjoyable that they want to share it with the world. However, not everybody sees it that way, and that's cool. This tiny little three-piece experimental theater group that I'd never heard of don't see it that way. They are above such things, I'm sure. Anyway, this was on Thursday that I got their message. Then today, Friday, I got another message ...

This was from the official Youtube channel of the Bosnian/Croatian girl group Feminnem. I have a video of them up too, from the concert series in Eurovision Village last month. So yeah, the contents of that video is their material, etc. Just like with Røde Rom ... except that these ladies are much bigger - they don't even compare - and have been at it for longer than the theatricals. So they'd really have reason to ask me to remove the video ... they don't need the publicity, I guess.

Except that they didn't ask me to remove the video. They sent me a friend request. Go figure. ;-)

Here's my video of them performing their lovely song from this year's ESC ...



... and here is their Youtube channel, if you're interested. :-)