Mike Hudack wrote: >> this would definitely be cool. >> I could go into my Blip dhasboard and simply balcklist any >> site I didnt want to link to me. >> how complicated would this be on a user by user basis? > > That is interesting. I'm going to noodle on this.
mod_rewrite would be an obvious way to do this, but I think it would get inefficient for very large numbers of rewrite rules (which is what you'd have). Something in Otter's 'file/get' could be more efficient but only if the linkers linked that way, rather than linking directly to media files. As well as individual blacklists - which are the best way to go - it might be necessary to have a global blacklist for use against abusive 'search engines' who really won't take the hint. Another feature that would be useful would be to allow creators to choose to divert viewers to a different video (rather than just denying all access). For example, if someone deeplinks your video and puts ads all over it, you could redirect their viewers to a fifteen-second trailer instead, followed by a message that says "You can see this video in full at ..." In the long term, though, it's a social issue rather than a technological one. At the root of the problem is the assumption made by people like MyHeavy that anything on the Internet is theirs to do what they like with. They need to be educated out of that point of view. We can use negative pressure to encourage MyHeavy and friends not to freeload off other people's hard work, but that's always retroactive and reactive. It would be worth thinking about ways of applying positive pressure to get other sites to 'play nice'. We actually use the rel="license" microformat to make it possible for spiders to detect licenses for videos (although technically rel="license" specifies a license for the web page, rather than the linked video) and see which ones they can legitimately aggregate. What else could we do to make it easier for responsible aggregators to see what they're allowed to use, and for content creators to give their assent to particular uses? Meanwhile, here at blip.tv HQ, Captain Hudack has taken off his flying helmet and is painting another little company logo on the cockpit of his fighter, just beside the ones that read 'Veoh' and 'BitTorrent'. Two more confirmed kills and he'll be an ace ... Angus
