Courtesy of the incredibly unfunny Zack Scott, here’s a nice post on copyright do’s and don’ts from “Daily Blog Tips.”
I am not too excited to hear that I could still be liable for copyright infringement even if I remove content. Ouch. Good thing I have a brother who’s an attorney.
Yesterday’s post about Viacom suing Google brought a couple dozen fantastic debate points. You can rest assured that Viacom’s public relations team is doing a “word of mouth” audit (using Buzzmetrics or another player) and that your quotes are being read by nervous spokespeople.
I was amused by at Slashdot in which one individual suggested Google should remove all Viacom properties from its search results! Richard Brandt, a blogger and journalist who is writing a book on Google, predicts Viacom will settle for $500 million.
Incidentally, I started my online video obsession with Revver and uploaded about 2 dozen videos with copyrighted music. Revver’s CEO, Steven Starr, called me one day and explained why the site is vigilant about copyrighted material. He explained how, in the end, I’d want the protection of copyright for my content. I was so compelled with his rationale that I voluntarily pulled videos down and resubmitted them with Garageband music. A couple weeks ago I used a company’s logo on a Revver video, and Revver received a hostile letter from the logo’s owner (and you know who you are, bastards). Again- I pulled the video down quickly and apologized to Revver.
Now my rule of thumb is simple: If a copyrighted song will dramatically help a video, I’ll use it as a score. But I never do it for a video that I think might have a shelf life, and I accept 5 risks.
That being said, I think Viacom is tarnishing its public image by acting like a scorned girlfriend.
It’s understandable that it feels robbed, frustrated and a bit frightened. In the end, it has an obligation to protect its content. Here’s what gets me. How in the WORLD can it point to a loss of revenue?
I once did a video with my son laughing at “The Office” (probably my favorite television show). The video is about my son’s reaction to a brief clip. I contacted the network numerous times to get their approval to put this online and didn’t get the courtesy of a response. To thee I say… “lighten up, Francis.” Dang. I can’t find that clip from Stripes on YouTube.
The title to this post will be lost on anyone that’s not an Eddie Murphy fan. But there’s at least one reader who will get that. The Cap’n came to my defense like a big brother wrestling down a bully.
Thank you readers for your help in fixing the Break.com situation. Seems I’m not the only person that has had his videos ripped and submitted to Break (and other sites). Sometimes I’d be flattered, but Break.com pays and gives huge exposure.
More than 1.5 million people viewed Husband is Bored at the Mall and Pennies for the Tollbooth Man on Break in the past few days. This helped me appreciate that despite lower traffic, Break commands more views to its homepage videos than YouTube.
I missed a good opportunity to brand the blog, CubeBreak and my videos. The Break folks said it was a technology glitch, and fixed the attribution to point to my EvilFist account on Break. EvilFist was my temporary alter ego that made a series of videos (see www.evilfist.com) that were a bit more provocative than my regular stuff.
I’ll update more as I get more details on how a video can appear on Break attributed to someone else — without the person knowing it happened. Puzzling. Also curious if Break will back pay me for these since typically you get $400 if your video hits the homepage.
MySpace is going to automate the process of filtering for copyrighted infringements — according to a WSJ article today. “The technology enables MySpace to identify copyrighted music audio recordings in the Global Media Database for designated rights holders, allowing MySpace to block the uploading of such works,” says a release by Gracenotes, the company providing the technology.
It’s called “Audio Fingerprinting” technology. Continues the release:
Gracenote’s technology is broadly used in the digital media industry and has several applications, including content filtering, broadcast monitoring, mobile music recognition, music file recognition and rights clearance.
No more lip synching (God rest its soul). And may I recommend that the next time you sing a tune in your video, you sing off key?
In a recent analyst call, Disney-ABC Television president framed content piracy as a competitor. Disney has always had the most fierce content attorneys, so this is a surprising quote. Via an arstechnica article I found in Adriana’s furl.
