- Corey Vidal
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Corey Vidal 
Corey Vidal hosting the 888 YouTube GatheringBorn Corey Steven Vidal
December 7, 1986
St. Catharines, Ontario, CanadaNationality Canadian Years active August 2006–present Known for YouTube Partner; Variety entertainment Notable works YouTube video series, 888 YouTube Gathering (host) Internet information Web alias(es) ApprenticeA, CoreyVidal Web hosting service(s) YouTube Meme Star Wars (John Williams Is The Man) A Cappella Tribute Website youtube.com/coreyvidal Corey Vidal (born December 7, 1986) is a Canadian online video content provider and digital media consultant. His YouTube videos have been seen over 50 million times, and he has over 175 videos, as of March 2011. He is ranked as one of Canada's "Most Viewed" Partners[1] and "Most Subscribed"[2] users of all time, and ranks in the top 300 YouTube channels worldwide.[3] He is also Canada's "#2 Most Subscribed Guru".[4] His YouTube channel profile has been viewed over 7 million times. In December 2007, Vidal was one of the first Canadians to join the YouTube Partnership Program.[5] Vidal has over 200,000 subscribers.
Contents
YouTube career
Vidal began on YouTube in mid-2006 by posting hip hop dance videos inspired by American dance reality television show So You Think You Can Dance.[6] His popularity stemmed from the success of one of his first videos, How To Dance: "1, 2 Step" by Ciara ft. Missy Elliot (uploaded to YouTube on September 3, 2006), where he teaches dance steps to R&B singer Ciara's popular music video 1, 2 Step. This video is the #1 Most Viewed (All Time) and #1 Top Favorited (All Time) video for a Canadian in the "Howto & Style" category.[7] It currently has over 5 million views.
Following his How To Dance series, Vidal branched into other types of videos.[8] His channel career spans dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, beatboxing, acting in short films (including a major short film production by Niagara College), solving Rubik's Cubes, video blogging, and collaborating with other YouTubers. Microsoft Canada has contributed to one of Corey's videos,[5] and MTV Europe contacted him to produce an exclusive video to appear in their televised series MTV's Best.Show.Ever in 2007.[5] In December 2008, Corey produced a 4-part a cappella Christmas e-card for California-based consulting firm Barbary Coast Consulting.[9] In May 2009, Vidal released a 33-part interactive choose-your-own-adventure-style video as part of a collaboration with Blendtec,[8] the company behind Will It Blend?. He is working on a 14-part television commercial project with Moosebutter and NBC Universal.[citation needed]
Vidal first gained national Canadian media attention in the summer of 2008 when he was announced as the host[10] of the 888 YouTube Gathering that took place August 8, 2008 in Toronto, Canada.[11][12] Corey hosted a one-hour show featuring many of YouTube's most popular "cewebrities",[13] including KevJumba, HappySlip, Dave Days, Charles Trippy, Shay Carl, Philip DeFranco, and more.
Star Wars (John Williams Is The Man) A Cappella Tribute
A notable success is his most popular video, a Star Wars a cappella tribute to John Williams - a video of Vidal lip-syncing to a song written in 1999 and recorded in 2002 by a cappella comedy troupe Moosebutter.[14] The video was featured on YouTube Canada's homepage on November 3, 2008, and then again on the Worldwide homepage three days later. It appeared on the homepage of MSN.com, and was featured by MSN Videos and StupidVideos.com. As of March 2011, the video has been viewed over 13 million times since its upload on October 27, 2008. The video quickly became Canada's #1 Top Rated (All Time) and #1 Top Favorited (All Time) Entertainment video, and now has many other All Time Honors both in Canada and Worldwide. It is also ranked as one of YouTube's Top 100 Rated videos of All Time.[15]
On December 7, 2008 the video was nominated for a 35th Annual People's Choice Awards on CBS as "Favorite User Generated Video" of 2008.[16] It faced competition in its category from other viral videos such as Barack Roll, Fred Goes Swimming, Where the Hell is Matt? (2008), and Wassup 2008. Vidal attended the red carpet event in Los Angeles on January 7, 2009.[8]
Copyright disputes
Vidal is known on YouTube for his multiple Digital Millennium Copyright Act disputes between the content in his videos and copyrighted works owned by major studios and labels. To date, Vidal has fought and won every claim made against his videos.
