| Corey Vidal | |
|---|---|
Corey Vidal hosting the 888 YouTube Gathering |
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| Born | Corey Steven Vidal December 7, 1986 St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada |
| Nationality | 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.
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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 6 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.
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.
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]
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.
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.
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.
| 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] |