If you haven't been asleep or out of the country the past seven days, you are fully aware of two rather controversial skits performed last Saturday on NBC's "Saturday Night Live."
In one, CNN Democrat debate moderators were depicted, "like nearly everyone in the news media," as being "totally in the tank for Senator Obama." Later, host Tina Fey basically gave a campaign speech for Hillary Clinton.
Videos of these skits began appearing at YouTube almost as soon as they were performed on the East Coast. Apparently for copyright infringement reasons, these unauthorized videos were pulled, sometimes within hours of them being posted.
Yet, as suggested by NewsBusters reader Myron Howard, there appears to be a political element at play for this clip from Saturday's show featuring Republican candidate Mike Huckabee was posted at YouTube on Sunday, and has not been removed:
There are approximately 20,000 videos available at YouTube which include the words "Saturday Night Live" or "SNL" that have not been removed for copyright reasons. To be sure, many of these don't actually include material subject to copyright laws. However, besides the Huckabee segment from last week, many do.
This raises an important question: when does NBC feel the need to enforce copyright rules and pressure YouTube to comply? Is there a political element here, especially given the continued presence of the Huckabee skit from the very same installment as the two popular segments that have been aggressively removed from YouTube?
Consider, for instance, this "SNL" video from last Halloween that is very unflattering to the Clintons, while positively depiciting surprise guest Obama:
It was originally posted at YouTube on December 9, and despite copyright rules, it's still there!
Why? Is NBC only willing to enforce its copyrights on skits that don't reflect its political views? Were NBC top brass offended enough by Fey's positive sentiments toward Hillary, as well as the implication that media are in the tank for Obama, to force YouTube to pull them?
Yet, a skit from last year bashing the Clintons while gushing over Obama is allowed to stay at the video website for almost three months.
Why the selective enforcement of copyrights, NBC?