YouTube vs. Viacom

Before I get on my rant I just want to point out "Each day no WinCustomize, we reject..." I think it should read day at WinCustomize. (Sorry, couldn't help it.)

Although I would love to see some cool WindowBlinds showing stuff from Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings, or other movies, I understand that there are copyright issues involved. Since the beginning of the "web-based" Internet I have seen many sites come and go simply because of issues just like this; some of them shut down with legitimate issues, some not. I personally feel that WinCustomize is doing a good job of moderation. There is a way to respond back if your skin gets rejected, and there is a good-faith effort to keep all the content on WinCustomize legal and above-board, so to speak.

In a community such as WinCustomize, there are so many talented authors and designers, with ideas that never seem to run out. It would seem to me that there wouldn't be a need to copy someone else's work! I would like to hear from some of those authors and see what their thoughts are.

Having little talent in this area, it might be easy for me to simply use someone else's work, modify it slightly and call it my own, but why would I want to bring the wrath of Mormegil down on myself? (Not saying he has a temper at all, just love his work, and would love to have people think I was in the same class as him! ) It might also be easy to take a bunch of stills from the LOTR trilogy, extract a color scheme from them, ad create a WindowBlind, but I know that is stealing. Many times, all it takes is a simple letter to the author or creator of the original work and they will give you permission to use it. (Check those info files that come with the skins, many times you'll find credits, permissions, and sometimes the whole e-mail correspondence in there.) I find it refreshing and amazing at the same time, how supportive the WinCustomize community can be. I wouldn't lend anyone here my computer or car, but many authors will let someone else take their WindowBlind and create OD objects to match it. I know it's not on the same level, but I think you can get my point.

To wrap up my points: Stealing is stealing, if you "borrow"; ask (and include) permission ; give credit where credit is due; and Wincustomize is doing a good job. With all but the last one, if you need a refresher there's a book on it, "All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum.

Gollums pretty much posted my opinions on the subject in as much detail as I could have.

The finest line a site can walk, is determining what can be used...and what cannot be used.

Having legitimate proof that an artist has permission to recreate art and pass it on can be more or less of a struggle than determining that a copyright has been violated. Taking a picture from a movie, or cartoon series and making a boot screen from it, is different then copying the movie you have from your DVR and posting it on YouTube. Agreed...I don't think FairUse defines the action.

People love to share...it's inherent in our nature...as Gollums quoted, 'everything you learned, you learned in kindergarten', and it's true. You spend a great deal of time in your fastest learning years of your life to share with others.

A question I'm sure the admins here have to deal with when determining such factors, is how do you really know? Some licenses that may have been obtained are obtained solely for personal use...others may be for additional distribution (sort of like free advertising)...but how can you tell that a business (for example) like Paramount, or FOX just doesn't really have the time to care about a pic being used for a theme? So long as no money is changing hands...such as an artist selling a Star Wars theme. How fine a line that is, remains in the hands of those willing to stand up to it.

I think the founders of Utube cashed out because they saw changes coming. Without copyrighted material, Utube has not much to offer , for me anyways.   

You'd think YouTube is the only site with copyrighted material posted. Let's face it, once it's out there it's out there, if it's not on YouTube, then it's on dailymotion and dozen of other sites like that. YouTube is simply the biggest one and this is why viacom and other content providers should embrace it and build a marketing strategy around it.

Look at NBC and CBS (or maybe it's CBC, whatever). They post promo clips for their shows and short clips directly from the shows. And the promo clips aren't just the same ads they run on tv, they are actually specifically created for youtube. Now, thanks to those clips, specifically The Office and Late Night w/ Greg something, not only do I know about those shows (okay I knew about the office before but not that other one) but I'm actually considering tuning in and checking them out. Whether I do or not, I'm sure there are many people like me and if 1 in 10 of those starts watching those shows then it's a job well done.

Also consider the proliferation of TiVo like devices that allow you to skip commercials, and then consider that those short clips on youtube are not only commercials but they are commercials that *I want to see* - you cannot buy that. Throw in the fact that those clips cost probably 1/10th of tv ads to produce and are practically free to put up. Finally for the coup de gras consider that those youtube clips are much easier to watch (or are fast becoming much easier to watch) on cellphones or various "iPod"s, as oppose to trying to find a device on which you can subscribe to a service which will allow you to watch tv.

