‘American Idol XIII’ spoilers: The top 5 spoilers; a change in YouTube policy

The first story that we want to discuss here is actually one that is far more significant to the long-term future of “American Idol” than just a theme for the next new episode.

While this story is really rather long and complicated, what you need to know is this: FremantleMedia, the production company behind the show, has decided that it will claim ownership rights of all “American idol”-related videos onto YouTube. This means that rather than removing clips from the site, they will strictly profit from the videos that are shared by other YouTube accounts. This is a smart move for the show and for Fremantle, who also produces “America’s Got Talent,” “X Factor,” and a variety of other shows. It’s been a long time coming. Why not try to profit off of your own programming online? This is something that we have never understood. Most fans are not uploading performance clips to YouTube expecting to make money; they just want to share the content.

Hopefully, some other companies will follow the lead set here, since this is the way of the future to use a preexisting platform to monetize traffic around the world. It’s hard to do so any other way unless you want to usher in piracy.

Now, onto the theme. According to TVLine, the remaining five contestants after tonight’s show will perform songs requested by America. Ryan Seacrest solicited requests from viewers weeks ago online, and these requests will be narrowed down to a list by … production. Ugh. It’s a good idea in theory, but we imagine that the song lists will ultimately be just a bunch of familiar tracks. The only thing that is interesting about this is that it is a nice way to pander to viewers.

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Photo: Fox