Here's your article.

First of all, how does that work exactly? YouTube is based out of California. How can the EU seek to regulate something that's coming from offshore? If I'm reading this right, it would be upon YouTube to get the license, not the users who use YouTube.

So if they try it, here's how YouTube should respond IMO. Post a video from the founders that says this:

"If this goes into effect, we're looking at having to license YouTube and put even more restrictions in place for what you can and cannot post on our service. We have no interest in conforming with silly laws made by silly lawmakers who can't even tell the difference between television and the Internet. Therefore, if this goes into effect, we will have to cut off any European IP address from our service. If you are interested in keeping this from happening or think that governments should have better ways to spend their time, here's a URL where you can go to find all the contact information you need to get in touch with your government and tell them your thoughts on the matter. Thanks and good luck."

Honestly, I think we need a coalition of folks who are dedicated to identifying people in government who use their power to try and regulate what other people do with their lives and get them the hell out of office. I don't care if you're a supposed conservative or supposed liberal–leave people the fuck alone. When was the last time a government passed a law that extended freedom instead of taking it away? Leave us alone already. Jesus.

One of the things I do is keep an eye on YouTube. It's like panning for gold, in that you get approximately as much stuff worth watching as you do gold in some random stream. As I was scanning down through the latest bits, like looking into some strange alternate universe in which "LOL" has been transformed into meaning "This is some really amazingly unfunny shit," something struck me:

Thank the gods we didn't have YouTube when we were kids.

Why? Because look at what's on YouTube. I'm fairly certain that 90% of the stuff on there is created by kids from the ages of 10-15 who are at home with some form of digital camera and proceed to take footage of them dancing, or acting stupid, or something. Then they post it with the warning "This is lame, but I'm posting it anyway." And they're honest kids, because it's lame. Not even their mom would find this stuff amusing in that cute "Oh, I've given birth to a mutant but I have to love them because those are the rules" kind of way.

Why should we be grateful? Because we would have been doing the same goddamn thing.

Think about all the stupid VHS movies you shot when you were a kid. All the dumb photos. All the dumb drawings, even. All those things that you have either sought out and destroyed or have been lost in the depths of time. All those things that you can't believe you were stupid enough to actually record in some form or fashion. If you had YouTube at that time in your life, you would have put all that shit on YouTube. And you know it.

Anyway, so. There. Something to be happy about.

I haven't been here in a while because I've been working under the hood at Needcoffee. And throwing content up there like mad. I've got some more stuff coming over here and not just when I'm so pissed off I can't see straight (see the T-Mobile rants). So thanks for your patience. LOL.