--- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "Bill Streeter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > A local St. Louis video blogger, Antonio French, has had all his > videos pulled from YouTube after a Local TV station sent a take down > notice to YouTube. The video they sent the take down notice was a > report that he had posted where they promised a follow up to a story > about an alderman on the take and then didn't. Antonio French had > posted this video to show how answers were promised and then posted > the follow-up report to show that the question of who the alderman > was, was never answered. To me it looks like a clear case of fair > use because he was using the videos to comment and critique them. > You can read more about what has happened to the rest of his videos > on his blog at http://pubdef.net > > A word about Antonio French � He started his blog Pub-Def as a > newspaper reporter frustrated by the lack of depth in local > political reporting in St. Louis. He started posting videos to his > blog after he saw what I was doing with Lo-Fi Saint Louis. His > reporting is very good and has broken several stories that have been > followed up in both local and national main stream media. He's > become an important source of information on the activities of local > government and a vocal critic of local main stream media. He doesn't > really make much money with Pub Def (short for Public Defender) but > the cost overhead of doing it is so low that he doesn't really need > to make that much money at it. He's exactly the kind of grass roots > journalist that our little media revolution has made possible. > > He's currently moving all his videos to Blip.tv (something I > suggested he do months ago.) But I can understand why he wanted to > continue to use YouTube because it's so well known and has so much > traffic. > > Anyway I thought that this story was relevant to the discussion here� > especially in light of the Hip-Hop Violinist story, as some of the > circumstances are similar.
Yes. This story's completely relevant. Apparently, as Heath points out, the way things are set up, if anyone complains about anything, YouTube will pull videos first and ask questions... never. It's the way the rules are set up... which means... If you post videos to YouTube, you're building your house on sand... quicksand, actually, because all someone has to do is say that they represent the trademark holder for "BatMan" and remove any of Heath's videos that reference BatMan at all, or close his account down entirely. (I don't know if Heath has a YouTube account or not OR whether he references BatMan in any of his videos or titles) "Fair use" isn't going to apply in this case, because it's apparently the burden of the poster to PROVE fair use or expressed permission AFTER the fact. First things first... your videos go down or your account disappears. Then again, that's what you get for free. As easy as it is for people to post and as easy as it is for people to search and watch videos on YouTube, that's how easy it is for them to delete you entirely from the walled garden in the blink of an eye. -- Bill http://billcammack.com > If you get a moment go check out some of the work he's doing at Pub- > Def and if you have any ideas about how he might go about dealing > with this issue I'm sure he would be open to hearing them. But I > also wanted to introduce him to the group (he's not a participant > here) because I think that the kind of work he is doing is really > important. > > Bill Streeter > LO-FI SAINT LOUIS > www.lofistl.com > www.billstreeter.net >
