There's a hole in that analogy. While a link and an embed both let the user arrive at the content referred to, the link forces viewers to visit the referred page; the embed instantiates content on your page (even though the underlying file is the same one on youtube's servers). By embedding, we make ourselves additional, virtual venues for copyrighted content.
There's room to make definition-of-degree legal distinctions between links and embeds when it comes to copyright infringement (albeit some kind of second-hand infringement.)
andrewbaron
· 1 year ago
What about Google cache? They store a copy on their servers and use that to generate money. They embed videos and images right there on the Google site, copyrighted or no.
If you don't want them to, you can tell them to stop with a robot file. But the point is, you have to tell them to stop because otherwise, its fair game since you put it out there.
Gary
· 1 year ago
What's your view on sites such as Mefeedia that embed videos and serve up Google Adsense ads alongside, regardless of what licence the video was released under (standard copyright, Creative Commons no commercial use)?
Is it right that a site that has contributed nothing to that video -- neither making it, nor paying the hosting costs for the file -- should, through bulk of content 'lifted', become the number one destination for viewing that file and therefore make the most income from it?
andrewbaron
· 1 year ago
I think they have a valuable *intent* and they will honor removing feeds from copyright owners, because they possibly misuse the system.
Others *game* the system and that's their intent and they do not honnor take-down requests.
Podshow is one such company that is gaming podcasters. They suck up all the feeds, serve ads, and even go as far as making it seem like the podcasts are partners, but the main problem is that they will not remove the content when requested.
Gary
· 1 year ago
The difference with Google cache is that it presents our pages with our Adsense ads on them. Also it isn't presented as a destination in its own right in the way Mefeedia is.
Mefeedia lifts all the text from the RSS feed and republishes it with hotlinked and embedded video files. It creates completely new pages from our content (I don't have ads in the RSS feed but I bet they mysteriously don't make it onto Mefeedia). We all know the way filesharing sites hide away the links back to the originating site and some don't provide links back at all. The amount of type in traffic from those links is tiny.
My experience with Mefeedia is that I emailed them a couple of months ago and received no reply. Eventually I issued a DMCA and they were not very co-operative. They removed the embedded videos but left up all the titles and tags -- an obvious attempt to keep on depriving us of Google traffic on the same data.
Last week I discovered that they had reinstated all those embedded file that were on blip.tv and YouTube. Also they were displaying one of our videos embedded from blip.tv and showing a 'creative commons' licence underneath it. When none of our videos have every been released with a creative commons licence.
They told us that if we wanted them to stop displaying videos that we had hosted on blip.tv and YouTube, we would have to remove our videos from those services.
Now remember, Mefeedia is a company that is profiting by serving up ads alongside our videos. So now the solution to theft is supposedly not to make your work or product available at all because Mefeedia can't help itself from stealing.
The very least Mefeedia could do under the cuircumstances is take down our content when requested. But no, by the start of this week they were still playing games, asking for lists of files, when we had already given them that info. So we went to Google Adsense with a complaint and lo-and-behold the files were delinked within hours. So that's a tip for what works.
All the titles, descriptions and thumbnails are still up, even though they have been changed on YouTube and blip.tv. Mefeedia says it doesn't store content but recently had the full text of one entry that we removed from the site in 2006.
I don't think this is an honest company.
andrewbaron
· 1 year ago
I agree with you that Meefedia should be more cooperative in taking down your content. However, I still think this is the same as Google interms of display rights. Have a look at this link: http://tinyurl.com/5fsb9m
Here, on Google, you can play our videos and even videos from other hosting sites that serve our videos and its a complete user experience, on Google, which requires no need to ever visit our site.
Gary
· 1 year ago
I take your point, though there are no ads on that Google Video page.
Really the issue is that ads embedded in the video are not working well so far and everyone is pinning their hopes on that changing. If it doesn't then there is no longterm revenue stream for those people who distribute in this way.
Shooting your content out to numerous other sites, all of which then have the same titles, tags and description, is damaging for the health of your own website as it ceases to be a destination.
I know we can argue about how the future is not individual websites being destinations. But the fact is that Google Adsense on a page is currently a great revenue stream. The fact is that I have made more from Google Adsense ads next to videos embedded on my own website in one day, that I have from ads within the video served from on blip.tv.
