Linux Lingam [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
uh huh! the reason am recommending you read the [youtube] EULA is because in
effect, youtube gets to use your content for any commercial purpose it
deems fit for itself and you can't do anything about it. here, read
the fine print as explained on this reference site:
[snip rest]
Yup, so Youtube is free as in beer. That's a kind of freedom too.
How does it compare with the ideas behind free as in freedom software?
1. The licencing of the content can be relicenced by Youtube - this is
BSD licence-like.
2. The content cannot be redistributed when sourced from Youtube.
It's not a totally despotic set of restrictions. The uploader grants
a non-exclusive licence to Youtube, so it can be redistributed by the
uploader to anyone he wants to pass it on to, including via P2P).
So if the uploader's beautiful, Osho-nice naturescapes bliss out video
becomes a background to a toilet paper advert, he can still give the video
out to others via blip.tv or whatever - he just can't do it from Youtube.
Effectively, the uploaders are like BSD software distributors, Youtube
is like a proprietary content pusher helping itself to BSD licenced content,
but it is not curtailing the uploader's freedom to keep providing the
original content.
The analogy is a bit lame, because content isn't software, and doesn't
develop in the same way, but it's an ok way to get a grip on things.
To become free as in freedom (by this I mean GPL-like - YMMV),
Youtube would have to accept content that by default is like the Creative
Commons Sharealike licence, ie, the corresponding fixes to the earlier
restrictions would be:
1. the content cannot have its licence changed
2. the content, if publicly shared, is shared without restriction, except for
the restriction of keeping the licence unchanged.
Youtube, won't do that. Blip.tv makes that possible as an option - ie you can
pick up stuff from blip.tv and others can redistribute it.
Note: Blip.tv still allows people to make toilet paper ads from your magnum
opus. That's freedom too in my view (though you can curtail it by choosing a
suitable Creative Commons licence. Creative commons licences vary, and only
some are really free as in freedom. But that's another can of worms).
Anyway, probably a sensible way to distribute content would be for the uploader
to put up some content on Youtube, and a superset of that content on blip.tv
(and suggest on Youtube that people pick up the full content from blip.tv).
Bottom line: if you want to help uphold the ideas behind free as in freedom,
then, when distributing video content, use blip.tv in preference to youtube.
PJ
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