vidding_livejournal_ark2 | 1: YouTube. 2: The RIAA. 3: Our Last Best Hope.

Entry tags:

1: YouTube. 2: The RIAA. 3: Our Last Best Hope.

1) Don't post at YouTube:

YouTube Owns YourStuff (So does YouTubeTwo)

Excerpt:

In its Terms & Conditions, the wildly popular video sharing site YouTube emphasizes that "you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions".

There's quite a large "BUT...", however. Not only does YouTube retain the right to create derivative works (emphasis mine), but so do the users, and so too, does YouTube's successor company.

2) Don't post in the open:

In case you haven't been following the news for the past few years, the RIAA will be more than happy to come after you for doing that. While the tv show and movie bigwigs haven't gone after vids much (arguments can be made for fair use re: clips vs. episodes/full-length films), the music industry is BAT-SHIT INSANE about musical artists' tracks being posted anywhere they can be listened to/downloaded for free (and yes, btw, you can download off YouTube if you know how). It doesn't matter how the song is posted; you've shared their material for free and they are completely mental about it. Ask the people who run the AMV, who had to take down hundreds (I believe) of vids after hearing from various recording artists' labels. Ask people who have been sued (not just issued C&D letters, but sued) and had to pay for downloading music.

3) How to host vids as safely as you can:

Set up a subdirectory at your own domain. If you don't own your own domain space, find someone who is willing to share. Password-protect the sub-directory using an .htaccess file. Don't use the name of the song in the filename of your vid (example: if you've vidded Buffy to Bring Me to Life, name the file BringBuf.zip). (Oh, yeah, zip your files to avoid hotlinking menaces.) Put spider-avoiding code in your .htaccess as well. If you don't know how to do these things, ask.

Bottom line - vidders create and host illegal downloads, plain and simple. Don't be stupid about it.

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Thank you for all of this information. I am paranoid to the gills over this for months. Please bear with me:

1) if I set up a password-protected subdirectory, will downloaders need a password to download videos?

2) I pasted a spider-avoiding code into the headers of my video pages. However, according to my site statistics, people can still use Yahoo, Google to search for my videos. What am I doing wrong?

Yes, a password-protected subdirectory means that anyone who wants to download your vids will need to log in with the password.

It's not that hard to deal with, really; I get about 5-10 password requests a week and I answer them manually, but I suppose if you don't want to bother you could set up a little auto-responder script.

What brought all this on? Is there a new push or wank lately that I missed? *peers around*

Thanks for the info.

(deleted comment)

Seconded.

Although, I completely lack my own domain; I rely on sendspace, usually. So, even if I did know what an .htaccess file was, I probably wouldn't be able to use it.

To add fuel to the fire, I'm sure it's entirely possible for some vidders to get in heaps of trouble because some jackass YouTuber decided to upload their vid. Case in point: my one House/Wilson video was put on YouTube recently (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRNNsV2_0ww), wherein my screenname appears in the first few seconds. Granted, it's pixellated and a bit hard to read, but still...

-sigh- Damn YouTube >_<;;

search for my I Wish I Was a Lesbian vid... last time I tried I got two pages of results.

that was me... didn't realise I was logged out

An .htaccess file is a little text file that you put on the server that creates protections for a directory or directories. It's pretty easy to set one up. I recommend Googling ".htaccess" and "password" to find some tutorials.

And yeah, you'd need your own domain to make it work.

Arghhh I know how you feel Yuna! *hugs* I'm constantly finding my Bale and Queen of the Damned vids there, even the Hannibal ones...

To imagine your vids scrunched into that little streaming box.... -shudder- The pixellation!

Streaming videos are the devil's plaything.

.htaccess files allow configuration for on a per-directory basis on a Web server. They're used primarily on Apache Web servers; Microsoft IIS does not support .htaccess files, but has similar mechanisms. (I don't know what IIS has, though; contact your sysadmin if you're in that situation.)

To use .htaccess, the server configuration must allow both .htaccess for the directory in which you want to use the .htaccess file and the directives that you want to use. Not all servers allow such modifications; contact your sysadmin.

