One aspect of all this that I find interesting is that the MSM itself often gives links to such clips hosted on YouTube or whatever, without mentioning that the existence of that clip in that place is in fact illegal - I suppose because it's a convenient way for them to illustrate a news story without having to get permission to host the clips themselves. This could easily mislead the public to assume that whatever they see posted online is therefore legal - "But I saw it in the New York Times!"
I'm also seeing a lot of stories about TV shows made up of clips found online. I can't see them myself since I'm not in the US, but I wonder: are the producers getting permission from the clip owners? I know that Tivo has a deal with Rocketboom and Akimbo with Steve Garfield, but those are running as series. Have any original clips from videobloggers been shown on TV and, if so, with permission? Some of my own work is shown on an obscure satellite channel on Sky in Italy, with my permission, by nessuno.tv. I don't have Sky so I've never actually seen this and don't know how it's presented, but I include my URL in the credits, so hopefully I get a bit of traffic from it... On 4/10/06, Joshua Kinberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > vSocial has received over 20 million views for a single Family Guy > clip ("Its Peanut Butter Jelly Time"). Doesn't matter if its Family > Guy or Michael Verdi, that content requires permission. 20 million > views in just a few months is an amazing statistic, and I'm also > willing to bet that this single clip (and perhaps a few other clips > uploaded by a minority of users who regularly violate the terms of > service on vSocial) easily account for the lion's share of traffic the > site has received. Its vSocial's best performing piece of content and > I'm willing to bet they do not have permission to distribute it, but > yet they directly benefit from distributing the clip. It drives > traffic to their site where they display ads and sponsored links. It > helps them promote the service to new users and grow their user base. > It pumps up their Alexa stats helping them raise money from investors. > > Yet, this is in violation of the terms of use, and pretty easy to > determine. It would be equally easy to ban this user account, search > the user's network of buddies to see who else is engaging in similar > activity and likewise ban them for violations. This ain't rocket > science. Its a few users who are repeat offenders, but whom also > benefit vSocial so they take the satnce of looking the other way. -- best regards, Deirdré Straughan www.beginningwithi.com (personal) www.tvblob.com (work) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/