What a great post! You explain the in's and out's of an extremely complex subject in a way that make it really easy to understand!
I have embedded a few YouTube videos on my site (in addition to the infrequent Video Blog entry that I create myself), and a quote from my High School band director comes to mind with regard to using good judgment: "If you don't think you should be doing it, you probably shouldn't."
Hopefully, people will have the common sense to understand when a video is a risk to embed, and when it isn't.
Dr. J. Pisano
· 8 months ago
Andy, So, I'm going to start "liking" every legitimate disQus comment posting on MuStech.Net to see what this does to your clout points...Try this on my comments on your site as well. The great DisQus expirement continues...
Andy Zweibel
· 7 months ago
And what an interesting experiment it has been! Initially, it looks like you get a point for each disqus-enabled site that you have a comment on that someone has "liked." Not positive though--I tweeted @disqus to ask, though!
Dj Fuzzy
· 7 months ago
The legality of any copyright infringement is directly related to the ability of the copyright holder to attain representation in a court of law. While it may be "illegal" in a sense, it is not as enforceable based on the simple fact that you are not personally hosting the material. The old adage "Sh*t rolls downhill" would apply. First the owner must sue YouTube for allowing it, thereby setting precidence. Otherwise the copyright holder is literally spinning their wheels. This analogy has been proven by the ill-fated attempts by the RIAA to sue individual P2P downloaders. The Pirate Bay trial recently set the stage for a much greater assault by this organization than any other method previously attempted.
The other thing to consider is that once a copyright holder complains the video is deleted and you have a unusable post on your blog with no video to see. That is an annoyance worth considereing.
Dr. J. Pisano
· 7 months ago
Dj,
Thanks for well thought reply... Illegal, legal and unethical, ethical become a fine-line sometimes. I am however an ardent supporter of musicians being able to make money from their works. Copyright observence becomes very important with regard to educators. I am an advocate of being "above board" and stay away from the -the copyright police can't catch you so go ahead and do it. It kinds of reminds me of the "I blew through the stop sign -but there wasn't a copy -so it was legal argument". Not legal, just not caught... This is the one of the same arguments that people make with regard to the ever-increasing video cameras at intersections...they feel it's not fair. I am a vocal advocate for copyright re-form on a number of issues though, in particular with regard to fair-use.
It will be very interesting to see what c-omes from the Pirate Bay scenario. There will be appeals, but I don't think they are going to come out on top... I also think RIAA has been too aggressive with regard to a number of their cases and the fines that the courts are levying are many times not in proportion to the infringements. I hate to say it but most people would be better off (financially) caught actually stealing a tangible CD(s) from a store than by some of the P2P fines... Not that I advocate either.
The Internet is in a constant state of flux... it's even hard to footnote legitamte web sources when you are writing scholarly articles because of the URL changes, site moves, etc. This is why you have to quote a date retrieved when quoting. The same thing with youtube... Here today, gone tomorrow, but it's not much different than the risk of linking to anything. I would like to see a Wordpress plugin, not unlike the broken-link checker plugin, that verifies youtube videos though...it would be helpful. Also, it would be good of YouTube to insert a "placeholder" video in it's place stating the reason it was taken down and the date...
Interestingly enough, DVDs are finally allowing a digital copy built-in to the media to be saved/stored on a computer, etc. I'm sure the rental folks are going to have their own special "non-duplicating versions".
I haven't found out yet, but I wonder how many people have to "flag" a video and how fast a video becomes taken down from that point for investigation... any ideas?
Fashion Jobs
· 7 months ago
nice post, i think that it is definitely a gray area when it comes to copyrighted material. if youtube allows it it should be good right?
emilystumpf
· 1 month ago
Great post! I particularly appreciated your thoroughness. I have always wondered about this and have found all the fine print stuff hard and time consuming to understand. This really gave me a better understanding of how the whole system works.
