As some of you may have noticed, the majority of the Alvinnn Originals videos (used on the wiki) were deleted a couple weeks ago thanks to Bagdasarian Productions, marking the second time they've done so with the Alvinnn songs (granted the first time actually made sense). Since the first removals, a new channel was created and had gone through more effort than any other to respect copyright, the material, promote the creators, and even encourage fans to buy songs where/when possible. As a result, I sent them a formal and respectful email, provided with the copyright takedown notices, shortly after the incident asking them to allow YouTube to restore the videos. Seeing as there's been no response (and personally I'd be surprised if there was one), I believe it's time to discuss the future of song videos on the wiki.
Should song pages continue using videos or should specific time periods/media no longer have videos?
Here are the issues:
- The majority of the 60s songs are on an autogenerated YouTube channel that limits views to just the US. While many of the wiki's viewers are from the US, this unfortunately leaves every other fan with blocked videos.
- The majority of the CGI films songs are on an autogenerated YouTube channel that may or may not have limits on views.
- David Alvinson's channels, which have held many of the wiki's/fandoms videos, have been deleted multiple times.
- AlvinnnOriginals and Alvinnn Originals have both been deleted.
- Cleaning up after large deletions only for them to occur again is a lot of burnt time and morale.
- It would seem Bagdasarian Productions doesn't want the wiki advertising for them so why should we? It would stand to reason that no matter how respectful we are, they would do it again if we reuploaded and replaced videos.
I personally am not strongly set on any one option. Should we fight and try again or should we be more constructive with our time and focus strictly on the information? The fan in me says to fight but the realist in me says it's ultimately pointless. The wiki has also been trying to be more diverse, slowly including more non-US information (started with the UK DVD case study and most recently with additional non-US Alvinnn air dates through the new episode infoboxes) and the restrictions on the 60s songs don't support that long-term goal.
What are your thoughts on the matter? Should we keep all videos, not add new videos, remove some specific videos (eg. 60s or Alvinnn), remove them all, only keep the most significant videos, etc?