The Jason McElwain Story Comes To CBS News – And YouTube

By now, there's a decent chance you've heard the story of Jason McElwain, an autistic high school student from Rochester, N.Y. McElwain, who managed his school's basketball team, saw some action in the team's last game of the year – and scored 20 points in four minutes as his team and the fans went crazy.

McElwain's inspiring story first aired on CBS on last Thursday's "Evening News." Then, citing the "incredible response," the network decided to air it again the next day, which meant bumping the you-choose-the-story segment "Assignment America" to the following week. It was an uncharacteristic move, one that prompted TV Newser to ask: "When was the last time an evening news program aired the same piece two nights in a row?"

The "Evening News" wasn't the only place the story got heavy play. It exploded on the Web, with CBSNews.com featuring McElwain on the homepage even through today and the blogs buzzing about the "incredibly powerful" story. Many of the blogs weren't linking to Steve Hartman's story on CBSNews.com, however, which featured the full video of his story. Instead, they were linking to YouTube, which bills itself as "a consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos worldwide." Someone had uploaded the "Evening News" story to Youtube, complete with Bob Schieffer's introduction, and it became the most viewed video of the week. At last check, more than 1 million people had watched the "Evening News" piece there.

One might argue this is a good thing for CBS News, since it gets the "Evening News" in front of a million people, many of whom don't watch the program. But it also raises copyright questions that have not gone unnoticed. CBS News, after all, would love to see that million people head to its own site, not least because increased traffic means increased advertising revenue. NBC recently saw a similar phenomenon with its "Lazy Sunday" clip from Saturday Night Live, which became a viral hit on the Web. NBC's lawyers eventually forced YouTube to take the "Lazy Sunday" video down. YouTube wrote the following on its blog: "We know how popular that video is but YouTube respects the rights of copyright holders. You can still watch SNL's Lazy Sunday video for free on NBC's website."

According to Betsy Morgan, Senior Vice President and General Manager of CBSNews.com, CBS News is now reaching out to YouTube to have the Jason McElwain video removed from the site. She says CBS News requires that anyone who wants to use its video in a way that could violate fair use law ask the company for permission. It considers the requests on a case by case basis. No one at YouTube asked CBS News for permission, Morgan says, though it should be noted that YouTube users, not the company, are the ones doing the uploading. "It's uncool for people to take our video without permission," says Morgan. "It's interesting and encouraging that there's that much of an audience for our content. But this stuff should come back to the core site – otherwise it's theft."

She added in an instant message: "We're not anti-YouTube. We are anti-taking video w/out our permission."

[mrgordotime]

It is completely STUPID that CBS thinks it's "uncool" that the video was uploaded... What they should've done, was uploaded a better quality video, and littered the web with it. THAT'S smart business... It's a new age, and sooner than later copyright will be gone, it's time to stop holding on to "old" ideas and start revolutionizing entertainment media, and news.

The fact that they won a whole new group of audience was a win for them. Stop looking a gift horse in the mouth! Instead figure out how to make it work to your advantage.

I don't understand why the big media corporations are being babies about this. This is business 101...

Last thing, if I was selling lemonade, I would give away pretzels, and the saltiest snacks I could find. Customers dying of thirst would need my lemonade.

Don't abandon capitalism, be smarter capitalist.

-gordo flores

[pidipady-2009]

I heard the Guy who registered Jason McElwain's Domain Name is getting about 500 calls a day from people trying to buy it.

[phoenixandy]

Speaking as a film student that always copyrights my materials before I submit them to film festivals, I am very grudgingly on the side of CBS News on this issue, although I don't believe there was any ill intent for YouTube to have the Jason McElwain clip. I think it is one of if not THE most wonderful stories to come out of CBS News. This story actually tugged at my heartstrings.

[mcpierret]

If there is a place to vote for best sports story of the year, let me know, and Steve Hartman will get my vote for his piece on Jason McElwain. The Early Show version was nice, but I was relieved to find Hartman's story again - which cogently chronicled Jason's rise to the unlikely hero, and his feeling "... never this wonderful." A work of art, and representative of the mythos that touches the heart of us all - the story of David and Goliath, or the little engine that could.

[pedagogy21]

Taking the clip down from YouTube was "uncool," as you say, and just makes people angry. Then, putting up a clip with inferior quality is a bad move. You all just don't get it.

[pidipady-2009]

I heard that Disney is interested in doing a movie. Is That true?

Despite this blog, CBS News still doesn't seem to get the internet. It is about being able to link to content or easily email a link to someone. People were able to do that with the story on YouTube. They weren't on CBSNews.com. There is no video on the story page you link. When you click on any of the video links, you get a window pops up to watch it. I can find the video of the story by doing a video search for McElwain. But if I wanted to tell someone they should watch it, I'd have to tell them to go to the search page, enter it in, then click to watch the video. If CBS were smart, they'd both redesign the site to make it easy to link to stories (and keep them archived forever) and pass them on. But they'd also use places like YouTube and systems like bittorent to distribute stories that might be of interest to an audience that frankly isn't watching the evening news. Yes, they may lose some revenue in the short term, but they have a lot to gain in the long term. Perhaps even being able to still exist in 30 years. And they could also include links and info to get people to go to the main CBS news site.

[mrgordotime]

YES!