Poll: Vid Permissions

[thefourthvine]

Recently, I have been doing some codeine-enhanced pondering of vids - specifically, linking to them or recommending them, and how we do that, and how we get permission to do that. (This was inspired by a discussion with someone, but I won't be mentioning her name unless she indicates that she wants me to.) Because in media fandom, my understanding is that fannish etiquette requires you to ask permission before you link to or recommend a vid. But I could be wrong. I have yet to get my hands on miss_manners161's Guide to Fannish Etiquette. That thing is so damned hard to find.

So, in the absence of a definitive ruling, I thought I'd ask vidders.

There aren't, however, a lot of vidders reading this LJ, I don't think. And I'd like to get responses from as wide a cross-section of the vid-making community as possible. So, if you are a vidder (or, as AMV people put it, editor) - or if you aren't, but a lot of vidders read your LJ, or if you have the password to the Secret Clubhouse where all the cool vidkids hang out - could you please link to or pimp this? Great would be my joy and appreciation.

Obviously, only those with LJ accounts can take this poll, but anyone can comment anonymously. (Or, heck, email me if you like - thefourthvine at livejournal dot com will find me.)

And, just to repeat: this poll is for those who have vidded only. There will be a poll for non-vidders, though, coming soon.

[Poll #796561]

Comments

[svmadelyn.livejournal.com]

Oooh. Hive mind of fandom! How I love that you did this; please post the answers to the final question there. I'm all fresh from vividcon and expanding my vid recs quite a bit, so I'm interested in the answers you have going on here. *g*

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

*bounces*

And so many people have said that it's okay! I was expecting a much smaller positive response on that last question.

I'm trying to decide if it's best to post the list of permission-granted vidders in a separate follow-up post or not. I'm thinking it probably is, just 'cause it'll get lost amongst all that. *waves hand up at Poll of Unusual Size*

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

For my own thoughts on permission, I really fall between "Permission isn't necessary, but I would rather people asked" and "Permission isn't necessary and I would prefer it if people did not ask." The perfect answer for me would be "Permission isn't necessary, and I don't really care one way or the other if people ask." As long as they're not hotlinking, claiming my work as their own, etc, of course.

Interesting poll!

[lim.livejournal.com]

"Permission isn't necessary, and I don't really care one way or the other if people ask."

::ticks this box::

[cetpar.livejournal.com]

Great poll. I'm not a vidder so I'm not taking the poll, but I had no idea that some people might consider reccing or otherwise pointing people to a vid without asking permission first as rude. (As opposed to hotlinking or uploading a vid somewhere else--I know that's a no-no.)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

See, now, I was always told that linking or recommending or even mentioning without permission was a major no-no in the vid world. But it seems like about half of the vidders are not even aware of this rule. Which is, well, interesting.

I plan to commit meta on recommending and linking to vids very soon, based on this poll. The results are nothing like I was expecting.

[ficbyzee.livejournal.com]

Ditto to what Madelyn said--please do share the final results of this and your thoughts on it! And just FYI, the only mailing list I post to is the Yahoo vidding group. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vidder/)

[ficbyzee.livejournal.com]

Oh, and to clarify--what Destina said below, if it's a password protected site I always link to the site to get the password, not the direct link. I've been told that direct linking to the vid, period, is pretty rude.

[destina.livejournal.com]

My view is this: if I make a public post, or a public announcement, it's fair game for reccing or linking or discussion or whatever. It'd be ridiculous of me to think otherwise. However, my main vid site is password protected, so I'd consider it extremely bad manners for anyone reccing a particular vid on that site to attempt to link directly to the vid; a link to the site's main page (where passwords can be obtained) is the polite alternative.

If I make an announcement with a request that recs be linked to a particular post, etc, that's what I'd prefer to see happen. That's usually because I'm temporarily hosting a vid on my personal site, and I don't want direct download links cropping up; the vids are there short-term only.

