MTV Pulls the Plug on Embeddable Videos

When NBC Universal (GE) and News Corporation (NWS) -backed Hulu launched in Fall 2007, it was a signal that old television media might actually grasp the distributive power of the internet. Not only were great programs made available for free as streaming videos, users could grab and embed them anywhere online - in their entirety or just as clips.

So it’s a bit of a shame to see another giant media conglomerate, Viacom (VIA), buck this trend and actually clamp down on the embedding of videos from the MTV Network. Yesterday in a post to its developer blog, a staff member for MTVN developer services announced that video embeds would no longer be available through MTV’s API, starting sometime in early March.

Currently, developers can build websites that embed videos from MTV, VH1, CMT and Logo (such as this one that also embeds videos from YouTube). But soon developers will be allowed to display only thumbnails and meta data associated with MTV’s videos. If users want to watch the actual videos, they’ll have to follow links back to webpages that are owned and monetized by MTVN.

This not only means that developers can no longer build websites that automatically incorporate MTVN’s high quality video content; you simply won’t find legitimate embeds from MTVN anywhere, since you’re already not allowed to embed the videos as an end user.

We don’t know yet why MTVN decided to pull the plug on the most useful part of its API, but we do know that at least several developers are angry, especially since they helped MTVN debug the API only to see their capabilities limited. We’ve sent an email to the staff member who posted the announcement and hope to hear back from him soon.

Original post

Comments

[Linda Nelson:]

Just another example of the scarcity mentality that prevades the "old school" media world. MTV has been on the slide for a long time only and this will just be another nail in the coffin. Don't they get that people really enjoy the engagement and ability to really share things they like with their friends. Every time you make this harder to do, rather than easier, you lose fans. There's so much choice out there these days - you'd think they'd get it. There is this constant effort to try and apply the "old rules" to new media. The revolution has begun and there's no turning back. Trying to preserve or grow ad revenue this way is going to cost them a lot of users.

Feb 15 12:02 PM