My rant for the day on streaming video

Here's another example of what's wrong with present day copyright law.

I'm reading an American blog, which in one post has embedded video clips from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. This is a show that is broadcast on Comedy Central in the US, but on a different channel in Canada, in this case, The Comedy Network. When I click the play button on the clip, It starts to buffer the video, the Comedy Central logo appears in the player window, then a notice appears; 'In Canada, Comedy Central videos are available on The Comedy Network'.

Now, it's maddening enough when I click on a video and get the 'due to copyright this video is only viewable in the United States' message. And yes - before you offer that all I have to do to watch this material is to use a web proxy based in the US - I already know that and that's not the point here. But in this case, I'm actually told that though I can't watch the material because of copyright, I can just stumble my way to a home grown TV channel web site and can watch it there. Of course, I have to go looking for the clip myself - there's no magic bullet helping me find it with one click. But it gets worse.

I go to The Comedy Network, find the clip(s), start to play one, when I hear audio from some other content blaring from my computer speaker. I pause the clip I'm watching, switch to the tab with the American blog with the video player that won't play me anything. Lo and behold, the player is playing an advertisement for one of the Comedy Central's own programs. Isn't this a nice slap in the face. Hey non-American! Due to copyright agreements, we can't show you any clips of our material. But here's a freaking advertisement of more material we won't let you watch!

That's irony. But it's the kind that really pisses me off.