I do try to be clear about these things, because of the very concerns you're asking about. :)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

... Am I allowed to ask what the, um, thing in your icon is? Because it looks like a big red sock with a butt on top. But I'm pretty sure it can't be.

if I make a public post, or a public announcement, it's fair game for reccing or linking or discussion or whatever.

To my astonishment - and in direct contradiction of all the information I could find when I started recommending vids - nearly everyone agrees with you on this. I think this may be the influence of LJ culture, here, which is probably affecting vidders much more now than it was even two years ago.

I do try to be clear about these things, because of the very concerns you're asking about.

And - trust me on this - recommenders love you for it. Or, okay, I do, anyway. I can't speak for all vid recommenders. We don't have a union or anything. (But if we did, clarity in terms of linking requirements would be very high on our wishlist, I think.)

[zeromuchjenn.livejournal.com]

I own Fanvid-Recs.com which is a site that anyone can rec vids that they think are excellent. When I get a rec to someone who hasn't had a vid listed, I try to find an email for the vidder and ask permission. Sometimes an email address can't be found, so I ask via tagboard or LJ. So far, I haven't had anyone deny the listing and I can't imagine someone saying, "No, don't tell anyone how great I am," but if anyone wanted the rec removed, I'd do it.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I own Fanvid-Recs.com which is a site that anyone can rec vids that they think are excellent.

*blinks*

I am so checking out that site when I'm finished with these comments. I've been looking for a site like that for years.

So far, I haven't had anyone deny the listing and I can't imagine someone saying, "No, don't tell anyone how great I am," but if anyone wanted the rec removed, I'd do it.

That's been my experience with recommending vids and sending off individual permission emails - I only ever get two types of responses: "Yes, please do," and silence. (I tend to assume silence means the vidder didn't get the email. I suppose it could just be a very passive way of saying no, though.) And 95% of vidders go with "yes, please do."

[justacat.livejournal.com]

There is a LJ comm called vidding where many vidders hang out; that might be a good place to announce this poll! Or even the vividcon lj, perhaps ...

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

vidding would happily accept a link to the poll :)

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

I'm on the cusp of 5/6 years, so I went with 5 just to be safe.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Well, I wasn't going to carbon date your first vid or anything, but accuracy is always good.

(And, hey, as long as I have you here, I want to tell you that "Shape of My Heart" is a vid very close to my heart - one of the very first AMVs I saw, and directly responsible a) for my many forays into AMVLand since then and b) me having my Best Beloved watch YnM.)

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

I've had two people recently email me as one of the maintainers of Buffyvids.com, asking to have their vid links removed because of alleged MySpace sites linking to the BMVD and encouraging people who need clips to go there and shop for them. I have asked for links to these MySpace sites but no one has provided them. Interestingly, the vidders haven't taken their vids offline nor have they applied password protection or any of the other things that you would think would make a difference - just asked to have their vid links deleted from the database. Your poll brought it back to my mind.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I saw someone mention that, but it may even have been you.

It sounds, what with the lack of actual links to said sites, more like a fandom legend. I mean, MySpace-related stealing is not all that unlikely, but from what I've seen, people are much more likely to upload the whole vid and claim it as their own or hotlink to someone else's vid from their MySpace. Stealing clips is, like, several steps up the technological competence chain from where MySpace thieves seem to be.

Thanks so much for this poll.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I have my vid site password protected. It's also got a no robots file attached to it (yet somehow it still surfaces on Google, sigh). I try to keep links to it down to a minimum. I require viewers to send me a permission statement saying they won't link to, archive, or distribute my vids without permission. The reasons for this are:

1) to protect me from TPTB, especially the RIAA, whom I fear
2) to protect me from excessive bandwidth drains which can become expensive
3) to protect me from plagiarism and/or other people trying to take credit for my work

I used to have my vids up without a password, and then some ass burned my Firefly vid and a bunch of other people's Firefly vids to a CD and handed it to Nathan Fillion at some kind of fan lunch.

Many people don't get why this is a bad idea, to which I can only reply: I am breaking the law. Please don't get my ass sued.

