Led Zeppelin Videos Being Yanked From YouTube

I think we all expected the flood of Led Zeppelin videos from Monday’s O2 Show in London on the wildly popular video sharing site YouTube. It is certain that many a Zep fan has enjoyed the benefits of this technology that could only have been dreamed about back in the days when Led Zeppelin were ordering things other than tea and ironing boards from the backstage menu.

One outfit that’s not thrilled with all this fan footage is music industry giant Warner Music Group. They own the rights to the performance and with a DVD likely in the works, they are not too happy about all the fan videos popping up on YouTube.

If you ask me, I think these fan videos only serve to further interest in a DVD of the show. Let’s face it, the fan footage is pretty poor quality stuff and won’t hold a candle (or a lighter) to the DVD which was probably shot in HD and will feature sound fed directly from the sound system into a professional-quality recording equipment.

If I’m a big enough Led Zep fan to want the DVD for my collection, a few shaky YouTube videos with lousy sound are not going to dissuade me from placing my order when that DVD is released. Even if I use some tricks to capture the best of the YouTube videos for keeps.

I think Warner should think of this as free advertising. Something that is only going to make true Led Zeppelin fans was the DVD of the show even more than if they had not seen some of it on YouTube.

To read more about Warner’s struggle to remove these videos from YouTube, check out the stories on PC World and Information Week.