HBO Pulls Nearly All Real Time with Bill Maher Clips

As noted below, I found that minutes after posting the "New Rules" segment of Real Time with Bill Maher--like I almost always do if there is a new episode--HBO pulled the clip for copyright violation. After a little research, I found that the old clips are mostly gone now too. I'm not sure who got a bug up their butt last night at TimeWarner to yank them all, but it seems to have happened.

I have mixed feelings about this. I understand and sympathize with their copyright concerns, and with the fact that Real Time is on a pay service. Sure, it makes sense that they wouldn't want to give it away for free. On the other hand, allowing the clips generates buzz, interests people to what the show is all about, and probably encourages some people to subscribe to HBO so that they can watch it live. HBO might counter that "who would watch it live if they can get it for free on the internet?" Well, Real Time is a live program. Many people want to watch such a program as it airs, especially since it is time-dated material. It has an expiration date. Somehow, NBC and CBS have survived as entities while allowing shared clips of their programs.

I checked out HBO's site, and while they have a limited number of videos there, they can--as far as I can tell--only be linked to, not embedded. Which limits their attractiveness for blogging. So, HBO, you may be in the legal right here, but you also may be losing a significant amount of buzz. MSNBC has not pulled links to their programming from YouTube, most likely because of that sort of buzz.