Anyway, I find it totally acceptable for people to link to my LJ announcement or to my LJ vids tag page. I prefer that people don't link to my vid site itself. I state this preference in every vid announcement.

When linking to other vidders' sites, I assume that a) if they have not said otherwise, and b) I have seen them freely publishing links to their vid site in various communities, they have no problem with me linking to their vid site. I'm willing to be wrong about that, though.

Re: Thanks so much for this poll.

[aj2k.livejournal.com]

I really don't think what we're doing is breaking the law. It's not like we're putting these videos on DVD and trying to sell them for a profit...at least I hope some people aren't lol. I figure as long as we're not profiting from this hobby or putting that fandom in a bad light then it's far fetched to consider it an illegal practice. I've had my site up forever with various fandoms and I've received nothing but praise from it (even from celebrities).

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

If the announcement is public, then I do not see why one should not link to it unless the vidder asks otherwise (whether to link to their site, or not to link, or whatever), in which case, do what the vidder says.

I certainly don't require permission to link to my vidsite or any vid announcements, but I don't mind getting queries, because then I know that someone is looking at the vid. :-) (And is courteously--unnecessarily, and perhaps overly so, but courteously nonetheless--asking me.)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

If the announcement is public, then I do not see why one should not link to it unless the vidder asks otherwise (whether to link to their site, or not to link, or whatever), in which case, do what the vidder says.

This is a very succinct (certainly much more succinct than I could ever be) summary of precisely what I've learned from this poll.

It's an amazing revelation to me. Everything I was told was totally wrong is turning out to be, in fact, not wrong at all.

I don't mind getting queries, because then I know that someone is looking at the vid.

A lot of people have said that they track back URL referrals for the sort of secondhand feedback - like, to see if people are discussing the vid over at the referring URL. From this, I conclude that vidders mostly don't know if their vids are watched or discussed. And so, on the one hand, permissions would fix this - but, on the other, permissions will also reduce the total quantity of watching and discussion. Seems like most vidders would rather have the discussion without the permission request than not have the discussion at all.

[foxestacado.livejournal.com]

I think this is really the least of my worries. I'm more pissed off about people:

1) Uploading to Youtube without permission
2) Taking clips (which is ABSOLUTELY NOT ALLOWED in my book) for use in their own music videos.

But thank you for the poll. I never realized permission was important. I personally rec videos by hosting them on my own site.

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

I am somewhat straddling the fence - when people access my password protected site, I ask that they not upload my vids to youtube, sell them for crack or post/rec them in a media owned non-fannish forum.

Other than that they need no permission if they want to rec it in their LJ, on a closed mailing list or a fannish forum.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I am somewhat straddling the fence - when people access my password protected site, I ask that they not upload my vids to youtube, sell them for crack or post/rec them in a media owned non-fannish forum.

I don't count that as straddling the fence, because all of those things are absolutely against the rules, along with hotlinking and clip theft and so on. (Unfortunately, some people still do them, but those people are clearly in the wrong. Also, I sincerely hope, very, very young, and thus likely to outgrow it soon.)

Other than that they need no permission if they want to rec it in their LJ, on a closed mailing list or a fannish forum.

*thoughtful*

So does that mean I don't need to ask for specific permission from you to rec your vids here, linking only to the LJ post (where available) or the site entry page (when there is no LJ post)? You can of course say no, that I should still get specific permission each time; I'm just asking for clarification purposes.

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

I started making vids for the same reason I started writing fic: to tell a story. I share them because I want people to feel the same love for whatever show it is that I feel for that show. What's the point in posting a vid in order to share it and then, well, not sharing it? I don't want people to claim my hard work as their own, but I don't mind if they want to share my vids with yet more people. The more the merrier. Permission shows a certain amount of respect or courtesy, so it's a nice thing to be asked for, but I guess it isn't necessary. For me, the fact that I posted the vid in a public forum pretty much gives people permission to watch and to share.

