J-Pop group gets Lady Gaga locked out of own YouTube account
Dunno about you, but we haven’t come across a Lady Gaga story for at least an hour now, so let’s set that to rights with news of how Japan’s entertainment mafia put the skids under the slickest pop-marketing machine the United States has to offer by getting Gaga kicked off YouTube.
As you might have heard, the L.G. juggernaut recently rolled through the Asia-Pacific region we hold so dear, leaving bewildered “music” journalists, politicians and balding men in suits coughing up dust clouds in its tire tracks.
SMAP X Gaga
Amid the hyperbole and relentless popping flashbulbs across Japan, China, Australia and, she says, some kind of fantasyland, there came a prime time TV performance in Tokyo with boy/middle-aged-man band SMAP.
- More on CNNGo: Gaga’s fantasyland
Being the social-media maven she is, our Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta posted a clip of the show on YouTube, which is where she came a cropper of the mighty gorilla known as Johnny & Associates.
That’s because the 50-year-old “talent” agency quickly used one of its enforcer firms to get the video pulled on copyright grounds, thereby depriving poor Gaga of another few seconds in the spotlight.
Knocked offline
Not only that, it also left the entire Lady Gaga YouTube channel offline for much of Thursday due to "multiple or severe violations of YouTube's copyright policy."
YouTube owner Google has now -- phew -- flipped the channel’s switch back to the "on" position, but the offending Fuji TV clip will remain forever in the hands of the Johnny crew.
- More on CNNGo: SMAP in trouble in China