So, in conclusion, Viacom are stupid - instead of suing youtube they should be making deals with them.

I don't really use YouTube, but I disagree with some of the points being raised here.

First, Frogboy pointed out initially that, as he understands it (and such is my understanding), entire TV shows or films cannot be uploaded to the site. Whether brief clips 2-4 minutes long constitute a misuse of the "fair use" clause is probably a matter for the lawyers to pick apart, but it seems to me that Frogboy and some of the other posters are willing to put a moral equivalency to uploading a 45-second clip of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and uploading "Pirates of the Caribbean" in its entirety. People use screencaps in website movie and game reviews as a matter of course, and TV shows that are based on reviewing films (like the Ebert & Roeper show) essentially show Youtube-style clips too. Also, it might be slightly OT to point this out, but some moderation does take place on Youtube, as the site has some so-called community standards, so people are not posting videos of themselves having sex with their girl/boyfriends or making short clips from "Busty Call Girls 5."

Second, I have to call into question the idea that Youtube doesn't get a lot of traffic from people watching other people's home videos. As I said, I'm no YouTube expert, and, although my digital camera does take short, fairly low-res video clips, I don't own a DV camera. Nevertheless, it seems to me that this site (and soon its competitors like Flickr)emerged when these technologies were not merely becoming widely available but also were becoming enormously popular "e-toys" among high-school and college-aged youth. I suspect that a lot of site traffic may be from people and their friends uploading and watching these types of vidclips.

My 2 pence.

I'd be one to argue the point that Copyrighted material on youtube is more viewed than non-copyrighted, I think it's probably the other way around. Think about videos like the Nintendo 64 kids, the UCLA tasering video, etc etc... As for snippets from shows and such, how can these companies be angry about that? If anything it's free promotion. Awhile ago I saw a clip from the Colbert Report, and I've watched it since.

I don't really care if copyright protected or free content is more popular on YouTube. That's like an argument: If I go to my food store and pay three times, then I have permission to steel the forth time around. Doubt they follow that argument    In the same way I think the cops would be pretty much all over a shop that is well known to offer stolen products in half of its shop. NAPSTER was - quite rightly - closed down even it also had some free content. This is not a question of ratios.

I go a step further and say that YouTube knowingly turns blind eyes on having someone else's content on their system. Isn't it surprising that YouTube is pretty good in not having porn on their system? Or not getting right-wing Nazi propaganda on their system? They do check, don't they? Just, they don't care about someone else's property and are happy to have several clips of the movie "The Downfall". Do you think they own the rights for that movie? But of course the bottom of their page states "Copyright (c) 2007 YouTube Inc". Would it fair then to call this stealing and lieing?

How could GOOGLE think they are doing a great thing in buying YouTube for big bucks? Are they really that stupid or is this just the general way GOOGLE thinks about copyrights? I think they bought themselves a pretty big coffin nail there.

I may come across as supporting piracy (but in reality, I buy songs online legitimately and only buy legitimate DVD's and CD's in stores) but I don't really get the whole brouhaha here. (I don't have any feelings on Star Wars wallpaper to make any comments about that sort of stuff; this is about video content.) To me, the point of a YouTube - or any other video viewing service - is to get the material out there. I am fully aware that broadcast TV is supported by ads. I pay for cable TV, and I still have to sit thru ads. I don't have a TIVO. But if I happen to miss an episode of a favorite show, or hear that there was a terrific scene or great skit that's causing a lot of buzz, I know I can seek it out on YouTube. To me, this should be a no-brainer to content providers: YouTube DRAWS ATTENTION to their product, and people might be more likely to seek it out on TV next time it's on. The argument of Viacom and the like is that by having a video on YouTube (and I was under the impression that they are limited to 10 min or less, so I would imagine there are no full episodes of anything), then Viacom loses the ad revenue from that show. Well, I have a few responses. First, who's to say that when I watch the full episode on TV, I will sit thru every ad? I may think that the commercials are a fine time to take a leak. Second, anyone who thinks that I PREFER to watch ANYTHING on a 2 inch computer screen flash video player rather than my 60 inch HDTV is just insane - given the option, I will watch the TV every time. Thirdly, if I like a show, I will then go out and buy the season on DVD, so Viacom wins anyway. In this sense, YouTube is nothing but a grand and glorious advertising stream for Viacom and all the other content providers; I can find shows I knew nothing about, and seek them out on TV. I can actually find commercials I like and watch them over and over. Viacom should be paying YouTube for all this fabulous publicity for their programs. And if YouTube is somehow making money off of this (I still don't know HOW), then good for them! Another point is that if Viacom wants us to PAY for the privelege of watching their content, then make it available - I'd gladly buy it! There are MANY shows - both old and new - which are totally unavailable on DVD, yet easily found on YouTube - if Viacom would produce & release them, we would buy. And lastly, if Viacom, et al want to draw viewers to their own portals, then why not have high-quality video available there? (And by the way, don't make us PAY to see it!) Let the viewers decide if they want to watch a crappy little flash video or a high-def full screen - draw them in with quality, not greed and threats of lawsuits.

