For more information on Partymanners, you can visit this New York Times blog piece or read Lisa Grimm's take on the exercise at her blog.
As far as I know, the PaceAdvantage.com forum broke news of Youtube.com suspending Partymanners' account when the user Smartybadger started a thread asking what happened. Jim Conti, the administrator of the Partymanners Youtube.com page, posted explanations using the handle KirisClown.
That's all the information I know, and I provide it here for you to avail yourself. This post is not about taking sides or to lament the loss of the Partymanners account but to ask why racing doesn't maintain its own archive—an online Hall of Fame perhaps?
The reason the Internet can be such a time suck is because of the circuitous nature of how you access information. You click on a related link and find more information. Rinse; wash; repeat.
Allowing users to interact with tens of thousands of racing videos would create an index not only of great races but also of great moments of all sorts: Users could index races as a great ride, a great turf race, a great maiden win, a terrible trip, a 2YO to watch, etc. There is often a perceived divide between those who like to gamble on horses and those who like horses. A video archive of this nature would keep everyone happy.
Racing is a business, and I'm not suggesting that a track or nonprofit dump a bunch of money into this as charity for race fans, but given the dismay over the Partymanners shut down, the fact that a lot of video was out there already, and technology such as TwinSpiresTV has moved watching live video and replays into a web 2.0 environment, surely racing can make lemonade here, no?
This is what I get for being mostly offline over the weekend - I had not heard until now. It's certainly bad news, and you're quite right to call for some sort of official (free) repository for these replays.
ReplyDeleteIt would be easy enough to set up (using YouTube or Vimeo to deliver the footage) - imagine how great it could be with the original (or possibly restored) video.
I'd be happy to make it happen, for the right salary!
Who, I wonder, owns the copyright to all of the races? OTB has an awful lot of say in NY about what races can be shown where (for instance, OTB prohibits NYRA from showing live streaming on NYRA's own site); and I imagine that the networks have copyright on nationally shown races.
ReplyDeleteCertainly not insurmountable, but I wonder if a racetrack could even put up video of all of its own races.
Teresa (and Patrick via Twitter) both raise concerns regarding the content.
ReplyDeleteObviously, as soon as this becomes any sort of moneymaking enterprise, the rightful owners will raise a stink, but the fact that Partymanners' account operated uninterrupted for nearly four years, including a huge jump from NYT pub before the Belmont, tells me that the tracks/networks/horsemen are willing to share their content as long as they're not missing out on any of that sweet green.
It's a shame that all fans - existing and future - are effectively robbed of this great resource by the petty actions of an individual.
ReplyDeleteI for one never presumed 'partymanners' was exclusively one person and that contributions required the efforts of others. Nor did I ever feel that anyone - including Jim - was looking to self promote via the videos. Compensation by the videos very nature of being free on youtube never appeared to be a factor.
Because there are for-pay entities like Race Replays aligned with tracks I don't see such a firm sitting quietly on the sideline again if a 'partymanners' like channel is created on youtube.
Folks may recall when a loop-hole existed with Caracing and replays for many non-California tracks was uncovered. That was in large part shut down for non-authorized purposes.
While CDI has done a good job of putting CD owned tracks current races on youtube plenty of others never have and never will. Getting someone again to invest and time and energy (truly a labor of love) simply is hard to forsee despite many folks indicating they'd be willing to step up to a thankless job and potentially one with a liability should the ESPN's (et al) decide to puruse copyright claims.
What a true loss and frankly the petty individual behind the debacle should feel the heat from the fans for his miserable actions.
Good stuff Eddie... and to clarify, Partymanners (Joe Conti) did all of this for free as a labor of love. He didn't benefit financially whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteEd,
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing about the story..
The reactions from around the web and the appreciation shown by the fans who followed my channel has been moving. While what happened is ultimately a disaster, I'm thrilled to see just how many people were watching and enjoying. It made all of the effort and time investment worth it.
Jim
Jim,
ReplyDeleteI watched all of your videos and I am shocked and outraged by this.I knew something was wrong when Rachels Preakness was not on youtube.My tag name is rc18b on youtube I have some Rachel stuff Woodward,Haskell and other horse videos.Most are postrace videos.I appreciate all the effort you have put in and I think the person who did this to you is a disgrace.Probably some little pissant beancounter who has nothing better to do.
Mike
HorseRacingNation.com keeps an archive, although they were linking to many of partymanner's videos. A shame.
ReplyDelete