I sometimes make it a habit to post nostalgic videos or items of interest on Facebook.  Afterall, it’s a known fact that Facebook increases productivity and turns bad alpha waves into good theta waves.  In any case, I was just about to share an old viral video I used to love that featured a couple of viking kittens singing along with Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin.

A little background first.  I grew up in a spacetime vacuum and had no real exposure to many of the cultural milestones and points of reference that many people take for granted.  I had never really heard a Led Zeppelin song before leaving for college and didn’t really pay that much attention afterwards.  Immigrant Song (as featured in Viking Kittens) made them completely accessible.  Buying the single on iTunes has been on my longterm to-do list for sometime.

Returning to last night’s fiasco.  I went to find the video on Youtube and was horrified to discover that Warner Music Group was forcing Youtube to disable the audio because it didn’t have permission.  After balancing the humors, distilling the vapors and cooling the passions, it made me realize just how out of touch WMG and other music labels are with the nature of viral videos.  If it weren’t for Viking Kittens, Led Zeppelin would be as relevant to me as Cat Power (meaning not very).  Viral videos aren’t commercial in nature.  They capture the collective subconscious in a way that is unpredictable, unteneble.  These user-generated videos are about expression in their purest manifestation, not about monetization.  WMG and the labels have it all wrong.

I’m not advocating for publishing anarchy.  To the contrary, artists and music labels should have the right to montize the material when others are profiting from the fruits of their labors.  But when it comes to viral videos, it boils down to free advertising and PR.   Taking the hard line approach with social media ALWAYS backfires.  The labels are desperately trying to impose an old world system on a new world order.  Instead of protecting the material, they are oppressing it.  A simple search in the Twittersphere finds quite a few WMG boycott calls-to-action.  London-based Calvin Harris had his own material muted in WMG’s Youtube silencenacht.  How many more will suffer as casualties of WMG’s mutepogram?

The lesson here:  I was exposed to Led Zeppelin because of “Viking Kittens”.  I started briefly watching SNL again because of “Lazy Sunday”.  My contempt of Westboro Baptist Church grew even more because of “God Hates the World”.  The more you fight the virality of your material, the more isolated and ultimately desperate you become.  A warning to other music labels: don’t let this happen to you (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yvyDB63f8s)

- Dino Hainline, Associate Digital Strategist

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