I understand, though, why others don't necessarily feel the way I do, but then I'm also a newbie with that new vidder smell, having only been doing this for about 8 or 9 months. No one has lifted any of my clips, to my knowledge, nor would they have any reason to. ;)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I understand, though, why others don't necessarily feel the way I do, but then I'm also a newbie with that new vidder smell, having only been doing this for about 8 or 9 months.

Wow. I thought you'd been vidding a lot longer than that.

And, actually, people do seem to feel the way you do - mostly, even people who still want specific permission requests want to share their vids; they're just afraid of a) TPTB b) fan stupidity or c) outright wrong behavior. (Hotlinking, for example. It is 2006. At this point, no one anywhere should need to be told that hotlinking is wrong. And yet somehow people still do it.)

[iseult-variante.livejournal.com]

I am still a feral vidder, and so can't fill out the poll, but I'd be interested to read any sort of summary you get out of this. Very interesting issues/questions, many of which I hadn't given much if any thought to!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I am indeed planning on doing a summary, because the results to this were just not at all what I was expecting. And they were surprising in a good way, so I want to share that surprise.

(And I'm looking forward to seeing your first vid. Or first vid released into the wild. You know what I mean.)

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

I post in my lj. If I post in other communities, I link back to that post. I ask people to rec at will but to link to that post rather than directly to the vid link.

This is because I sometimes move my vids, or put up new versions, and I want editing that one post to take care of everything.

So I'm not going to become RABID if someone ignores that, but I'm sort of irked, because they're going to end up with a dead link, and they really didn't need to.

I don't as a rule do vid recs, because I don't as a rule do recs, because I'm lazy and unopinionated.

I do announce/rec vids by damned_colonal and black_hound, because we all know each other, vid bitch for each other, host on the same page.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I post in my lj. If I post in other communities, I link back to that post. I ask people to rec at will but to link to that post rather than directly to the vid link.

This does not seem challenging or arcane. I'm pleased! Recommending live-action vids is apparently supposed to be much easier than I've been making it.

Come to think of it, "making things harder than they have to be" is something of a theme in my life.

I don't as a rule do vid recs, because I don't as a rule do recs, because I'm lazy and unopinionated.

If you don't do recs, it's probably because you're sane. (At least in that respect. No overall warranty is expressed or implied, you understand.) The Urge to Rec is like the urge to convert people to a religion involving flower petals and gold limos and group sex and a savior named Ralph - it's just one of those things that happens to you. You do it because you cannot not do it.

Sometimes you're even born that way. I think I was. I swear I learned to talk pretty much entirely so I could convince people to read the things I liked. Back then, it was all "Richard Scary" this and "Richard Scary" that, whereas now it's more with the porn, but the basic underlying urge is the same.

[barkley.livejournal.com]

I want people to link, link, and link away in fannish spaces that aren't googleable. (That's why I have the password protect up in the first place. The robots.txt file doesn't quite work since other spots of my site show up in google. So I password protect to keep out of searches and to prevent lazy direct linkers. I don't like direct links because if it's directly linked in a spot that comes up alot on reload, it will eat up bandwidth.

I don't mind if they ask because then I know and I like to know when people are talking about me. But I link to stories all the time without talking to people and having that as a requirement would deter people, so I'd rather they link to an announcement than to feel they have to ask.

The only time I'd ask is if I'd be linking to something that will bring a big bandwidth drain to someone I know doesn't have a lot to spare. (So far, this doesn't seem to be an issue for me as I've only gone as high as 29 GB in a month, and my limit keeps increasing and is now at 500 GB.)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

So I password protect to keep out of searches and to prevent lazy direct linkers.

I have always wondered why you password protect, given that your password is possibly the easiest to suss out in the entire history of passwords (I didn't ever email you for the password, because I knew it off the top of my head from the hint on the entry page) and is often given right next to the link. And now I know. Mystery of the faniverse solved!

In retrospect, I suppose I should've just asked. Would've been easier. (Yet more proof that making things harder than they have to be is pretty much my SOP.)

So far, this doesn't seem to be an issue for me as I've only gone as high as 29 GB in a month, and my limit keeps increasing and is now at 500 GB.

