Fair Use....

[Gerry Davis]

I know it is one of the hot button topics, but sometimes those topics must be discussed. The focus of the discussion, I hope, is one that remains on a professional and adult level and does not need to slip into personal attacks. This, I feel could be a useful subject for those trying to enter the storm chasing community.

My story: I recently committed a recent breach of etiquette at the very least. I produced a compilation video of a recent tornado. There were several grounds in fair use that I think could be argued. Regardless of that, I did go through great pains to make clear that if there were objections, it would be removed. There were no attempts made to declare it my own. There were no attempts to profit. There were objections, and it was removed. My apologies to those who were offended.

Certainly I faced the wrath of others, and will be at risk of doing so again with this posting. If I had any intention of stealing video and not giving any credit, I could have done it in the way that about 100 or more other YouTubers have done in copying and claiming ownership with some unknown entity. I certainly would not be making a public confession here for everyone to see and be willing to discuss the merits of the topic. Instead, I made it known what my intent was, put it out in the open, and upon objection I was true to my word and removed the content. I suppose I will leave conflict resolution for another post. What would be good and informative for people here is, what are the ettiquette lines? What are the fair use lines?

I will be making argument from the fair use perspective. Lets use this as an opportunity for education.

 

[Dan Robinson]

As someone who gets my videos taken and posted either verbatim or in compilations at least once a week (requiring daily searches and countless DMCA takedowns), here is my position. I post my videos to my channel to get views. I make advertising revenue based on that traffic, and I get subscribers when someone views my videos on my channel and wants to keep up with my work.

When someone takes a video and places it into a compilation, then posts it to their channel, they directly take viewers and subscribers away from my channel and thus quite literally take food off of my table and gas money out of my chase fund. This is regardless of whether their copy is monetized or not. Contrary to popular belief, there is absolutely no "publicity" value in my video being on someone else's channel. Once a viewer has seen my video on another channel, they have no reason to come over to mine and watch it again. Furthermore, when the compilation goes viral (they often do on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, etc), all of that traffic goes to the compilation, which is at an unfair advantage over my own copy because it features multiple videos in one convenient place. Again, no one pays attention to credit lines and they have never resulted - either directly or indirectly - in one sale or one tank of gas for storm chasing coming my way, ever.

Fair use is put forth by the US copyright office as a guideline, in this case, the most relevant points are 1.) how much of the original work is used and 2.) how does it affect the marketability of the original work. It's hard to argue that taking a few minutes of video in a 10 minute compilation to not be a significant portion of the final work. In court, the onus is on the taker of the work to prove fair use, not the owner of the work to prove it is not.

Youtube provides Playlists as a legitimate way to organize multiple videos into one convenient list that effectively acts as a compilation, while still crediting the "view" to the original owner of the video.

 

[Gerry Davis]

"and thus quite literally take food off of my table and gas money out of my chase fund."

Now when third party content is noted, YouTube puts a notice on it, advertising is put on the offending video to benefit the content owner(s). As such, YouTube says that no further action is necesary. This would not be taking food off of anyone's table and would actually enhance it. Now, I do understand people alter content to hide that fact. Does this handling of content by YouTube offer any real relief in that area of income production? As one person noted, the video actually led them to the other peoples content to subscribe to them. I'm just trying to understand how this works, because it is my understanding that if I used your video, it gets flagged, they post an advertisement that would benefit you, as the content owner.

 

[Gerry Davis]

"Once a viewer has seen my video on another channel, they have no reason to come over to mine and watch it again."

I can understand the logic behind this, especially if it were an entire copy. That would go to whether the segment in question could be legitimately used as a replacement to the original. Is this somewhat avoided in the retention of the watermarkings and the use of segments? I know most of you put you stamp on the YouTube videos and it is quite obvious as to who the video belongs.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Now when third party content is noted, YouTube puts a notice on it, advertising is put on the offending video to benefit the content owner(s). As such, YouTube says that no further action is necesary. This would not be taking food off of anyone's table and would actually enhance it. Now, I do understand people alter content to hide that fact. Does this handling of content by YouTube offer any real relief in that area of income production? As one person noted, the video actually led them to the other peoples content to subscribe to them. I'm just trying to understand how this works, because it is my understanding that if I used your video, it gets flagged, they post an advertisement that would benefit you, as the content owner.

This only happens when a content owner is granted the Content ID system, which is an incredibly difficult program to be accepted into. I've applied numerous times and have been turned down. As such, I don't benefit at all from the stolen copies of my videos. On the contrary, many of them are monetized by the thief, who cashes in until I am able to find the offending copy by doing my daily manual searches.

