This time two years ago I began trawling the Internet to find a video of Elvis Costello on The Colbert Report performing a cover of  ‘All I Have To Do Is Dream’ with Stephen Colbert, which originally aired in 2010.

After a light search, I was made aware that musical performances are quickly removed from the Comedy Central website, essentially making it impossible for me to even see or hear the cover via a legal source.

The screen Australians are frequently faced with when searching for Comedy Central content.

Eventually a friend had passed on an mp3 rip of the track, along with a less than stellar video of the performance, which was more than I was going to get by trying to track down an official source.

What this short-lived goose chase allowed me to discover was the tighter the copyright restrictions and monopolisation of content becomes, the more ways you’ll find workarounds for what you’re after.

I tried to find the content on the Colbert Report website, iTunes, Comedy Central, and then any DVD releases. I guess what I’m getting at is the age-old defence of ‘if it were legally available to me, I’d get it’ is valid, at least in my specific case.

Of course the discussion on piracy and reasons for it are dense and many, and throughout the course of this blog, it will be a common topic of discussion for me.