Anti-Viral Videos from a Back-Assward Music Industry

OK Go has a new video out for their song “This Too Shall Pass.” We can’t put the YouTube video here on Rockworms.com. In a beautifully written open letter to the people of earth, Damien Kulash gives a full explanation of why record labels prohibit YouTube from embedding videos on other websites - because they loose controll of the ads that are shown on those sites:

This means our label doesn’t get their hard-won share of the pie if our video is played on your blog, so (surprise, surprise) they won’t let us be on your blog. And, voilá: four years after we posted our first homemade videos to YouTube and they spread across the globe faster than swine flu, making our bassist’s glasses recognizable to 70-year-olds in Wichita and 5-year-olds in Seoul and eventually turning a tidy little profit for EMI, we’re – unbelievably – stuck in the position of arguing with our own label about the merits of having our videos be easily shared. It’s like the world has gone backwards.

Backwards indeed. A couple years ago we asked you what you thought about the music industry’s feudal failure, and you voted (both of you) that the future of music doesn’t have big record labels. Damian thinks you might be right:

…if music is going to be more than a hobby, someone, literally, has to pay the piper. So we’ve got this ridiculous situation where the machinery of the old system is frantically trying to contort and reshape and rewire itself to run without actually selling music. It’s like a car trying to figure out how to run without gas, or a fish trying to learn to breath air.

The video, by the way, is beautiful, simple, surprising and everything you might expect from the kings of Viral. So far it’s racked up half-a-million views on YouTube.  Ironically, the label does not prohibit Vimeo from allowing embed of the band’s videos. Even though Damian says they have a soft spot in their hearts for YouTube, he gives the embed code for Vimeo at the end of his letter. Thanks Damian. You’re a champ.

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo