Balcony with a view

The legal wrangling, ethical concerns and multi-million dollar argument about who controls the internet may seem to exist in another world, but it has the potential to effect us all. Sometimes in curious ways.

Just ask the people behind Balcony TV. This thoroughly non-threatening and innovative broadcasting venture began last summer, with the sight of more people than might have been strictly advisable squeezed onto a balcony above Dame Street, popping champagne corks. The brainchild of Stephen O’Regan, Tom Millett and Pauline Freeman – the three flat-sharing owners of said balcony – Balcony TV has developed as a daily TV-style show, which is accessed via the internet. The show has quickly become a useful barometer of what’s happening on the Irish music scene, having featured the likes of Royseven, Paul Brady, Jinx Lennon and Dave Fanning along the way.
“We’ve done about 230 shows to date,” says Stephen, “and our videos have averaged about 1,000 hits each. Someone like Paul Brady got 7,000 hits. We were uploading our videos onto YouTube and we were embedding their screen onto our website. It was an amazing archive that people could just click into.”
Then the complications started!
“Basically we got a warning email from YouTube, saying that one of our videos was a copyright infringement on Viacom and they’d taken it down. They threatened that, if we continued to upload copyrighted material, they’d close down our account. The videos in question were from the Dirty 9 and SuperJimenez, and they certainly aren’t copyrighted.”

MORE PUBLICITY
It’s not as if the bands they feature on the show have been dragged up to the Dame St. flat against their will. Surely the performance-based nature of Balcony TV would preclude against any such issues?
“Sometimes we’ve had little bits of other footage,” says Stephen. “At the beginning, when we were stuck for ideas, Pauline would do a little puppet show to Sesame Street, which you could judge as copyright infringement – but that’s not what they pointed out.”
For just a little while, it seemed that Balcony TV might be the unlikely victim of a series of disputes taking place right at the top of the corporate ladder. While the first copyright case against YouTube was brought by an individual photographer, Robert Tur, who objected to the appearance of his LA riots footage, the world’s biggest media players have begun to join in – although these actions can sometimes have surprising outcomes. In early 2006, NBC was looking to bring YouTube to heel – by June the two had announced a strategic partnership, which saw the US TV giant launch it’s own channel.
Now Viacom, the company that owns or produces MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, The Daily Show, South Park and countless others has become embroiled.
“I heard that Viacom has demanded that YouTube take down a hundred thousand videos,” Stephen says, “so I think that we were just got caught up in that somehow. I think they’ve made a mistake – and I still think that YouTube is one of the greatest websites ever. But from our point of view, the controversy was a blessing in disguise because since this happened we’ve had more publicity than ever before.”
That all this has arisen largely since Google took over YouTube is surely no coincidence. But that battle is set to get even messier with Viacom launching a $1.1 billion claim against YouTube. Somewhere in the midst of it all there is the essentially simple idea of three people, a video camera and a balcony.

REAL SHOWDOWN
“We are the essence of what YouTube is about,” Stephen adds. “If you think about the amount of stuff that is up there that is completely and utterly, no doubt about it, somebody else’s material – well, our stuff is completely original.
“I made a short film myself and it was uploaded by somebody else and it was wildly successful on YouTube. I didn’t mind, as it was only a short film – but it’s a strange one. There are so many copycat websites that do the same thing as YouTube.”
Balcony TV are not the only small operation to have been caught up in what looks like becoming a real show-down. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been urging innocent users to stand up to Viacom – even if it means a court fight. Others who have fallen foul of the media giant included a home-made movie of a group of friends eating ribs, and a trailer for a documentary about a gay wrestler. Neither had any connection with Viacom.
Meanwhile, with their own position satisfactorily sorted with YouTube, Balcony TV are feeling decidedly upbeat.
“We won the best music website at the Digital Media Awards,” says Stephen, “which was quite a shock. We’ve got momentum on our side and a good little fan base, so I’m very positive about the future of Balcony TV.”
To check out the site, visit www.balconytv.com