YouTube and video sampling

[noidea]

I've just signed up for YouTube (finally...) with the intent of starting to post some of the 320+ episodes of the live video art show i've been doing on local cable access since 1998. In addition to all of the original material i've produced and used, there are a certain amount of video samples selected from movies, TV, commericals, news and many other sources that i do not hold copyright to. They have all been heavily processed, cut-up and mixed with other (original) material, and often bear only passing (but usually still recognizable) resemblence to the original materials. I use a lot of keying, so frequently a good part of the image is punched out before it's even mixed in, and then other stuff is layered over and under it.

The agreement that you have to "sign" to get a "Director" account (allowing postings longer than 10 minutes -- the shows are typically 28 min) with YouTube stipulates that you may only use materials that you own or you will have your membership revoked. Editting out the video samples that i've used over the years (especially since, from the beginning of the show, i've been re-folding previous episodes back into the new ones, and in some places the video is often a dozen layers deep, or more) would be a logistical nightmare, or at least force me to be extremely judicious in episode and scene selection if i want to be perfectly scrupulous in avoiding any copyrighted materials. How much of a problem is this? (in principle and in practice...)

Any insights or advice would be appreciated....

The above concern doesn't even touch on my frequent use of copyrighted music, which i was planning on steering clear of from the get go with YouTube, since audio sampling law seems to be pretty explicit on that count....If i did want to include the music, could i pay an ASCAP/BMI fee and just go nuts or is it more complicated, requiring the licensing of each and every bit i use, frequently in a Negativland style mashup? I have plenty of shows featuring original music from local musicians that should be pretty free and clear, but the mash-ups worry me....sigh

Thanks in advance for any help.

Mike

[noidea]

hmmm, on further inspection i've turned up something saying that YouTube does have some kind of ASCAP agreement that allows people to post their karaoke videos, etc., but it isn't clear if that would cover the kind of usage that i've evidently been doing legally on cable access for years now (due to an agreement with Time Warner allowing the use of all ASCAP licensed songs, that i wasn't unaware of until now -- i thought i was just getting away with my song usage due to relative obscurity to date, hence my aversion to putting anything up on the web so far)

....(re)sigh

for youTube & ASCAP see http://www.techliberation.com/archives/040919.php

[sleepytom]

legally you can't post anything you don't own full rights to on the internet.

the question which is interesting is what happens if everyone simply ignors the law?

Youtube is the best example of mass direct action on copyright law the world has seen - although less explicit than projects such as the grey album, the mas market appeal of youtube combined with the income stream from the youtube adverts has enabled the unthinkable to happen - major labels licensing tracks on a prelicenced for use on youtube basis would of been unthinkable even 2 years ago.

So my advice to any illegal sample users is to upload your stuff to youtube and see if it gets taken down or not. chances are that it won't and the more cutup mashup video stuff there is up there the more the licensing issue gets forced to the forefront. The current situation with audio tracks would not ever of happened if there had not been hundreds of thousands of infringements on the youtube site. And the labels have so far rightly chosen to deal with youtube as the infringer not with the individuals who upload to youtube.

so go for your life - upload your illegal samples and see what happens - you'll be contributing to a significant change i the way copyright law is interpreted if not a change in the actual laws which ultimately has to be good for all of us :)

[deepvisual]

legally you can't post anything you don't own full rights to on the internet.

the question which is interesting is what happens if everyone simply ignors the law?

well, what happened with MP3s is that a few people were singled out for some high profile harsh treatment.

admittedly public performance of image and noise copyright content are set up very differently. guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Rovastar]

To be honest and not surprisingly Tom I see the situation differently.

There was no money involved in YouTube before rich Google's takeover offer.

There is now growing pressure when the Google takeover gets signed to remove copyrighted footage. When there is money involved people can and will sue. There was little point before when YouTube had no money soon there will be.

The first to be hit and most likely hit hard is copyrighted music on there. The main reason for this is that effective technology already exists to automatically detect music and the music lobby is strong. I predict many YouTube videos be taken down by this much more so than videos in the early stages, it is just to difficult for a computer to detect copyrighted video content.

You could go with Tom's viva revolution mindset on copyright however if there is a violation on say, music, they may well invalidate your account and the YouTube download stream will be unavailable.

Also with YouTube introducing in the future a share of advertising revenue for the uploaders (we should say content creator but it is uploaders really) then it cause yet more problems as the uploaded work becomes a commercial piece of work. Great to get some money but more lawsuits/legal wranglings and more IMHO questionable moral judgments on using others copyrighted material and passing them off as your own.

That is my take on the practice of it.

About the principle of it I have and probably always will see a problem with people using others copyrighted work without permission but that’s from someone that creates all their own content and probably more importantly for debates like this have seen my/our content misused and abused.
Personally I don't think the copyright laws are strong enough especially concerning new digital formats and computer programs have really poor copyright protection which sadly has led to more people going down the route of patents as there is inadequate protection which will be worse for all. But patents are sadly going to become a fact of life and no doubt will need a patent lawyer in the future.
.....opps entered a little rant there.

[noidea]

okay, but...

there is a standard for audio sampling that up to two seconds is free and clear...is there anything similar for video sampling? i haven't heard about anything like that, probably because it's apples and oranges, in that you can use PART of a video image much more easily than using part of an audio segment (say a certain frequency range or prying a single instrument out of a mix)....not that i've kept under 2 seconds all the time or always vignetted just the parts i wanted out of a video, but knowing what kind of limitations are acceptable fair use would be helpful in deciding what i can put on the web safely....and also FWIW, the use i make is such that the sampled parts are totally dominated by the original content and there is no way the use could be mistaken for the original...if anything, it might fall under the commentary/satire heading, arguably...i began early on using bits of iconic imagery as part of a larger narrative visual vocabulary that conveyed what i was trying to "say" better than any cheap knock-off i could make myself to allude to my intended meaning....i can pull together some examples if need be...

thanks again

mike