*stares*

As bandwidth limits go, that one is downright sexy. I am impressed.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine asking for permission to rec a vid, I just can't. I get little fb and very few recs, and I sometimes fantasize about getting a sockpuppet account just to rec my own vids because recs are the only way on earth to get traffic, I swear. So to put yet another obstacle, when I already have the password that many people consider an unconquerable obstacle, would just be sharing suicide. All I ask is that people link to the main page so they can, you know, see that there's an email link for the PW. Otherwise it confuses people. I think I'm just too old a vidder (11 years now, sigh) to be sanguine about the clip theft issue, but fear of the RIAA is far greater for me.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I get little fb and very few recs, and I sometimes fantasize about getting a sockpuppet account just to rec my own vids because recs are the only way on earth to get traffic, I swear.

Whereas I am not actually sure if vid recs accomplish that much. I know that the kind of viral marketing campaign that spontaneously happens with a few vids - "Oh my god you must see this" spreading all over my friends list over the course of 48 hours - has a major effect. But I don't know if just one rec does much. My hope is always to get one person to download the vid and watch it. If I've done that, I'm happy.

(My goal is basically the same with fan fiction, too. Yes, I firmly believe that everyone in the world should read what I love, but I'm entirely happy if one person does, especially if she wouldn't have otherwise.)

I think I'm just too old a vidder (11 years now, sigh) to be sanguine about the clip theft issue, but fear of the RIAA is far greater for me.

Eleven years doing one thing - and doing it so well - is something to be proud of.

And fearing the RIAA is basic common sense. As I said to laura_shapiro - the RIAA is the Dark Lord Sauron. It seeks to rule all the earth in a third age of flame and darkness. Only it uses lawyers instead of orcs, though sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

(Clip theft - I don't know what can be done about it, but I am quite sure it's wrong. I am sad when people quote sentences I've written without any attribution or even an indication that someone else wrote them. It's the same with clips. Plus - you can't really write your own work if you're using someone else's sentences. How can you vid to your own vision if you're using someone else's clips?)

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I am so new as a vidder (and I vid with glacial slowness) that I am currently *becoming* a vidder - that is, I am making but have not finished by first vid. So I couldn't really take the poll. Having said that, the more people who see it when I'm done the happier I would be, and if someone wanted to rec then I would be gleeful. I'd like to know about recs for the ego boost, rather than any other consideration.
My sister and I are seriously considering webspace together; if we didn't do that I'd host it on YSI or Sendspace or similar, possibly with several different site options so people can choose the one they like to dl from.
This is an issue I am interested in, so I'll be watching the results to see what people think. I am planning some vid reccing of my own, and would like to know what people think.

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

Reading other people's comments, I should clarify that I wouldn't want links in non-fannish place; however I couldn't see that being very likely.

[jadeleopard.livejournal.com]

It never occured to me to ask permission before. I always link to the vidders main site/vid entry so that anyone following the link would be able to see who specifically made the vid and any info that the vidder wants people to know.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Apparently, I've been over-thinking this to no small degree. (Although I had reason! I swear!) Linking to the LJ entry or the site entry page is perfectly fine with nearly everyone, and the people who aren't okay with it will say so in their posts.

I am so, so happy to know this, you can't even imagine, just thinking of all the recommending I can do now. No vid will be safe from my pimpage.

*plots*

[aj2k.livejournal.com]

As far as the topic at hand goes if I ever attempted to hot-link a vid (which I'll never do) I would certainly ask permission first. I know how it is with bandwidth issues because I pay for my own and have had many run-ins with hot-linkers.

One thing I have done is linked to other vidder's sites without permission. I figure no one would want to turn down extra exposure to their site but perhaps I could be wrong in that respect...especially if that vidder is low on bandwidth and possibly can't handle the extra exposure. So now I guess I'll start asking before linking to sites lol.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Hotlinking is definitely - okay, I was going to say "a hot-button issue," but I have too much self-respect. Hotlinking is just basically not on.

