"It has to do with our commitment to our interviewees — who have gifted their time and unique stories as part of this historic project," says archive chief Karen Herman. "At this early stage in our Internet implementation, we want to ensure that their interviews are seen as they were intended to be seen and available only in sites that are compatible with our mission — to honor the contributions of these television legends and make sure that their stories are not disparaged, taken out of context, or misrepresented. Perhaps our policy will change if YouTube adds features which will allow us to permit embedding to specific sites."

Thanks for getting back to us, Ms. Herman. Respectfully, I disagree with that philosophy. You're the leader of an academy, which means you should welcome any negative comments that these interviews might generate. Bottom line: Sites borrowing the video can't change it for sinister aims. It's safely embedded on your own server. The worst bloggers can do is criticize it and that's something you should never fear. It's something, in fact, you should invite.

The reason I'm making a big deal out of this issue is because I have one serious gripe with this academy, which I have the greatest respect for otherwise, by the way — far above all other showbiz academies. This one actually has the guts to force its voters to watch samples of what they're voting on when choosing awards. It's not running an outright popularity contest and, as a result, the Emmy is far superior in every way to the Oscar, Grammy, Tony or Golden Globe. Period. No contest. If Hollywood ever came up with a new kudo for best showbiz award and the nominees were the Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, Tony and Golden Globe, the Emmy would win in a landslide among people really in the know. (Forget all of those Oscar snobs!)

But this academy suffers — and only recently — from Hollywood hubris. It's always trying to control things too much, even hide things, which never used to be the case. For example, our recent battle over releasing the primetime Emmys' pre-noms lists. Why hide those lists? Several weeks ago that other TV academy, the one in New York that bestows the Daytime Emmys, officially released its pre-nom lists (SEE HERE). To see a few examples of announcements about Oscar pre-noms, CLICK HERE and HERE.

Now the academy is restricting these videos . . . why? Because bloggers might say something negative. Mind you, if a blogger features the video in a truly objectionable way, archive chiefs can get that site's host provider to take the video down easily. Internet providers are terrified of lawsuits and buckle automatically when approached.

So that's not really the issue. The issue is control, Hollywood ego, and the fear that someone might say something negative. OK, if the archive wishes to have that policy, fine, it's entitled. But it's not entitled to have that policy and still call itself an "academy." That's fraudulent. And an outrage. Of all the reasons this "academy" could cite for not sharing its video, that's the worst — because it's an admission that it will not tolerate what all academies must.

Memo to ATAS: Lighten up, let go and permit healthy debate to begin. That's the primary reason for your existence, you know, not to give out awards. You have the power to do what you're doing, but you do not have the ethical right.

Today I was tempted to call Dick Van Dyke, Carl Reiner and Betty White to ask what they think about this video policy, but I'm sure we already know the answer. They wouldn't be afraid of a little criticism and they'd probably be thrilled, at this point in their careers, to be causing a bit of a hubbub on the web. And my guess is that they'd be very upset to hear that tens of millions of people will not see their interviews because the archive refuses to conform to standard internet protocol. But I didn't push it because, well, come on . . . they belong to that generation that never learned to program a VCR. Do you think Betty White has any idea what an embedding code is?

Lastly, if the TV academy really believes that the embedding codes of videos it owns should not be shared on the internet, its leaders must contact MySpace, Google and even YouTube immediately to insist that all videos of past Emmy ceremonies be removed. If ATAS contacts them, the web services will comply and all videos will be unplugged pronto and Sally Field will no longer have to worry that someone might disparage what she said during her anti-war rant at the podium last year. And clearly lots of people have done so, considering how controversial her comments were.

Emmy-owned videos of celeb acceptance speeches at the past award ceremonies are no different than the Emmy-owned archive interviews and the academy should have one policy governing all. If it refuses to have the open-code ceremony videos removed from Google Video, MySpaceVideo, YouTube, etc., then that reveals what's really behind this current archive issue. Obviously, Karen Herman and her colleagues just don't want to share these videos. They did the work, they don't want to let go and they insist now that everyone must come to their doorstep and don the white gloves.

That's how websites used to think back in the Dark Ages. Make everyone come to you, then lock the door and don't link outward for fear that users will get away. Embedding codes are the new links and the Emmy archives want to keep them hidden because they don't understand them. But that's ridiculous. As Google has taught us all, it's important to load up as many links and codes as possible on every cyber-page so that the cross-webbing we create forces content to rise up the hierarchy of search engines, thus attracting millions of more browsers.

So, academy chiefs: What's your policy on this vital issue and what will you do about this? You're supposed to be internet-savvy so you must know how high the stakes are. Before you answer, consider this: imagine what message you will send to the world if, now that you are producing video just like groups that win your awards, you refuse to let yours become enmeshed with the greater internet/ blog/ TV dynamic occurring across media. By embracing such a restrictive, old-school policy, you're not only telling us that you don't understand the great cyber-convergence going on today, but also, frankly, that you have no business leading the industry discussion about it.

You must either force the removal of all Emmy videos from the web that have open embedding codes (see sample below) or else permit your archive videos to co-exist with them side by side at YouTube, etc. If you choose the latter, that means you must force your video archive to comply with the open-code policy that everyone else — including you — actually endorse already. Failure to deal firmly with what I perceive is an issue of internal bureaucratic stubbornness means that tens of millions of TV fans will never get to treasure those magnificent gems in your family vault. That's too high a price to pay to let this matter go unaddressed.

Furthermore, the stakes are too high in terms of credibility for the TV academy to have the wrong policy on a key matter facing the future of media. As ATAS continues to fumble ways to bestow Emmys to broadband video, its harshest critics claim that the academy obviously can't grasp the Internet. Now its archive video policy further proves the point.