“So we understand piracy now as a business model,” said Anne Sweeney, the president of Disney-ABC Television Group. “It exists to serve a need in the marketplace specifically for consumers who want TV content on demand and it competes for consumers the same way we do, through high-quality, price and availability and we don’t like the model. But we realize it’s effective enough to make piracy a key competitor going forward. And we’ve created a strategy to address this threat with attractive, easy to use ways to for viewers to get the content they want from us legally; in other words, keeping honest people honest.”
Techcrunch announces that Warner Music Group will allow its music to be used in YouTube videos, but retain the right to yank it if it chooses.
…the caveat that Warner will have effective veto power over videos using their music is particularly interesting. In effect it’s just a technological realization of the long standing policy reality – YouTube has willingly pulled copyrighted content on request for some time. While DRM has been understood as a prerequisite for online distribution of major label content, this announcement seems to indicate a switch in responsibilities. Instead of the distributor locking down the content by default, use is open by default and can be closed at the rights holder’s discretion. It’s a very real recognition of the promotional power of copyrighted content being reused in original art.
This is progress, but I wouldn’t advise you to use the tunes in your next video. There are two issues. First, I doubt many pay-for-content sites (Revver, Metacafe) will have the same arrangement with Warner Music Group (click to see labels it represents). I hope I’m wrong. Second- this will limit the videos syndication beyond YouTube because you’re not effectively the owner of the content when Warner Brothers has a “veto” clause.
Thanks to a comment by TK42one, we’ve picked up on this post by Rebelscum. Seems YouTube pulled some fan clips, and the Star Wars fans raised it with LucasFilms. Here’s the announcement from LucasFilms:
Lucasfilm has been informed that YouTube recently removed from its site several fan-made Star Wars spoofs and parodies. We would like the fan film community to know that this was not done at our request. Apparently the action was taken by YouTube as a result of a misunderstanding of a request to remove an item containing material taken from starwars.com without our permission. We have asked YouTube to restore any works that they inadvertently removed.
Very “Mentos*” of LucasFilms. Very “Non NBC**” behavior here. Sure- don’t let people steal your stuff and make money. But if they want to use a tiny clip and you get free promotion… go with it.
Definitions:
P.S. Did you notice how I sided with YouTube on the YouTube v. NBC issue? A good blogger has balance. I’m not mad at them today.
Says John Paczkowski of “Good Morning Silicon Valley::
YouTube says it’s protected from such legal attacks under a federal law that shields online services from liability for copyright violations its customers may commit, that argument loses potency if the service profits from infringements. One could argue that YouTube is doing just that by running ads in its search results, and someone surely will. The courts will almost certainly end up deciding that one.
John asks… “How long will the people who create the videos that are YouTube’s lifeblood be satisfied with attention as compensation? How long before more clip makers catch on and begin taking their content to an outfit that will pay them for it?”
I’m not saying I have the exact date, but it’s going to be in 2006 for most people. Enter the pool, John. Enter the pool.
A few of us have decided to do a “Screw with ZeFrank” contest. ZeFrank, as readers perhaps have noticed, doesn’t react to much in the blogosphere. He scans comments on his blog, and reads news headlines. He reads academic books. But he’s kinda a web introvert. Like Johnny Carson- big “on stage” presence but kept to himself.
So here’s the challenge. Can you provoke the hermit crab out of his shell by producing a blog post or video? Can you create something so outrageous that he feels obliged to respond?
The winner gets a date with ZeFrank at the restaurant of their choosing in NYC (paid for by the ZeFrank Foundation). Deadline April 1, 1981.
Here are my first three attempts:
Here’s a video from ZDNet that features part of a round table about consumer-generated media at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit in Palo Alto, Calif. At first I’m bored by Chad. Then Michael kicks in, and I almost think we’ll have an intelligent debate. But it seems like the themes are:
Wrong, wrong and wrong. YouTube is amassing a huge audience. Will everyone have their moment, or will that go to the content that can sell the most ads? YouTube certainly bears responsibility for hosting videos that are clearly stolen. Do a search for any brand name or television show.
Finally… I’m getting sick of this “if they complain we’ll take it down.” That’s like me borrowing Hurley’s car and telling him that he can call me on my cell if he needs it back.