Basic authentication (and I mean basic) can be set up by providing a .htaccess file that looks like this:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Authorization Prompt Title"
AuthUserFile /var/www/passwords/passwd

Usage of this method requires access to the Apache htpasswd utility (which usually requires some sort of remote shell access to your Web service provider) or equivalent front-end. If you use such a front-end, it should give you the information you need to properly fill in AuthUserFile.

There are many ways to get more fine-grained control. The Apache basic authentication mechanism is modelled off the traditional UNIX authentication mechanism, so you can do stuff like allow access to only certain users or groups of users.[0]

Note that the password you send is sent as cleartext. So if you're worried about packet-sniffing, then this isn't the right method; you will want to go further and add better authentication and encryption mechanisms, such as what is provided by MD5-digest authentication[1] or https.

Again, this applies only to Apache servers. Other servers have their own means of implementing and managing authentication; read their documentation, or ask the sysadmin to do it. (Even on Apache servers, it's considered to be good practice to ask the sysadmin to do it and only use .htaccess files when absolutely necessary[2]).

[0] http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/howto/auth.html

[1] http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_auth_digest.html

[2] http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/howto/htaccess.html#when

Maybe I'm just being really dense, but I don't get the YouTube uproar.

Not only does YouTube retain the right to create derivative works (emphasis mine), but so do the users, and so too, does YouTube's successor company.

Isn't that exactly what we're doing when we make vids? A vid is a derivative of the show/movie/whatever, and it seems hypocritcal to be all up in arms about it.

Except we, the vidders, do not have the rights to upload in the first place because the material is someone elses copyrighted work so the resultant derivative rights are not valid.

If we were to upload work that we had made that was ours and ours alone, we would be giving YouTube and YouTube users rights to create derivative works. This can be seen as a good or bad thing depending on your views of intellectual property.

I've yet to hear anything about the music industry going after vidders. Totally possible that they have and I just haven't heard about it, but if they have, mind enlightening me? (Aside from AMV.org. That only happened because a fan wrote to the record label about it, thinking the vids were made by the bands. If you bring a copyright violation to the attention of a record label they have to take action.) They'd be well within their rights to go after vidders, of course, and this is all good safe advice in general, I'm just wondering if something happened to spawn this concern.

And I don't really get why we as vidders should be concerned about YouTube on this issue. I mean generally they turn a blind eye but if they're properly notified of a copyright violation on their site they have to take it down. So what are we worried about them doing with our copyright-violating vids?

The main one I can think of off the top of my head had something to do with Enya and farscapefantasy.org , I think. I may be wrong.

IIRC, the owner of Farscape Fantasy got a C&D letter from someone he believed to be a legal representative of Enya...but it turned out that the letter came from the webmaster of her official site and not from any legal entity. Some vids set to Enya's music were removed from the site while others still remain.

f you bring a copyright violation to the attention of a record label they have to take action

I believe (at least under) US copyright law, one is not required to take action for the copyright to remain valid. See, for example:

- § 501. Infringement of copyright (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#501), in which the term entitled and not required is used in (b);

- Chapter 3, Duration of Copyright (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html) makes no mention of early termination in the absence of enforcement (and neither does Chapter 1, Subject Matter and Scope of Copyright (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html)).

I'm not a copyright lawyer, but the law seems to suggest that such actions are not required.

Yeah, requirement is true of Trademarks but not of copyright IIRC.

I could easily be wrong on this, but I was thinking less about the copyright law itself and more about the purpose of a record label. Managing distribution and enforcing copyright protection for bands that sign with them is part of a record label is for. A band can easily choose ignore copyright violations even when someone brings it to their attention directly, but for a record label to do so means they're not doing their job.

If you bring a copyright violation to the attention of a record label they have to take action.)

No. They. Don't.

This is probably the most widely held myth about copyright, and it's not true. No, you don't have to take action against every infringer or risk losing your copyright. By taking no action a copyright holder only risks losing their right to go after *that* particular infringement, not all instances of infringement forever.

The source of this, IMO, is confusion about the difference between trademark and copyright. Trademark holders have to vigilantly police their trademark or risk losing it. They can only license it under limited circumstances and have to be very careful about how it's used by the licensee.

Copyright holders do not. A copyright holder can license their work for 1 cent or $1 million, or allow it to be used freely under certain conditions, all without losing their copyright. They can ignore some infringements and sue on others.

