OK Go Battles EMI Over Embedding YouTube Clips

Earlier this week EMI took away the embed feature on all of OK Go's YouTube videos because, as frontman Damian Kulash put it "labels are hurting and they need every penny they can find." More specifically. the software that YouTube uses doesn't pay record labels royalties when a video is embedded.

A few years ago, when indie bands like Death Cab for Cutie, the Shins and My Morning Jacket were turning indie labels Barsuk, ATO and SubPop into tiny empires and giving major labels a run for their already diminishing money, OK Go, clearly not following the hip route, signed to behemoth EMI and persevered for one simple reason: They made awesome, homemade videos. With YouTube still a novelty, OK Go debuted with '1 Million Ways' and an accompanying video that made them stand out as the world's greatest uncoordinated boy band. 'Here It Goes Again' picked off where the last left off, with OK Go polishing up on their synchronicity and applying their dance moves on treadmills in the track's video. The 'Here It Goes Again' video would get more than 48 million hits on YouTube at last count, and as record sales suggest, 48 million people didn't buy OK Go's last album.

In an open letter, Kulash apologized to fans who were already complaining that the embed code for 'This Too Shall Pass,' the latest single off the band's new album, 'Of the Blue Colour of the Sky,' was nowhere to be found. "We wish there was something we could do," Kulash stated. "Believe us, we want you to pass our videos around more than you do, but, crazy as it may seem, it's now far harder for bands to make videos accessible online than it was four years ago."

Kulash offered some solutions to the problem. "As for our specific roadblock with the video embedding, the obvious solution is for YouTube to work out its software so it [can] allow labels to monetize their videos, wherever on the Internet or the globe they're being accessed," he said. "That'll surely happen before too long because there's plenty of money to be made, but it's more complicated than it looks at first glance." Kulash's other solution was using the embed codes from other streaming site like like MySpace and Vimeo.

While the last option works, Kulash noted the band's allegiance to YouTube as it spearheaded their initial success and "it tends to do our business more good to get 40 million hits on one site than 1 million hits on 40 sites." Kulash ended by admitting that OK Go argued with the label but have come to terms with the end result. "They're aware that their rules make it harder for people to watch and share our videos, but, while our duty is to our music and our fans, theirs is to their shareholders, and they believe they're doing the right thing."

Before any of that is settled, check out 'This Too Shall Pass,' which was recently Spinner's Video of the Day. As a bonus, you can actually use that embed code.