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

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Wow. I just checked out your site, and you make X-Files vids that are larger than 10 MB! I am very, very happy about this, because I'm a total source quality queen (I am not a natural vid-watcher by any means, and I have a hard enough time figuring out what's going on when the source is clear; throw in just a little extra confusion in the form of fuzz or whatever, and my head explodes), and a lot of the XF vids I download were made with VCRS, or back when people only had dialup, so they're teeny. Doesn't stop me from loving them, necessarily, but it does make me long for higher quality downloads of them.

But, yeah. Most people do seem to be more worried about things like being hotlinked from a MySpace site or uploaded to YouTube against their will (and, wow, that happens a lot) or having their clips stolen. (Or, in special cases, having the vid stolen in its entirety - same vid, different credits.)

I never realized permission was important.

Apparently, at least when it comes to linking to vids or recommending them, it really isn't. This is not what I was taught when I was a wee fannish pup, but I am very happy to be wrong.

[foxestacado.livejournal.com]

If you're interested, my video rec site has all of my favorite videos (http://keyofx.cheesejoose.com/videos.html), and some of the best in the fandom are in this list.

I've actually never really seen any of the really, really old music videos (made with VCRs and such), because I'm fairly new to all of this. Even though quality is immensely important to me...it's really backfiring because it increases the chances expontentially that my clips will be stolen.

Hotlinking is my other worry. I don't know how to stop hotlinking. For now, it seems okay because my site's bandwidth seems to be doing alright. But if it skyrockets again, I may have to close my site while I search out the perpetrators. Being uploaded to Youtube...I hate that, but then again, as long as they credit, it's not THAT bad...not AS bad as having clips stolen and hotlinked. Just yesterday I was at youtube, and I found this video that was half created using entire sequences lifted out of my videos. But what can I do? I created a Youtube account, and started messaging the person. Who hasn't responded. I don't know what else to do.



Apparently, at least when it comes to linking to vids or recommending them, it really isn't. This is not what I was taught when I was a wee fannish pup, but I am very happy to be wrong.
Based on this poll, I may have to change how I rec videos on my site. I generally don't ask for permission because 1) the artists shared them publically anyways, and 2) I'm uploading them to my own server. So all the traffic is going to deplete MY bandwidth, not theirs.

[brownbetty]

One solution to hotlinking I've seen used, and that seems to work, is zipping the source files. That way, one can't stream the video.

IANAV, though, so perhaps there's a problem with this that I don't see.

[foxestacado.livejournal.com]

Oh I do do that now. I ended up zipping dozens of video files, and it's worked so far :)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Hotlinking is my other worry. I don't know how to stop hotlinking.

If I were you, I'd consider asking people on the vidding community how they stop hotlinking; I know several of them have creative solutions (but I don't know the details of the creative solutions, since it's not an issue for me). Zipping (which I notice you already do) is a good stopgap measure, though.

I don't know what else to do.

Sadly, I haven't heard of any creative solutions to this. Which sucks. Have you considered watermarking your vids? That will make people want the clips a lot less, because a vid with a bunch of different watermarks looks terrible. And most watermarks don't have much of an effect on the quality of the viewing experience, so you'd only be bugging the people who want to steal from you. And once you have your personal mark, it's probably pretty easy to mark your vids.

Based on this poll, I may have to change how I rec videos on my site.

At least for the people who are still available, it might be a good idea to either switch to linking to them or ask permission to host them. It's such a nifty service, though - you're almost running an X-Files version of Farscape Fantasy or similar - and I bet a lot of people would be happy to be hosted if asked.