I really like that you bring ethical into the discussion. That is always a really tough thing to define. It is kind of like the "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I know I would want to be payed for what I put out there (unless of course I put it out there for free). Thanks for the informative post.
nathanperriello
· 1 month ago
This was a very enlightening article. I never knew too much about the process of embedding videos, but I always knew that it was somewhat of a gray area in terms of legality. The internet, and more specifically youtube, has such a wealth of information and resources that it is hard to keep track of who owns what and who is allowed to share it. In the future, I hope that this entire realm of internet sharing will become easier to understand and work with, but for now, articles like this and a look into youtube's convoluted policy itself will have to do. As one who hopes to have a personal website some day, I feel it is important to have a sense of what is legal and what is completely out of line in regards to video embedding. I would never want to be responsible for sharing something that I did not have the rights to, especially when considering how I would feel if it were to happen to me.
meganhaux
· 1 month ago
I dislike how you can never be sure exactly what is legal, and what isn't when it comes to things put on the internet. I guess i just have to be extra careful when it comes to what resources i use from the internet. I wish it wasn't so unclear as to what we can do.
I will take great care when it comes to what i use, but I know it is a risk I will probably need to take. There are so many great resources that i can get from youtube that could be very helpful for me in the future. I also don't want to be held accountable for sharing something i'm not allowed to but i guess it is just a decision i'm going to have to make if the situation ever comes up.
All Comments
What a great post! You explain the in's and out's of an extremely complex subject in a way that make it really easy to understand!
I have embedded a few YouTube videos on my site (in addition to the infrequent Video Blog entry that I create myself), and a quote from my High School band director comes to mind with regard to using good judgment:
"If you don't think you should be doing it, you probably shouldn't."
Hopefully, people will have the common sense to understand when a video is a risk to embed, and when it isn't.
The other thing to consider is that once a copyright holder complains the video is deleted and you have a unusable post on your blog with no video to see. That is an annoyance worth considereing.
Thanks for well thought reply... Illegal, legal and unethical, ethical become a fine-line sometimes. I am however an ardent supporter of musicians being able to make money from their works. Copyright observence becomes very important with regard to educators. I am an advocate of being "above board" and stay away from the -the copyright police can't catch you so go ahead and do it. It kinds of reminds me of the "I blew through the stop sign -but there wasn't a copy -so it was legal argument". Not legal, just not caught... This is the one of the same arguments that people make with regard to the ever-increasing video cameras at intersections...they feel it's not fair. I am a vocal advocate for copyright re-form on a number of issues though, in particular with regard to fair-use.
It will be very interesting to see what c-omes from the Pirate Bay scenario. There will be appeals, but I don't think they are going to come out on top... I also think RIAA has been too aggressive with regard to a number of their cases and the fines that the courts are levying are many times not in proportion to the infringements. I hate to say it but most people would be better off (financially) caught actually stealing a tangible CD(s) from a store than by some of the P2P fines... Not that I advocate either.
The Internet is in a constant state of flux... it's even hard to footnote legitamte web sources when you are writing scholarly articles because of the URL changes, site moves, etc. This is why you have to quote a date retrieved when quoting. The same thing with youtube... Here today, gone tomorrow, but it's not much different than the risk of linking to anything. I would like to see a Wordpress plugin, not unlike the broken-link checker plugin, that verifies youtube videos though...it would be helpful. Also, it would be good of YouTube to insert a "placeholder" video in it's place stating the reason it was taken down and the date...
Interestingly enough, DVDs are finally allowing a digital copy built-in to the media to be saved/stored on a computer, etc. I'm sure the rental folks are going to have their own special "non-duplicating versions".
I haven't found out yet, but I wonder how many people have to "flag" a video and how fast a video becomes taken down from that point for investigation... any ideas?
I really like that you bring ethical into the discussion. That is always a really tough thing to define. It is kind of like the "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I know I would want to be payed for what I put out there (unless of course I put it out there for free). Thanks for the informative post.
In the future, I hope that this entire realm of internet sharing will become easier to understand and work with, but for now, articles like this and a look into youtube's convoluted policy itself will have to do. As one who hopes to have a personal website some day, I feel it is important to have a sense of what is legal and what is completely out of line in regards to video embedding. I would never want to be responsible for sharing something that I did not have the rights to, especially when considering how I would feel if it were to happen to me.
I will take great care when it comes to what i use, but I know it is a risk I will probably need to take. There are so many great resources that i can get from youtube that could be very helpful for me in the future. I also don't want to be held accountable for sharing something i'm not allowed to but i guess it is just a decision i'm going to have to make if the situation ever comes up.