No disrespect to blip.tv, because I think they are a great company and one of my favourites.
Gary
· 1 year ago
Sorry, that should read: I have made more from Google Adsense ads next to videos embedded on my own website in one day, than I have in a year from ads within the same videos served from blip.tv.
Gary
· 1 year ago
I'll just add that we are happy for our videos to be embedded for none profit/non-commercial purposes and it's extremely sad to have to restrict embedding from YouTube. Unfortunately almost nobody respects the licence we have chosen to give.
Last year I was involved in running a non-profit arts and community event and we put up some of the content from that on blip.tv and YouTube. No one who was involved in appearing or running that event was paid or profited.
But guess who is profiting from everyone's hard work? Yes Mefeedia, a company that isn't even in the same country, because it is serving up those videos alongside Adsense too.
All Comments
There's room to make definition-of-degree legal distinctions between links and embeds when it comes to copyright infringement (albeit some kind of second-hand infringement.)
If you don't want them to, you can tell them to stop with a robot file. But the point is, you have to tell them to stop because otherwise, its fair game since you put it out there.
Is it right that a site that has contributed nothing to that video -- neither making it, nor paying the hosting costs for the file -- should, through bulk of content 'lifted', become the number one destination for viewing that file and therefore make the most income from it?
Others *game* the system and that's their intent and they do not honnor take-down requests.
Podshow is one such company that is gaming podcasters. They suck up all the feeds, serve ads, and even go as far as making it seem like the podcasts are partners, but the main problem is that they will not remove the content when requested.
Mefeedia lifts all the text from the RSS feed and republishes it with hotlinked and embedded video files. It creates completely new pages from our content (I don't have ads in the RSS feed but I bet they mysteriously don't make it onto Mefeedia). We all know the way filesharing sites hide away the links back to the originating site and some don't provide links back at all. The amount of type in traffic from those links is tiny.
My experience with Mefeedia is that I emailed them a couple of months ago and received no reply. Eventually I issued a DMCA and they were not very co-operative. They removed the embedded videos but left up all the titles and tags -- an obvious attempt to keep on depriving us of Google traffic on the same data.
Last week I discovered that they had reinstated all those embedded file that were on blip.tv and YouTube. Also they were displaying one of our videos embedded from blip.tv and showing a 'creative commons' licence underneath it. When none of our videos have every been released with a creative commons licence.
They told us that if we wanted them to stop displaying videos that we had hosted on blip.tv and YouTube, we would have to remove our videos from those services.
Now remember, Mefeedia is a company that is profiting by serving up ads alongside our videos. So now the solution to theft is supposedly not to make your work or product available at all because Mefeedia can't help itself from stealing.
The very least Mefeedia could do under the cuircumstances is take down our content when requested. But no, by the start of this week they were still playing games, asking for lists of files, when we had already given them that info. So we went to Google Adsense with a complaint and lo-and-behold the files were delinked within hours. So that's a tip for what works.
All the titles, descriptions and thumbnails are still up, even though they have been changed on YouTube and blip.tv. Mefeedia says it doesn't store content but recently had the full text of one entry that we removed from the site in 2006.
I don't think this is an honest company.
http://tinyurl.com/5fsb9m
Here, on Google, you can play our videos and even videos from other hosting sites that serve our videos and its a complete user experience, on Google, which requires no need to ever visit our site.
Really the issue is that ads embedded in the video are not working well so far and everyone is pinning their hopes on that changing. If it doesn't then there is no longterm revenue stream for those people who distribute in this way.
Shooting your content out to numerous other sites, all of which then have the same titles, tags and description, is damaging for the health of your own website as it ceases to be a destination.
I know we can argue about how the future is not individual websites being destinations. But the fact is that Google Adsense on a page is currently a great revenue stream. The fact is that I have made more from Google Adsense ads next to videos embedded on my own website in one day, that I have from ads within the video served from on blip.tv.
No disrespect to blip.tv, because I think they are a great company and one of my favourites.
Last year I was involved in running a non-profit arts and community event and we put up some of the content from that on blip.tv and YouTube. No one who was involved in appearing or running that event was paid or profited.
But guess who is profiting from everyone's hard work? Yes Mefeedia, a company that isn't even in the same country, because it is serving up those videos alongside Adsense too.