Earlier this week I sat down with Redlasso CEO Kenyon Hayward for an update on the Redlasso business and the company’s ongoing negotiating process with big media networks. There’s much to write about on that front, but since I won’t get to that today, I thought in the meantime I’d share a bizarre coincidence I encountered while testing out the Redlasso service.
Redlasso uses several tools for video search on its site, including meta data search, closed caption service and phonetic word recognition. I tried searching for WiMAX clips first, but didn’t get anywhere except some phonetic results that didn’t actually have anything to do with WiMAX. So then I searched on Comcast. Several hits came back, and I clicked on a clip from ESPN. Interestingly, a DTV transition ad came up. It hadn’t occurred to me that commercials would be in the mix, but of course that makes sense.
However, the exceedingly weird moment came when I realized who was starring in the Comcast ad. Standing in front of me on the computer screen was a guy I went to college with. Actually, it was the guy I performed with in our school’s production of Carousel. That performance as Julie was one of my last hurrahs in the theater world, but “Billy” has gone on to Broadway, print ads, and apparently Comcast DTV commercials.
What a strange, strange and small world.
Uh, I’m not sure how I feel about running Comcast ads on our site. ;)
I would take less offense to watching old footage of 1950s era animal product testing than I would being made to watch Comcast video ads here.
Redlasso is breaking copyright law. They are giving away copyrighted material for free, and not giving anyone the royalties they deserve. They are no better than people who steal music and movies online.
As an actor, Redlasso and companies like it make me sick. A lot of us feel this way. I hope this company gets buried by lawsuits.