That would go to whether the segment in question could be legitimately used as a replacement to the original. Is this somewhat avoided in the retention of the watermarkings and the use of segments?

It's been my sad discovery that people are generally very lazy when it comes to searching for the original owner of content. It just doesn't happen. In the mobile era, people click what is on their little screens, and that's it. Unless Youtube were to "suggest" or "feature" the original, there is no chance of another copy leading to views to the original.

The watermark is a deterrent to theft, not an advertisement. Again, credit lines never lead to any meaningful benefit to any photographer or cameraman. I've had my face, name and web site on national television numerous times with not so much as any discernible blip of extra traffic to my site. People just don't take the time to do that sort of thing (search for something they see in a credit line). Think of the last time you or a friend or family member did anything like that.

Think of TV personalities. They get more exposure and credit than anyone, but are still paid for their services. The credit line is an afterthought, a professional courtesy given for paid usage.

 

[Gerry Davis]

"This only happens when a content owner is granted the Content ID system, which is an incredibly difficult program to be accepted into."

So really, YouTube isn't telling the whole truth about that then. This is good to know. I did not know that before and assumed the content owner would be rightly compensated for a content flag.

 

[Bill McManus]

I watched the video and I read the description below, where it stated that no copyright infringement was intended nor was their any gain for profit, however, I had close a monetized ad in order to see the video. Who was gaining from the ad? I can't see every owner getting a fair share here.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Legally you can probably claim "Fair Use" to some degree. To be respected at all in the chaser community, I wouldn't even try it. We're all proud of our work, and I know I personally like control over how my content is displayed.

 

[Gerry Davis]

"Who was gaining from the ad?"

YouTube said the ads would benefit the content owners. How that would happen I don't know. I would have assumed a content provider as large as YouTube would have these things figured out to the nth degree. I'm seeing this may not be the case.

 

[Gerry Davis]

Legally you can probably claim "Fair Use" to some degree. To be respected at all in the chaser community, I wouldn't even try it. We're all proud of our work, and I know I personally like control over how my content is displayed.

Bottom line would be the etiquette trumps. I get that.

 

[Dan Robinson]

It's possible that one of the videos in the compilation *was* owned by someone with content ID. If a video is flagged on your account, it should tell you who the claiming entity is. If there are videos in a compilation owned by both Content ID accounts and non-Content ID accounts, essentially the non-Content ID owners get a raw deal - now another rights holder is claiming monetization on the *whole thing* including videos that aren't their own. The only thing the non-Content ID holder can do is hope to find the video manually and issue a takedown, at which time the whole thing will be removed. In the meantime, the Content ID holder is benefitting from all of the videos in the compilation, even though they may not own all of them.

The way I look at it is, I went through the trouble to encode and upload all of my videos to Youtube. They are viewable for free, to the entire world, on every device. They are easily located on search engines. Why would they need to be copied anywhere else? I can understand someone wanting to assemble a collection of similar videos, but again, that's what a playlist does.

 

[Gerry Davis]

Content ID account is something that I am sure most people do not really know about. I didn't. And it sounds like it is skewed to big corporations like record companies and movie/TV corporations, not individual content makers. My mistake for not thinking my little project through. I learned from it though and I appreciate the tone of the conversation here. I never intended any harm. Hopefully others can gain some insight from this conversation too. I will have some further inquiries into some details on this thread later. I think could be helpful too in how to protect content.

 

[Bill McManus]

When I watched the video I had no issue with the "intent" of the video, compiling a timeline is a great idea, and had it not been for the monetized ads I would have watched and said "cool" and went on about my business, but whenever people invest lots of money into a chase (not to mention hours of soundings and other data) in the hopes of getting that great shot, it just simply is not fair to the chaser not to get 100% of any earnings from his work. I agree that this is a learning experience for noobs, but I also know that anyone who has been doing this for ANY period of time knows that the chase community has an unwritten code of ethics, one of them being: HANDS OFF ALL VIDEO AND IMAGES. Myself, I don't spend a lot of my energy on trying to get video, but if I happen to get lucky, I would feel the same way; I am happy just being out there and documenting the event for local emergency management and and others for research if needed. You publicly acknowledge your error and I respect you for that.

 

[Gerry Davis]

My own ignorance on the business end. I've learned though this. I'm looking forward to learning more on that end.

 

[Bill Hark]

Another option if you have a website or blog and want to compile videos is to embed your favorite YouTube videos. They could be organized by event, ie "Bill's favorite Pilger tornado videos."

Bill Hark