It's funny that this is brought up...if we're talking about copyrights on movies and tv shows...here's a biggie...

I'm a huge fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000...and yet it's no longer on the air and official releases on DVD are slow and don't cover nearly all of the episodes simply because of the fact that the rights to many of the movies shown were never renewed because the companies that made those movies (or those people who hold the rights) were so upset that the show ripped on the movies like they did that they never allowed the show to renew the rights. So unfortunately, some of the most classic episodes will never be seen on official Rhino DVDs because of this.

Here's where sites like YouTube and Google Video come into play...these two sites alone have so many episodes on them that its not even funny. And while YouTube has them cut up into 10 minute portions...I still get to see the episodes that I'll never get to see otherwise. I was such a fan of the show in my youth but lost track of it and never taped any of the shows that I did see. However, other people did...and did it religiously. Thats how these shows end up on the Internet now...people digitize them and then upload them so MSTies like me can enjoy them again (or for the first time in many cases).

It seems like nobody really cares because I have never seen an episode taken off the Internet (at least not yet). However, the interesting thing to note here is that the show had such an immense following in the middle of its run and later on at the end (and continues to have an immense following even now), but in its humble beginnings...it was only here in Minnesota on a little crappy UHF TV station...and I doubt anybody outside of the Twin Cities knew about it. So during a lot of the early shows they either stated it or put up a message in the credits to "keep trading the tapes" or something like that...people had started taping the show and were spreading it that way almost like word of mouth.

So then does that mean that Best Brains (creators of the show) doesn't care because they get money through the DVD releases but knowing that not all of them can be released on DVD because of rights violations...they let other people do it? I don't know...I don't know how this stuff works...but like I said...nobody seems to care about people putting these episodes up at the moment. I haven't seen one "Pulled because of Copyright Infringement" notice on any uploaded episodes.

I remember an episode of South Park...where the kids were caught downloading music on the Internet...and were taken to different music celebrity homes where the celebrities were shown in various states of sadness and dispair. The FBI agent would explain why each one was sad...he said one time "and so and so will now never be able to afford that new personal jet because you kids downloaded their music instead of buying it." or something like that. These multi-million/billion dollar corporations will not likely run out of money because of this...and of course the artists themselves will likely remain pretty rich regardless. I mean you can get anything for free now on the Internet...and trying to combat that is like trying to find Osama Bin Laden...good luck with it. I'm not saying it's right...but it's pretty hard to fight this kind of thing and eliminate it completely. As long as there is stuff people want (and don't want to pay for)...there will probably always be people hacking software and fighting anti-piracy/security measures.

Anyway...if other networks are working alongside YouTube and the like...maybe Viacom ought to consider it rather than make a lengthy and costly court battle out of it. Seems like a more positive and lucrative way to do things. Of course the quality of the video on places like YouTube and Google Video is pretty crappy at best...so of course the TV wins out anyway...

YouTube has my backing a 100%. The copy right nazis are just ay out of control now a days.

Hi Frogboy

Interesting statement from you

Quote ..

" My personal opinion is that YouTube does have some liability here."

Would you agree that users at YouTube and elsewhere whose rights have been infringed by ViaCom also have the right to enter into litigation for a similar 1billion dollar law suite ???

Source
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/2007/02/04/viacom-believes-fewer-than-60-take-down-mistakes/

Raises an interesting question does it not ???