Thursday, October 29, 2009

Youtube, and why I hate it so very much...

So, everyone knows how easy youtube is to use. You make a video, click a few buttons, and it is up for the world to see. I prefer using it and embedding the video in the blogs I do for clients over wrestling with all the steps each different client has to put the video directly on their server.

Well, I covered a concert for a client recently, and I needed to get the text, pics and video up right away. So, what do I do? I toss the 42 seconds of video on youtube and embed the video into the blog. What happens? A couple days later, the video gets flagged and locked down for copyright infringement!

By the way, I'm not going to mention the artists or the publication, because they are innocent in all of this. Youtube is the evil entity here and Motown Records is semi-moronic for flagging the video to begin with. And, I know what you are thinking... How is Motown stupid for flagging a video, if they had no clue it was embedded in a legitimate publication that had approval to shoot the content in the first place? Let me answer that with a common sense statement...

The video was professionally shot (it sure didn't look like a camera phone took it), it was only one verse of one song and they could've EASILY sent an email or inquiry to me first. The fact that it was obviously shot from the photo/video pit and not the crowd, should've been their first clue. The fact that I was following normal editorial guidelines and publishing an incomplete song (normally media is allowed to shoot and display 30 to 45 second snippets of songs, so it doesn't interfere with regular album and video sales) should've been the second clue. And the third... what ever happened to civility? A quick email asking about the video would've been much quicker than going through the hoops of a copyright infringement claim and then a counter-claim.

So, now I've started my counter-claim, which is filled with steps to complete and hoops to jump through. I thought about just pulling the video and uploading it to the publication's server, but at this point I'm on a mission against Youtube. It's the point of the matter that I uploaded legal video and they blocked it without asking questions first. Then they make it an uphill battle to get it unblocked. This is why I'm fighting it. It shouldn't be so hard for their users to prove their innocence.

Maybe I should just mess with the extra hassle of uploading the videos directly to my clients' servers? Or, maybe I should check out Vimeo.com and the other video hosting sites that people seem to like more than youtube?

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thats awesome! Ha! Common sense is slowly dying in the world. There's no better place to see it than utube.

Ben Cimino

October 30, 2009 at 8:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Was the permission granted for 30 seconds or so of television use rather than web use possibly? I know I have run int that before, where the TV guys have clearance but shooting video for the web is not allowed. --- Randy Eli

October 30, 2009 at 11:29 PM  
Blogger Janikphoto said...

Randy, I even sent a link of the video to the PR people and they loved it. What happened is some guy in a cubicle at Motown was scanning the net for copyrighted material and saw my video on youtube. He had no idea what it was and didn't take the time to do any research regarding it. He flagged it and youtube blocked it.

However, Youtube's complaint department said it should go back up in 14 days, after Motown has a chance to read my counter-claim.

October 31, 2009 at 11:48 AM  

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