I think if bandwidth is an issue for other vidders, they'll manage it by hand - like, by limiting where and when they announce a vid, or using an alternate host for part of the month.

[lapillus]

I figure if the announcement is posted in a public forum (board, open personal or community lj or if it's hosted on in a community like AMV or a site like YouTube or Google video by the vidder, highly public commercial cons like creation cons) it's fair to rec it without any communication to the vidder. If it's posted in a semipublic space (closed lj community, most email lists, most cons) it's prudent to ask if posting more widely. If it's posted in a private space (private list, flocked post, highly private email community, chat)then you must ask.

Personally I have no problems with folks reccing things on Triptychvids.com or linking to the front page (liking further in won't do you any good anyway and just annoys me and anyone trying to follow said links).

[lapillus]

Oh and it's nice to be notified (or asked permission of - I have no problems with people erring on the side of politeness). Not for permission reasons but because it's encouraging :)

[so8lue.livejournal.com]

I was a vid-viewer for roughly 3 years before I became a vidder (am major newbie: 5 vids in two months). Within that time I have developed certain guidelines for myself to follow. I always save the link to my computer before viewing (unless they stream). I ask for passwords when stipulated. I leave comments/feedback. I DO NOT take/upload vids without consent from vidder. NO CLIP THEFT. Vidders have spent personal time finding the right song, searching for the right clips, fleshing out ideas and putting it all together. It would be courteous if someone decides to rec a vid to get a hold of the vidder to ask if it's okay: because sometimes someone may not like it. And sometimes someone may see it as a complement. It's just better to cover all bases.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

*thoughtful*

I am only a vid watcher; the closest I've ever come to vidding is buying a vid in a charity auction. And my take on it has been, overall, similar to yours: don't be fannishly stupid or bad (don't hotlink, don't steal clips, don't steal vids, don't hand it to someone involved with the source or the music) and ask before you link. But I think, on the whole, that I won't be asking before I link to vid announcements in the future, although of course I will for anyone who asks otherwise in the vid announcement (specific requests trump general rules), because the overall consensus from the vidders seems to be: I would rather have more recs or links than fewer recs or links with permission beforehand.

And, well, that makes sense to me. I agree that asking beforehand is probably more courteous, and most people definitely do take it as a compliment. But since I know for sure I'll rec more live-action vids if I don't have to take the, for me, ultra-alarming step of emailing the vidders, I will change my policy from permission-always-mandatory to permission-only-necessary-if-specified-in-the-post.

[apatheia-jane.livejournal.com]

I made my first vid last week, so I gave a little squee at being able to check the "I am a vidder" box. Posted in my journal for curious friends & in atlantis_vids, which is monitored by sga_newsletter, with an offer to reupload if someone sees the vid announcement after the YSI link has expired.

If someone announces their vids, it's public and fair game. I rec vid announcements or vids hosted on personal websites if there is no password and if they haven't posted rules telling me not to. I haven't yet met the vid good enough to make me rec it if I have to bother with asking permission first, or telling others that they'll have to ask for a password. If it's not freely available, I just don't rec.

One thing I do that I'm not sure if i should be doing is I collect vids. I save the ones I like, make discs and use them as tools to encourage non-fannish people to be fannish, or people not in a particular fandom to watch that fandom. Lierduoma's "Pretty when you cry" is an invaluable tool in getting people to watch & adore Oz, if they're not sold on "it's a testosterone soapie set in a prison. drugs! rape! violence! hard-hitting commentary on human nature! Chris Meloni!" I know other people who make discs without permission as well, I know one person who donated them as a prize in a uni fanclub quiz night.

My fannish etiquette - I wouldn't ever hotlink, steal clips, claim as my own, distribute a password, reupload, mass-produce hard copies (although I don't plan on dobbing on the girl who did).

