Video Site YouTube Upset Over C-Span Deal with Google Video

The video site YouTube.com has expressed consternation over C-Span's demand that it remove its video of Stephen Colbert's remarks at the White House Correspondents Dinner last month and the cable channel's subsequent decision to make the same video available to YouTube's rival, Google Videos. In an interview with today's (Monday) New York Times, YouTube marketing director Julie Supan, noting that the Colbert performance had been viewed 2.7 million times in less than 48 hours, commented, "This was an exciting moment for them in a viral, random way. ... To take it down from one site and uploading on another, it is perplexing." The Times observed that C-Span's Google deal requires that not only the Colbert speech be included in the download, but also other speeches, including a routine by President Bush and a Bush impersonator.