In short -- the RIAA are schmucks about this because they choose to be, not because they have to be.

Since this is the same thing as what

trythil and

absolut3destiny have already said, I'm pointing you to my response to them. Less legal issue, more job description.

Has the RIAA taken action against vidders? That was the main point of my first comment, asking what sparked this post; I feel like I'm missing something here. AMV.org was a while back and just the one label (http://www.winduprecords.com/).

One of the problems with the Youtube thing is that if someone uploads your vid to Youtube, and it's got your name/contact info/website on it, and the record label decides to go after vidders, well, Youtube's given them your information right there. And if you're not the one who uploaded the vid to Youtube (which often happens), you've got no way to take the vid down to protect yourself.

Which is not to say the record label/RIAA might not go after the Youtuber, but you're just as likely to get hit.

All of which assumes the RIAA is going to go after vidders, and yeah, I haven't heard of it yet, but I won't be surprised when it starts.

Oh, sorry - separate paragraph, separate issue, I should've been clearer on that. Yeah, that YouTube concern I do get, no worries. Heck, there are a ton of reasons for vidders to hate YouTube (vid theft anyone?). I was just talking about that YouTube-Owns-Your-Stuff link there. I don't see as vidders should particularly care about YouTube having the rights to make derivative works of our copyright-infringing derivative vids that they can't legally admit to knowing about, you know?

Thank you for making this post.

As a lurker/watcher I'm selfishly sad - putting up gated communities (so to speak) means that I can't watch anyone's brilliant work anymore, on top of already not being able to see some of the best - but it's for the common good.

This was very helpful and I hope the vidding world escapes the hassle that the AMV world got. Although more bad videos got lost in that tidal wave than good ones... some good ones did, too, which is a shame. I'd hate to see the same happening here. Best of luck, all. :)

putting up gated communities (so to speak) means that I can't watch anyone's brilliant work anymore

Not at all. Vidders advertise their new vid in their lj and then generally post "if you want the password, just email me". It just means they're not out in the open.

Oh, but they don't know me from Adam; I don't have the right to demand anything of them. If some stranger demanded to look at a friends-locked LJ post, I'd tell them where to get off!

It is for a good reason, for their own protection, but it's also just a tiny bit sad that everyone has to retreat behind the barricades that way. The lurkers of the world will miss all of you. :)

I don't think you're quite getting it. ;) It's not a matter of knowing anyone; it's just a matter of not having the files out in the open. Many vidders have been doing this for years - so long as you email them, they give you the password. That's all there is to it. :-D

Oh, I know lots of people do it already. I hope it serves them well as it becomes more widespread. I don't mean to bash the concept; I'm sorry if it came off that way. *insert proper groveling*

http://www.triptychvids.com/

No, really, lurkers welcome. You just have to surface long enough to send an e-mail that says, "Hi, I would like to see your vids. I promise not to rat you out to the feds or anything crazy like that." and PRESTO! a password.

Try it with ours. It's on an auto-mailer. You get the password in 5 minutes. We don't even know for days.

We love lurkers!

eep. It still seems like leaving a basket full of keys next to a locked door... but you're the expert.

Sure. The password is just there to fool the bots that go around looking for this stuff. You can still get in trouble if someone makes a point of turning you in.

This was the point I was trying to make, which obviously I wasn't clear about. The password bit isn't there to keep lurkers out, or keep people out who the vidder doesn't know, etc. It's just to keep the webbots that are programmed to go looking for suspicious material out. No vidder is going to refuse you a password. Many even have automated replies set up for requests that just send the password right back. Does it make more sense now?

I do see how it works, thank you.

The risks are great, of course, but it's possible the RIAA might not be as interested in You Tube. There's no reason to think that the vidder got the music illegally to begin with, and once it's posted, it's not in a form that can allow downloads by others, so anyone who wants to just listen to the song will have to pay for it.

see here

http://community.livejournal.com/vidding/682510.html

Sorry it took so long to get back to you - RL gets in the way. :)

How to download from YouTube (http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php)

Another way to download from YouTube (http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/download-youtube-video-with-greasemonkey-script.html)

Yet another way to download from YouTube. (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2390/)

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1: YouTube. 2: The RIAA. 3: Our Last Best Hope.

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