I do watch, save, squee, tell people where I found it, show them off my laptop, let them borrow backup copies. I show them to friends all the time, and because they didn't download it themselves, those people usually feel less obliged to offer feedback, which is a shame. I showed vids to a workshop at a student queer conference once, where I held a workshop about queer theory and fandom, as a demonstration of subverting the original source to visually demonstrate a particular reading, or to create a new queer text in AU vids. I said they weren't mine and that they were obtained via download, and that if anyone wanted to know more about how & where to obtain these & similar they could come see me after, or email me. I was cool with that because it was a mass-viewing for educational purposes, and I did make it easy to find out where to contact the vidder/editor/creator if any of the audience were feeling appreciative or curious.

Once, a person who borrowed discs took some of the vids and added them to the media stream at a sci-fi con. That I was a little uncomfortable with, but didn't stop him. People bought fairly expensive con tickets to participate, as well as to be entertained, and while the con isn't allowed to make a profit, I know they just rebudget & buy more things. the 24hr mediastream was a room where movies, tv eps and vids were shown continuously, while the guy who put it together was not always available for comment. There was a program guide which had half hour slots, so it had movie & tv eps credited so people knew what they were seeing, with half hour blocks of "various vids" in between. If the vid had a credits page on the vid itself, people could write down who it was by & where to contact them if they wanted to, otherwise, they weren't credited. The programmer had spent most of the previous sleep-deprived weeks scrambling together enough media to pad out the whole 4 days, and he was at the point where he wouldn't be able to tell you where he parked his car, let alone where he got 3 minutes out of a total 5000+. I thought of it as bad etiquette, but not really harming anyone.

If people reading comments feel like this is horrendous, say so & I won't help resupply him for next year.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Obviously, I Am Not a Vidder. But my take on this is -

Using the vids to pimp fans into fandom is pretty normal. Showing friends from your laptop, etc. - I think most people do that ("You say it's not your thing, my friend, but this vid will convince you otherwise! Behold the power of the kissing scene!"). And that's part of the reason people make vids, to get people to see the inherent coolness of the fandom. (Although, amusingly, "Pretty When You Cry" was made much more out of love for the song than the source. And yet, you're right, it's the best Oz pimp vid in the world.)

Distributing vids you haven't made is, as you've noted, not acceptable. Only the vidders get to distribute their vids, and I think the average vidder would be unhappy to be included on the burned-as-prize set. (This is particularly true of anime vids; people sometimes do sell AMVs and AMV compilations without permission of any kind.) But, hey, you didn't do it, and you surely cannot control the behavior of others, so - what can you do?

The two things that you mention that I would consider permission-required activities are:

a) Showing them to the class, because that's taking it outside the fannish sphere, and even in an educational setting, most vidders would want to know about that and have a chance to say "no" in advance; I do think you'd have gotten permission really easily, though.

b) Loaning them to the con-guy. That's really taking it outside the fannish sphere - it's not too likely that anyone directly affiliated with the source or the song would find the vid on the mediastream, but all it would take in that situation is one overzealous, stupid, or pissed off person and the damage is done. The one thing virtually all vidders want to avoid is their creations getting back to the hands of people involved with the source (or, god forbid, the song - the RIAA is crazed), and outside our corner of fandom, people don't always get that. So, yeah, in the future I'd definitely not help that guy without asking the vidders first. And I don't know how easy it would be to get permission in that case; it'd be interesting to see what vidders thought.

But, well, these are just the opinions of someone who is not a vidder. And people are avoiding chatting in these comments, I think, 'cause of a bit of a kerfluffle up the way, so you might not get any opinions from actual vidders here.

[charmax.livejournal.com]

I don't rec vids that often, I just don't. But when I have, it's never occurred to me to ask the vidder permission first. (Unless it's something that they request) I always link to the original post/site and I don't have a problem with people doing the same with my vids. What really annoys me is hotlinking to a specific file. Linking to the page is good!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. Hotlinking is very, very wrong. (I'm consistently stunned that there are people who still do it, in this day and age, but - well, another there's another idiot born every second, I guess.) And, yeah, linking to the LJ post or vid site seems to be just fine unless people say otherwise. I am surprised but delighted to learn this, because for recommending purposes, that makes things so much easier.

*enthused*