Youtube Pulls Original "Rickroll" Video

@VentureBeat writes "Youtube pulled the original 'Rickroll' video Wednesday night. Don't worry, after a lot of email about the loss of such an important piece of cultural history, Youtube put it back up, saying that they're never gonna say goodbye to the video that's had over 30 million views."

Re:Amazing How Long It's Gone On

[Anonymous Coward]

Cake roll FTW [youtube.com]

1988

[michaelmalak]

A present-day time traveler going back to 1988 might be surprised to read this New York Times article that extols:

The hottest young English pop star of the moment is Rick Astley, a 21-year-old singer from a suburb of Manchester, whose debut single, ''Never Gonna Give You Up'' (RCA), has sold a million copies in Britain and reached No. 1 ranking in almost every other European country. The song is now rapidly climbing the United States pop charts and is the country's best-selling 12-inch single.

The record's most striking quality is Mr. Astley's voice - a rich, throbbing baritone that suggests Tom Jones crossed with Luther Vandross. It is definitely not the kind of voice one expects to hear on a contemporary dance record. Since ''Never Gonna Give You Up,'' Mr. Astley has gone on to score two more major English hits, ''Whenever You Need Somebody'' (the title song of his debut album) and a revival of ''When I Fall in Love,'' which re-creates note for note the classic Gordon Jenkins arrangement for Nat (King) Cole's 1957 recording.

Mr. Astley is the latest discovery of the successful producing and songwriting team of Stock-Aitken-Waterman, which also produces the group Bananarama. The team has popularized a streamlined homogenized pop-disco sound with an unruffled high-gloss surface that stands in marked contrast to the more angular, rhythmically inventive dance-funk of Prince and his disciples.

''I'm influenced by a lot of black American artists,'' Mr. Astley said in a recent telephone interview. ''Luther Vandross is one of my favorites, and I like James Ingram and Jeffrey Osborne.''

At least for now, Mr. Astley is content to have his voice packaged by Stock-Aiken-Waterman.

''I like dance music,'' he said. ''I'm happy doing what I'm doing and want to get more deeply into it.''

Astley's videos were a big thing at the time, coming just two years into MTV's decline that was precipitated by Viacom's purchase of it and MTV still had some of its original appeal of showing a) videos that were b) popular.

Re:not a problem

[Knara]

its called technological progress. the gun did away with centuries of feudal caste systems, the nuclear bomb stopped the cold war from becoming a hot war, the printing press enabled the enlightenment and the middle class, which destroyed the political powers of religions, etc

Your Cliff's Notes version of history is cute, but not entirely accurate. I'd like you to point out how religion and religious organizations no longer have any political power, for example.

and now, the internet has destroyed the copyright clause and 300 years of western legal tradition. its just that some fools like you don't see it yet

Yup, done away with. That's why you can still be sued for copyright infringement and lose. Obviously, the entire concept is ancient history.

laws created when publishers were a small gentleman's club cannot be realistically enforced on hundreds of millions of poor, media hungry and technologically astute teenagers worldwide who have more distributor power each individually than bertelsmann plus sony plus warner brothers plus the rest did in 1985

wake up, fool

You obviously don't understand the progress of copyright law in the western world since the Statue of Anne. Do some research, learn a little bit. Then come back and we can talk. And when you do, try to foam at the mouth a little less. It's hard on the carpet.