4 Minutes
The first claim came from Warner Music Group in April 2008 over the use of Madonna's song 4 Minutes in one of his hip hop dance videos. The video was removed from YouTube by Warner a month after it being uploaded, having received over 200,000 views. Vidal fought Warner with an official DMCA counter-claim, filed through YouTube's copyright system.[8]
Two weeks after his claim was made, Madonna herself uploaded a video to her official YouTube channel titled Madonna's Message To YouTube saying "So all you people out there who are making videos to my single 4 Minutes, keep up the good work. Nice job, nice one, OK. But you got to clean up after yourself, alright?"[5]
Vidal forwarded this video to YouTube's copyright department as well as Warner Music Group's legal team, and on May 9, 2008 his video was restored in full, with no penalties held against his account. Ironically, after a falling-out between YouTube and Warner Music Group in early 2009,[17] Warner pulled down every video on YouTube that contained any of their material. This included a complete purging of Madonna's YouTube account and all her videos, including the official music video to 4 Minutes as well as Madonna's message to YouTube. However, because Vidal's claim had legally won in 2008, they were unable to remove his video. It currently has over 4 million views.
John Williams/Star Wars A Cappella Tribute
In mid-January 2009, Vidal's Star Wars A Cappella video was removed from YouTube due to a DMCA copyright infringement claim by Warner Music Group.[18] His entire account and all of his videos were suspended, then returned three days later, however the a cappella video remained banned and unviewable. For over a month, the official video was unavailable on YouTube, but copies were spread around the Internet by other uploaders on YouTube and other media sites. On February 24, 2009 the original video returned after Vidal fought Warner's claim, citing the video as being protected under fair use. The video was restored with its original views, ratings, and comments.
Awards and nominations
Year Nominated work Category Award Result 2009 Star Wars (John Williams Is The Man) A Cappella Tribute Favorite User Generated Video People's Choice Awards Nominated[16] See also
References
- ^ "Most Viewed Partners (All Time) — Canada". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/members?s=mv&t=a&g=5.
- ^ "Most Subscribed (All Time) — Canada". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/members?t=a&p=1&s=ms&g=0&gl=CA.
- ^ "YouTube Top 500 Most Subscribed Channels". VidStatsX.com. http://vidstatsx.com/youtube-top-500-most-subscribed-channels.
- ^ "Most Subscribed Gurus (All Time) — Canada". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/members?t=a&p=1&s=ms&g=4&gl=CA.
- ^ a b c d Brent Lawson (September 27, 2008). "Our YouTube wonder guy". The Hamilton Spectator. http://www.thespec.com/Entertainment/article/441449.
- ^ Kate Scroggins (September 9, 2008). "More men drawn to dancing, inspired by TV reality competitions". The Canadian Press. http://www.cbc.ca/cp/entertainment/080909/e090921A.html.
- ^ Danni Gresko (April 25, 2008). "Five million tune into the Corey Vidal Show". Niagara This Week. http://www.niagarathisweek.com/news/article/171326.
- ^ a b c d Cheryl Clock (June 26, 2009). "Pelham videographer becomes YouTube star". St. Catharines Standard. http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1582672.
- ^ Audrey Cooper (December 19, 2008). "City insiders' holiday greetings". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?&entry_id=33669.
- ^ Maryanne Firth (August 6, 2008). "YouTube - live and in person". Welland Tribune. http://www.wellandtribune.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1145106.
- ^ Allison Vuchnich (August 9, 2008). "888 YouTube Toronto Meetup". Global National. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84RNAHO-TvI.
- ^ Danni Gresko (August 8, 2008). "Overnight celebrity gathering in Toronto". Niagara This Week. http://www.niagarathisweek.com/news/article/197114.
- ^ Chris Bilton (August 11, 2008). "The science of cewebrity". EYE WEEKLY. http://www.eyeweekly.com/blog/post/35678.
- ^ Christopher Healy (November 23, 2008). "A Cappella Groups: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Instruments?". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/20/AR2008112003449.html.
- ^ "YouTube - Star Wars (John Williams Is The Man) - an a cappella tribute". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk5_OSsawz4. Retrieved 2009-04-21.
- ^ a b "People's Choice Awards Nominees & Winners: 2009". CBS (People's Choice Awards). January 7, 2009. http://www.peopleschoice.com/pca/awards/nominees/index.jsp?year=2009.
- ^ Fred von Lohmann (February 3, 2009). "YouTube's January Fair Use Massacre". Electronic Frontier Foundation. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/youtubes-january-fair-use-massacre.
- ^ Greg Sandoval (January 27, 2009). "YouTube users caught in Warner Music spat". CNET. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10150588-93.html.
External links
Categories:- Beatboxers
- Canadian Christians
- Canadian dancers
- Canadian people of German descent
- Canadian Internet personalities
- 1986 births
- Living people
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